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I was having a chat with friend of mine on MSN. He is also an aspiring young entrepreneur and he was commenting that I appear a lot more focused on my business than some of his other friends who like to talk business but have trouble taking actions towards creating something. I asked if these friends of his were still in school and he said yes. I remembered back when I was studying I knew one thing, I didn’t like the prospect of a day job when I graduated and running my own business was definitely the way I wanted to go. I just didn’t know what sort of business I wanted to start.
Now that I have been running BetterEdit for a number of years and having started and closed or sold a number of other small enterprises along the way I can look back on what I have done and how I learnt to focus and take action, at least more than I used to and only on one project at a time! However I think a brief history is in order so you can see the processes I went through to get as much focus as I have now.
My story might provide you a valuable lesson, as often when you start a new business you have lots of untested ideas, grand plans but not a lot of focus on the little things and as a result you don’t take actions. A lot of business is trial and error and a journey of self discovery for the entrepreneur - he or she has to like what they are doing for the business to succeed after all! But you have take trials to make those errors or you won’t learn what works and get past the theorising and brainstorming stage. Nothing is more exciting than when you make that first sale.
I started BetterEdit around 2000-2001. I received the initial brain spark from www.cyberedit.com (now http://www.essayedge.com) after reading a news article in a Yahoo magazine about Geoff Cook the founder of the business. Geoff started his business in 1997 editing students’ entrance essays to get into colleges in the United States. Without going into too much detail, Geoff’s business was very successful and he himself became a millionaire. This article from Wired Magazine is one of the most important publicity articles Geoff received and really helped to increase his exposure and inform the consumer of his business.
I took the idea and applied it to the Australian marketplace, which is a bit different because students don’t have to write an entrance paper to get into university. However there are a lot of international students with English as a second language in Australia, so I believed that proofreading and editing could be a market. At the time I had just completed a group project which was a perfect case study. One of my group members from Asia had awful English and I spent a whole night editing his writing. I had also just learnt HTML and was eager to build websites as I was falling in love with the Internet. My mother’s partner was out of work and being a trained teacher was quite a capable editor, so I had all the ingredients. I spent a couple of days building the website and a business was born.
Fairly soon after that point however I left the business to focus on studies. I wasn’t in the right place in my life to devote the energy BetterEdit needed. The business started and basically stagnated for a year, however it was working because we had a few loyal clients, it just wasn’t growing because no one was doing anything to tell people about it. Fast forward to 2003 and I had just returned from a trip to Tasmania with a girlfriend. This was meant to be the start of a fruitpicking journey around Australia but ended prematurely. I also broke up with my girlfriend. I had no job, I was a business graduate with no desire to return to studies and no commitments to anything. Talk about opportunity!
I decided to give BetterEdit a really good shot and went to work on it. Over the first few years without me my family had managed to locate one or two good contract editors by sending job notices to the local universities. I checked that they were still willing to receive work, which they were. The website was still up and the email systems were working fine. All I needed to do was get the word out that our service was there.
Next blog entry I’ll talk a look at my first steps at marketing an Internet business.
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager
I headed back to U of T today to finish the job. After finally visiting every corner of the campus it’s pretty clear; this is the worst campus in Toronto for postering. There are a few hot spot buildings with a reasonable coverage of boards, but because this campus is so far apart it takes forever to get the whole place done. The main places to poster are the telephone poles that line the streets but the competition is so fierce for this poster real estate you’re lucky if you last more than a day. With the weather being rainy and snowy I figured out door postering is probably not going to be the most cost effective option given the minimal time a poster stays live. I tried a few telephone poles and I will see what happens when I return in two weeks. Perhaps the amount of exposure and quality of the traffic might make up for the minimal time. Then again it started to rain really heavily later that night so it was probably a waste of time.
During my travels today I also investigated a few buildings that I postered just 24 hours ago. As with any large university, a few of the board locations are very popular and some of my posters were already covered. However when I entered the IT building I noticed that my posters had all but disappeared from where I placed them just yesterday afternoon. Upon further investigation I noticed another poster, a hot pink poster, advertising proofreading services. It appeared to be an individual targeting thesis and dissertation writers claiming 25 years experience. I started seeing a pattern – where my posters used to be, this other proofreader’s posters started to appear. I even found one hot pink poster directly covering my yellow poster. Now I’m all for competition, but to blatantly remove or cover over a competitor’s poster is just rude! Yes, okay, this is business and it’s a dog eat dog world out there, but this I took some offence at on a moral level. The consumer should be allowed to be informed of both our services and then make a choice based on price and quality. This way the better business survives. I went around and replaced what I was missing but I was extra careful not to remove or cover the other proofreader’s posters. I was making a statement – I won’t do what you did and I’m going to keep coming back and putting up my posters regardless of what you do.
Another small job from one of our Asian regulars came through today and I’m still in negotiation on a large (about $1500) job from a repeat business client that I expect to be finalised by the end of this month. Edward Chalmers finished postering two of the big Brisbane campuses which I asked him to do for me because they are heading into summer semester finals in Australia now. One day I hope to have a postering network large enough to reach all around Australia but for at this point I can only afford to focus on Brisbane.
This weekend I plan to do some accounting work – yes that’s another hat I wear. I use MYOB to manage my day to day business activities which for those not from Australia, is a fairly rudimentary bookkeeping software with some reasonable reporting tools. I also have a proper bookkeeper come in once a month or so to check my work and reconcile my transactions. Plus of course I have an accountant once a year do my return. At the moment I am still a sole trader but I plan to incorporate next year when I finally have some assets built up worth protecting.
Finally just a couple of links I want to plug. Most people that read my blog will know these but just in case these two forums I visit often as they are full of like minded young entrepreneurs like me! Check them out if you like business talk.
Young Entrepreneur Forums - http://youngentrepreneur.com/forum
Young Network of Entrepreneurs Forums - http://ynot.thecouch.com.au/forum
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager
Toronto in winter, it’s not a happy weather kind of place. Today it just rained, even poured and crashed a little lighting, but nothing like back in Australia. We do storms big in Australia. Just this morning I learnt that the milk here is often fortified with additional vitamin D so as to combat the lack of sun during winter. Canadian bodies apparently store vitamin D during summer, much like a squirrel stores nuts in preparation for the cold, according to my uncle at least. I’m a bit worried my Australian body, being used to sun every day, may not quite be familiar with this storing concept and just assume there will be a new dosage everyday as there would be in Brisbane. Oh well.
Anyway, I digress.
Today was a good day for BetterEdit, building on what has been a great week. A couple of theses, a returning business client and a new Canadian business client along with the usual small jobs from the regulars is looking to bring revenues for January way above last January’s. Although since we only did a handful of jobs last January it is not hard to beat the total.
I headed to U of T again today to continue what I poorly started on Monday. I spent the first half of the trip scouting out a bunch of buildings on the far east of the campus and managed to learn that I shouldn’t bother coming back as there were not many posterboards. The problem with these older universities is that the ancient buildings were often not built with posters in mind. They are magnificent architecturally, but I’m not impressed with their consideration for businesses looking to advertise to their students. Of course it wasn’t a fruitless start because I can now skip this section of the campus in future and improve my time efficiency. It is a learning process after all.
Eventually I did find some buildings with reasonable postering boards, but U of T is looking to be the worst campus of the three I have done so far in Toronto. I’ll find out tomorrow when I go back for the THIRD time and finish the job. (Stupid big spread out campus.)U of T is covered in telephone poles, outdoor poster-poles and similar outdoor opportunities to poster and plenty of businesses already take advantage of them. With the weather like it was today though there certainly was no point in placing a poster outside.
On my way out I grabbed a copy of the five or so local university newspapers and magazine style publications. I plan to contact these papers and try and drum up some publicity for BetterEdit entering the Canadian market. I’m thinking of offering an angle to the journalists about essay editing and writing businesses and whether students should be allowed to use them. A bit of controversy is always good for exposure, but as always I stand by our disclaimer and have full confidence of the legitimacy and integrity of our service.
If you have a chance, check out this article about the same business that refused to take our posters around campus because they also run an essay writing/editing service. This is what I mean by controversy!
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager
I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night because a few complicated editing quotes came through late afternoon Brisbane time, which was early morning here in Toronto, Canada. I’ve been staying up till about 2am each day so I can service the Australian market without any major time differences. So far it’s working reasonably well. The quotes however required a bit of coordination with editors and some calculations which stimulated my brain a bit too much so I had trouble sleeping.
Yesterday I headed to the University of Toronto where I met up with a friend who showed me the more popular student postering locations on the campus. We ended up talking for a while and by the time we finished it was already getting late and I had only barely started to poster. I hit the main library and a few more buildings but with darkness falling and the temperature dropping way below 0 I decided the rest of U of T can wait until another day. It really is a huge campus, I think I have at least another 3 hours ahead of me.
Today I spent inside and did a little research about postering services. Unlike Australia, North America has a reasonably established postering distribution network and there are several business that offer postering services. I discovered the first company, City Postering, via a poster at UBC in Vancouver. I took the number then and later in Toronto discovered the same business, this time with a website as well. I read up and they looked like the ideal business to work with to expand in Canada and North America since they cover the USA, at least according to their website.
An aside - my business idea, http://www.student-marketing.com.au, is pretty much exactly the same as these postering services in the USA, which got me thinking about that business again. I did some more searching and could not find a similar campus postering service in Australia (of course I would use it for BetterEdit.com if there were). I’m now even more keen to launch this service, starting in Brisbane, when I return to Australia. The company that I am going to use, On Campus Promotions http://ocp.campus.net/, have been postering for something like 25 years and have established a huge network of over 100 employees, some that poster full time for a job. The business acts as a middle man for poster distribution and the reps do all the postering. They have a very impressive network which makes me confident I could establish something similar for Australia. - End aside.
I contacted CityPostering.com but unfortunately because they run an essay writing and editing service they deemed BetterEdit a competitor so refused to distribute our posters. I contacted a few more with none providing exactly what I wanted, campus postering, and then after some more net searching I stumbled across on campus solutions and gave them a call. The lady I spoke to was very friendly and while they don’t have a comprehensive network in Canada they should be able to help with the two big areas, Toronto and British Columbia, which will be a good start. They also have excellent penetration in the USA so hopefully if things go well I can stay with this company and form a beneficial relationship.
It sure isn’t easy to find a cheap and effective method of advertising to reach the student market. If anyone has an idea, don’t be shy, tell me!
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager
Today I spent some time working on our services page for the authors/writers market (currently not available live). Whilst our most significant marketplace is students, there is a demand from other demographics and I hope to slowly expand awareness in these areas. In the past we have been widely praised by the few American writers that have used our service, mainly as we offer a very competitive option thanks to the currency exchange. Having the Internet as a means of service delivery helps us to reach overseas markets that we would otherwise not be able to reach and allows customers access to a valuable service at cheaper prices by leveraging currency differences. In particular I expect (hope!) the self-publishing market will benefit from our services as they don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on proofreading and we offer an affordable alternative.
Being a small growing business much of the administration and marketing work is completed by the same people. I do most of the copy writing (thankfully we do have professionals to edit my writing though!) as well as the web content design and updates. I make use of some network contacts to enhance my sales copy. I produce the advertising materials (posters and flyers) and handle their production and distribution. In fact tomorrow I will be heading to the University of Toronto to begin our first ongoing major campaign at this campus.
U of T is one of the oldest universities in the area and is situated in the heart of downtown Toronto. The campus has some very old architecture but from my point of view is one of the hardest campuses to poster because it is very spread out. It takes a long time to get around! For those interested you can learn more about U of T at their website - http://www.utoronto.ca/
Onwards!
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager
The winter university semester started this week in Canada and BetterEdit has started along with it. This past week we began aggressively advertising at two of the three large university campuses located in the GTA – the Greater Toronto Area. Toronto is the largest city in Canada, some refer to it as little New York because the cities are similar in demographic diversity.
This week I personally started poster campaigns at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto and York University Keele campus. Ryerson is similar in style to a highschool, with lockers located throughout. It’s not a beautiful campus but that’s because it’s in downtown Toronto in buildings. York University however is more like your traditional Australian large university with a stand alone campus. York is huge. It took nearly three hours to poster the place and I didn’t get to every building.
We have already welcomed some new clients as a result of these two campaigns and as this is the first week of semester things look good for a successful entry into these markets. Whilst we already have Canadian clients this will be the first prolonged advertising campaign maintained here so hopefully BetterEdit.com will become more well known in this area.
Next week I will be heading to the University of Toronto, the oldest and most prestigious university in Toronto.
For those interested you can learn more about Ryerson University and York University by following these links:
http://www.ryerson.ca
http://www.yorku.ca
Yaro Starak
BetterEdit.com Manager
It’s Thursday morning Brisbane time and I am leaving in a couple of hours for Sydney on the first leg of my trip to Canada. Tomorrow I leave for Hawaii where I will spend a day and then off to Vancouver. I will be spending five days in Vancouver, mostly seeing family and travelling around with my mother and father. Then I head to Toronto where I will be spending most of my time.
The winter university semester in Canada starts on January 2nd. Toronto is the largest city in Canada, comparable to Sydney in size, and no doubt has a huge student population. BetterEdit very lightly entered the market back in 2001 when it was first starting. We picked up a few clients back then that stayed with us over the years and I hope to repeat that success on a larger scale this time.
I will be focussing on campaiging on the major Toronto university campuses which may be a challange considering how cold it will be. During January and February it frequently dips below -10 and I don’t think I want to be out and about putting up posters in that weather. However since students study during this time I am confident that there will be areas where I can promote to students, nice and warm areas too hopefully!
For reference if you would like to read up more about Toronto here is a link to a popular entertainment website - http://www.toronto.com/
That’s it from me this time and I’ll be making my next blog post from Canada.
Yaro
I have just finished adding the new Frequently Asked Questions [FAQ] page that I have been collating over the past few months. Throughout the year we are often asked questions by students and in general they are the same questions over and over again. Hopefully the FAQ will answer a lot of the more common questions before students have to ask them and hence speed up the decision process.
If you were ever curious whether we write essays for students, whether our term paper editing service is free or if we have an affiliates program so you can make money selling our services, then check out the FAQ
We have managed to get permission to publish three articles in the BetterEdit library. They include two thesis writing guides and one undergraduate English essay guide. We have begun to code them into our library and hopefully by December we will have things ready to go. I am quite impressed with these articles as they have been written with care by university professors that have worked with many students closely, so they understand the issues students face when writing academic papers. I expect you will also find them of value so please check back over the coming weeks. I’ll post a notice in the blog when the articles go live.
Chelsea Allen is also hard at work putting together an in-house how to write an essay guide which will be one of the feature pieces for the library. It’s aimed at simplifying the writing process for any student new to essay writing. It will provide a basic outline to follow and should get you on the right track if you are struggling.
In other news, Edward Chalmers takes over administration of BetterEdit on a trial period this week. I will be supervising him while I am still here to make sure things run smoothly in the lead up to my departure next week. Ed will then manage things on his own for about two weeks at which point I should have settled down in Toronto and will have reliable Internet access so I can resume my administration duties.
Yaro
We have been negotiating with a few Internet authors (university professors from the UK and North America) to allow us to publish their articles in the BetterEdit library. The library is intended to be a free resource for our students. We are presently collecting and writing articles aimed at helping students prepare assignments. We will offer a comprehensive “how to write an essay” guide as well as a “how to prepare a thesis” guide. These two guides will form the foundations for our library.
Chelsea Allen, one of our editors, is working on a few special articles including an insider’s guide to what professors look for in an essay and hints and tips resource for using the Internet for research purposes. We hope to add more and more specialty articles like these over the months as we develop the library.
Once the library is established I expect many students will come to rely on it. We have no intentions of every charging for our library and anticipate it will remain free for many years to come.
Yaro
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