Collegepreneur

As more and more home-based entrepreneurs look to streamline their operations, the need for V.A.s continues to escalate. If you’re organized, responsible, professional and good with details, this might be a good business for you to start.

The daily tasks of a virtual assistant might include:

• Returning phone calls
• Answering emails
• Building simple web pages
• Doing website audits (checking for errors)
• Writing business correspondence
• Telemarketing

Some of the benefits of virtual assisting include the ability to set your own hours, work out of your own home, apartment or dorm room, and set your own fees. Fees range anywhere between $5 and $50. To find out how  much V.A.s are fetching, go into freelance communities like guru.com and elance.com and check the project postings.

If our attitudes truly determine our altitudes, how high would you be flying today?

Sell ad time in your show. Get a sponsor for the show. Charge guests to be on your show — especially if you’re delivering their market. Mention and send people to websites that are actually your affiliate marketing websites (meaning you get commissions when people buy — even if it’s not your site)

Would you pay $200 for the privilege of borrowing $20? Some credit card issuers sure hope so. But don’t be duped by the slick commercials and the free t-shirts in the student union. Credit card money is always expensive, so be sure you read the fine print before you sign up for one, and definitely before you swipe.

So, you think you’ve got the making of a great film? Let’s see.

Are the characters engaging? Are the words that come out of their mouths sound original and fresh?

Is the storyline new or more of the same-old, same-old?
Hollywood’s famous for saying it wants something new but every weekend what we see at the box office is simply a spin off of what we saw last season.

Does the story have a hero we can root for? We wanted Rocky to win. We wanted Akeelah to make it to the National Spelling Bee. We wanted E.T. to go home, right?

Does the hero have a nemesis who’s up to the task? We want the hero to win but we also want a good fight.

Is there a big enough challenge for the hero that he or she can ultimately overcome? Not all heros or protagonist win (e.g. Rocky) but their journey has to be worth the two hours in the theater, plus the $35 we’ll pay for tickets, popcorn and soda.

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, give Spielberg a jingle. And we at CP expect to get our cut. After all, we did provide the inspiration.

by Kyla Vanzandt

Brightcove.com is one of the many outlets for aspiring videopreneurs, allowing you to sell and rent video downloads on demand. It’s sorta like a virtual NetFlix. Brightcove takes care of payment processing and live customer support. You control the terms of use and the price of each download product. What’s in it for them? They get a 30% cut. You keep 70% of the revenue generated from your sales. A tracking tool lets you monitor how your channel is performing on the Internet. You can measure your viewers and video streams on your affiliate sites as well as on your own web site. This tool also tracks your earnings from sales and rentals.

As a broadcaster of video products, you can use Brightcove to build a community of users around your niche market. You can encourage your viewers to share your videos by enabling email links ands setting up subscriptions to video feeds. At all stages of the process you control how viewers share your videos–or if they can share them at all. This allows you to market content virally if you choose.

Brightcove also lets you create and manage your relationships with affiliates who want to syndicate your video products. You retain full control over programming and branding. Recently Brightcove entered into a partnership with AOL Video that creates an additional option for content distribution. As a Brightcove user, you can distribute paid downloads of your video products through AOL Video. The AOL platform lets you sell your video downloads directly to the huge audience at AOL.com.

Brightcove’s customers already include Newsweek, Sony, Discovery Network, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Clearly, Brightcove is one of the most exciting developments on the web today. So, grab your camera. It’s show time!

Do we really need to know what’s going on in someone’s life nanosecond by nanosecond? Twitter, the free social networking and micro-blogging service, seems to think so. It allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters) to the Twitter.com website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific. We were thinking more like stalkerific.

“Michael, if you can’t pass you can’t play.” That’s what legendary University of North Carolina coach, Dean Smith told Michael Jordan during his freshman year. So, as a leader, are you willing to get other people on the team involved in your team’s success story? If not, don’t count on making it to the playoffs in your industry. You’ll never get past the regular season.

Okay, let’s get one thing straight. Nobody’s going to be impressed because you can crush the bones in their hands with your Super Ninja grip. By the same token, nobody’s going to think you have anything inside or upstairs if your handshake feels like they’re gripping your goldfish either. So, practice your handshake on the people around you. You’re striving for a brief, firm grip. Not so tight that the receiver starts to sweat. But not so loose that it feels like they’re shaking hands with a ghost.

by Fran Harris

I remember when Collegepreneur was just an idea, a dream. It’s hard to believe this is our third issue and even though we’re moving full-steam ahead, securing key partnerships and building solid alliances around the globe, I’m still amazed by some of the comments I hear when I talk to folks: “Magazine publishing’s such a tough business” or “Wow. Lots of magazines barely make it past year one. Good luck.”

First, I don’t believe in luck. Second, talk about negativity! Now, maybe you don’t see these statements as negative, but I do. Especially when there’s so much possibility in the world. Sure, magazine publishing is challenging, but what isn’t? And as the old cliché goes, ‘If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.’

I couldn’t agree more.

As we all know, the world’s full of tire kickers, player haters and dream killers, yet nothing can truly stand in the way of someone with a great idea plus the passion and determination to match. For every product that you see on a daily basis there was at least one other entrepreneur who had the same idea. But ideas are a nickel a dozen. Who cares if you thought of it first? He or she who gets off their assets and actually does something with the idea, is the real innovator.

There’s a reason our tagline is The Magazine for Today’s Genius. For me, college was one of the most creative periods of my life, which explains why some of today’s most provocative and innovative products and services are coming from the minds of 14-29 year old. So, what brilliant idea is eating away at you in between (or during) classes? Got a new twist on an existing product? Has anybody found a way to shorten the lines at the football games yet? There’s no reason for parking on campus (pick any campus) to still be a nightmare!

Oh, well, it just means that there’s still a few million and billion dollar ideas left to be discovered. I’ve got a few more unveilings myself. One will be revealed this summer at the 1^st Annual Collegepreneur Conference in July in Dallas. You can register online at www.Collegepreneur.com. And if the Texas heat’s too much for you, be sure to log on to watch the webcast. We’ve got an awesome lineup of presenters and speakers. I look forward to seeing you soon.

To Your Unimaginable Success1

Fran Harris