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Many in today's market are turning to internet businesses as a way to make money without the overhead of a brick-and-mortar store. After all, an internet-based business grows our market place to a global one–the internet has a global presence and our customers can come from all over the world. Regardless of the economic climate, the more customers the better. And you can get started for less than $5,000.
What can you do with less than $5,000 to make a great web-based business? First, don't skimp on design. Work with a great designer who understands user experience. You should interview several web designers who are local to you so you can sit down and explain your vision to them. Logos are less important than usability– how usable customers find your web site.
Author: golf Page 9 of 22
Today, I am starting a new chapter in my entrepreneurial story. It is with both a bit of sadness and a lot of excitement that I share with you the news that I have left buySAFE to pursue other start-up and entrepreneurial interests. In addition, I have joined buySAFE’s Board of Advisors so that I can continue to assist the company in whatever fashion is necessary. Click here to see buySAFE’s announcement on the buySAFE blog.
After almost nine years of building buySAFE, I am leaving the Company in very capable hands, with fresh funding, and the brightest future that the Company has ever had. It has been a deeply satisfying experience to create something valuable, and I want to sincerely thank our customers, our partners, my colleagues and the many investors who made buySAFE possible. I am obviously looking forward to my next adventure, but I am also very much looking forward to buySAFE’s continued success over the coming months and years.
I founded buySAFE after getting burned in an online transaction on eBay. As a student, I didn’t have any extra money to lose to ecommerce fraudsters, and so I decided that there had to be a better way to buy and sell products online. buySAFE was born!
This adventure started for me while I was earning my MBA at Wharton in 2000, and as with all start-ups, there have been huge successes and great challenges. For me, both have proven to be invaluable learning experiences.
Developing buySAFE’s early business/technology plan, acquiring our major financial institution and strategic partners (including two major strategic partners to be announced in the coming months), and raising our $30 million in venture capital financing were all challenges that I ultimately found to be great learning experiences. Over time, I was able to lead almost every aspect of buySAFE’s business operations, and all of these experiences were amazing for me personally and professionally. I plan to share with you many of the lessons I learned at buySAFE over the coming months.
Perhaps the thing I am most proud of at buySAFE is our team. Early on, I recruited Jeff Grass, Tim Woda, and Hans Dreyer to buySAFE. Today, Jeff is buySAFE’s CEO, Tim is the VP – Sales, and Hans is the VP – Operations. They are the core of our team even to this day. The rest of our team is amazing as well, and it has been a pleasure working with each and every one of them.
I never intended to spend almost a decade working on my Wharton class project, but along the way, buySAFE provided me with an amazing opportunity to make great friends, to learn important new skills, and to see that anything is possible with persistence and creativity. It also taught me that you can’t build a company by yourself.
Although I could never hope to name all of the folks that deserve my thanks, I wish I could. A few folks in particular – my wife, my brother, and buySAFE’s employees, customers, investors, and advisors – have all obviously been invaluable to both me and buySAFE. To all of you, thank you! I sincerely appreciate your investments in time, capital, expertise, and support. There would be no buySAFE without you.
As far as the next chapter in my entrepreneurial story, I am not ready to share the details quite yet, but please stay tuned. I will share my adventures with you here on my blog, so if you are interested, please make sure to subscribe using the form below.
Thank you buySAFE!
Related posts:
“Founder of buySAFE, Steve Woda, Steps Down” on AuctionBytes.com
More money! That is obviously what you expect your employees to want the most, but it turns out that for many young employees, freedom is what matters most to them.
1 in 5 young employees say that the “freedom to use technology how they want while they’re at work” is the number one thing they want out of their jobs.
Sam Narisi wrote a nice article on this recently, and it is an interesting read.
These employees want access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. They want to use the favorite personal devices whether that be Blackberries, iPhones or their own laptops. They want to use the Internet for their personal business.
To be honest, I don’t think this is important only to young employees. I suspect that a large percentage of older employees would echo those thoughts. As you manage your teams, keep these needs in mind. It will inevitably help you lead more effectively if you can offer a work environment that caters to your employees and the things they hold most dear.
JackBe, the leading provider of enterprise mashup software, today announced that it has closed a $5 million round of funding and appointed software industry veteran Wayne Jackson as its new Chairman of the Board. The funding and appointment confirm JackBe's industry leadership and ready the company for continued growth and success through 2009 and beyond.
The $5 million funding was secured from existing investors including Harbert Venture Partners, Core Capital Partners, Blue Chip Venture Company, Intel Capital, and Darby Technology Ventures. The investment will be used by JackBe to expand sales, marketing, and partner activities worldwide.
JackBe Lands $5 Million, Names Wayne Jackson as Chairman – Silicon Valley Wire
JackBe jacks another round with $5 million – Startup Meme Technology Blog
First Round Capital’s 2008 Holiday Card (video) proves once again why every early-stage entrepreneur wants to find a way to meet with this terrific investor group. Check it out!
These guys are creative; they have been in the trenches themselves (multiple times!); they have been successful (multiple times!); and most of all, they like working with entrepreneurs because they are entrepreneurs.
I have had the pleasure of working with and knowing lots of technology investors, and along the way, I have learned a thing or two about who you want to try and work with (and what you want to avoid). These guys are good. Period. In addition, their holiday video is brilliant,
low-cost, and fun, and it highlights their strengths in an intangible,
yet powerful manner.
Let me share one quick story that illustrates why I like these guys so much. Although they won’t likely remember it, both Howard Morgan and Josh Kopelman provided me with a helping hand while I was trying to get buySAFE launched back in 2001. I was introduced to Howard via a mutual friend, John Tedesco, and Howard offered to meet with me in NYC and provide me with feedback on my business plan. At the time, the venture was called BondMyAuction. I was not ready for primetime, and yet, Howard spent two hours listening to me and coaching me on how I could improve my plan. Howard also introduced me to Josh Kopelman. At the time, Josh was an executive at eBay because he had recently sold his business, Half.com, to the ecommerce giant. For no reason other than to be helpful to me, Josh also spent almost two hours on the phone giving me feedback and advice on how to proceed.
I will be forever grateful for their assistance since I was no more than an aspiring entrepreneur with a paper napkin business plan. Their help was both gracious and inspiring. In many ways, they (along with a few others like them) gave me the extra motivation and confidence that I needed to stick it out through the inevitable challenges of getting a business launched. Since then, I have tried to return the favor with other aspiring entrepreneurs because of their good example (although I am quite sure that I could never be as helpful as they were for me).
Again, check out First Round Capital’s holiday video, and I think you will agree with me. These guys are authentic, and entrepreneurs clearly have good reason to want to work with them.
Nice job Howard and Josh! For everyone else, enjoy! http://holiday.firstround.com/
RoundBox, a provider of mobile broadcast software, announced on Monday that it has raised over $20 million in its third round of venture capital funding, led by Montagu Newhall Associates. Itochu Techno-Solutions Corporation, and previous backers Core Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and RRE Ventures also participated in the round, which will be used to invest in product development and customer delivery.
Learn more >> Roundbox Raises $20 Million for Mobile Broadcast Software – Digital Media Wire
Roundbox Secures Over $20 Million in Series C Financing
Infinite Power Solutions Inc. (IPS), a developer of solid-state, rechargeable thin-film batteries, has said it has completed its Series B round of financing, raising $13 million to fund the ramp to volume production of its Thinergy micro-energy cell product family.
Existing financial investors D. E. Shaw Ventures and Polaris Venture Partners led the Series B round, and were joined by the company's other existing investors Core Capital Partners, Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials and In-Q-Tel, along with a unnamed strategic investor.
Learn more >> Thin micro-cell firm raises $13 million – EETimes.com
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Steven L. Woda
President, CEO, and Co-Founder
As President and CEO of uKnow.com, Steve leads the company in its mission of empowering parents with smart tools to keep social and mobile kids safe from the greatest digital dangers including child predators, sexting, and cyberbullying. He is responsible for guiding the company’s strategy and overseeing day-to-day operations.
uKnow.com powers the world’s leading Parental Intelligence Systems including uKnowKids.com, Family Sense from XFinity, MySocialScout.net, SocialFirefly.com, SafeCyberKids.com, and many others. In short, uKnow.com provides parents with a bird’s eye view of what is going on in their child’s digital world so that they can keep their finger on the pulse, and when necessary, take action to protect the safety and privacy of their kids. Here is a brief intro video… http://www.uknow/overview/
Previously, Steve was the Founder and Chairman of buySAFE, the world’s leading ecommerce trust and safety company, which is now partially owned by Symantec (purchased from Verisign) and The Hartford. During his nine years at buySAFE, Steve led almost every aspect of operations and co-raised almost $30 million in venture capital. As Senior Vice President of Product and Strategy, he was responsible for leading the company’s business intelligence, professional services, and product management teams that developed all of the Company’s core products, including the buySAFE Seal™, Website Bonding, the Safe Shopping Rating™, and the buySAFE Shopping Advisor™. He also previously led the marketing, sales, and business development teams as Senior Vice President of Strategic Growth during the company’s initial years of rapid growth.
Prior to founding buySAFE, Steve led USF&G’s New York City surety bond operations where he managed a $1.5 billion portfolio of surety bond guarantees and built the business from $3 million to more than $10 million annual revenue in just two years. Steve began his career at Travelers, and also worked at PayMyBills.com, an idealab! company focused on online bill management and payments.
Steve is a recognized expert and regular public speaker on the subjects of Internet/mobile safety and security, ecommerce, and information economics, and he serves on the Advisory Boards of buySAFE and LaunchBox Digital. Steve was appointed to the Virginia Joint Commission on Science and Technology’s Cybercrimes Advisory Committee in 2006, and he is also the inventor of the “Safe Transaction Guaranty” (US Patent 7,644,019) as well as two additional patent applications related to “Method, System, and Components for Obtaining, Evaluating and/or Utilizing Seller, Buyer, and Transaction Data” (US Patent Applications 20090119161 and 20090119160).
Steve earned his MBA in both Entrepreneurship and Operations & Information Management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. With the help of a collegiate golf scholarship, he earned his BS in Business Administration – Finance & Marketing at Florida Southern College. Steve’s most treasured project is that of husband and father for his incredible wife and two young children.
Blog – stevewoda.com
Twitter – twitter.com/stevewoda
Facebook – fb.com/stevewoda
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