inspiration | Aqua Vita

10.06.2011
The Nerdery

Steve Jobs Quotes: Think Different

Published by Jessica Cox under The Nerdery

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The trouble makers. The square pegs in the round holes. The ones who see things differently.

The ones who push the human race forward.

Here’s to Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios.

Steve Jobs Quotes

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like.

“People think it’s this veneer, that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like…”

Design is how it works.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

“And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Stay hungry. Stay foolish.

On Technology: “It takes these very simple-minded instructions—‘Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number’––but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.”

Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

(more Steve Jobs Quotes)

Aqua Vita Remembers Steve Jobs

He was a struggler.

- Jonathan Cox

“He was most definitely an innovator. He revolutionized the way we look at things and interact with technology.”

- Michelle Pierce

He rocks my socks off. I’m heartbroken that he’s gone.

- Cassie Imel

“He made technology beautiful and easy for everyone to use. His imagination was a gift to the world.”

- Jessica Cox

He was the ‘ambassador between androids and humans.’

- Joshua Lee (NPR)

(thanks Josh Driskel for great WSJ quote!)

3.14.2011
ecommerce, Serious Stuff

Ecommerce Lessons: From Neuropsychology to Laptop Accessory Sales

Published by Jessica Cox under ecommerce, Serious Stuff

Practical ecommerce interviewed Kathy Seigler, CEO and president of Ecommerce Superstores.

This Bowling Green, Ky.-based online retail brand has six niche online shops: CoolComputerBags.com — which was launched in 2007 — and five other specialty retail shops all launched in 2010.

They are: BackpacksSuperstore.com, TheLuggageExperts.com, YummiHandbags.com, DiaperBagsOnly.com, and WeKnowWallets.com.

From Neuropsychology to Ecommerce

Seigler started her retail business on eBay in 2006. With no previous ecommerce experience a background as a neuropsychologist. After about 6 months of selling on eBay, she identified a marketplace niche for laptop bags and launched CoolComputerBags.com in late 2007. In 2010, CoolComputerBags.com recorded gross revenues of roughly $815,000.

“Each of our now six sites specialize in a single product category,” Seigler says. “And all of the sites share the same navigation, functionality and shopping cart. The sites are also color coded, which differentiates each one, but all with the same template. We are still experimenting with our design and testing to see which converts best.”

Biggest Mistakes

“Where to begin? My first mistake was not being educated enough about the ecommerce industry as a whole. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but sometimes that’s the best way to start. Experience is the only way to learn.

“My second biggest mistake was trying to grow too fast too soon. Grow gradually and make sure spending is in line with revenue.

“Which brings me to my third biggest mistake: return on investment. Do not do things because they are ‘industry standard.’ Unless you see a measurable return on your investment, whether it is in marketing or staffing or inventory management — make sure it is paying for itself.

“Another big mistake I made was not having a fool-proof methodology for product upload. This is probably the single most costly error you can make in ecommerce. In the past 4 years I’ve made more mistakes than not. But I keep trying and my persistence will hopefully pay off. If not, I’ll write a bestseller about what to do when starting an online business.”

Biggest Successes

“Our biggest success is having a number one ranking in Google for the most relevant terms related to CoolComputerBags.com. I’m also very proud of being selected as one of the ‘Hot 100 Best Retail Websites’ by Internet Retailer.”

Best Advice

“Watch every single penny and be careful not to get sold on the latest thing that is promised to increase sales, traffic or conversion. Also, surround yourself with excellent people who lift you up every day professionally and personally. Life’s too short not to.”

Orders, Inventory and Shipping

“We work with about 60 different suppliers currently. We stock some inventory as well as work with vendors that drop ship.”

“To manage the entire inventory for so many different stores, we have a nice piece of software that allows the vendors to manage inventory themselves. It is a third party extension specifically developed for Magento. For those vendors who choose not to do that, they email us when items are out of stock and our inventory manager is responsible for updating it.

“We have an RSS feed that tells us when we are running low on stock. We only stock the minimum for products that sell through slowly. It’s a very difficult thing to balance, especially during the holidays.

“Our average [shipping] cost-per-parcel is about $9. Drop ship vendors receive email notifications that also include a packing slip and a shipping label. The software does have the ability to be automated, but we manually review each order ourselves before sending them to the vendors for the sake of accuracy and so we can stay on top of our orders and customer’s needs.”

Caring Customer Service

“On the customer service end of things, we have a fantastic lady, DeAnna Roberts, who takes phone calls and replies to emails. I manage live chat myself and I really enjoy it. I’m proud to say that we do not have very many instances where customers are unhappy. In those times when we have messed up royally, we tell the customer we will do whatever it takes to make them happy — then, we do it.

“I’ve gone so far as to send flowers to a customer who we forgot to refund for about 6 months. We also send $5 Starbucks cards and personal notes to customers when we are at fault.”

PPC Marketing Experiment

“Our marketing strategy varies. We lost a lot of money last year trying pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. We never arrived at a profitable result. We lost about $50,000 in just three months. I would not advise anyone to attempt PPC unless they have about $100,000 to spend ‘testing’ it.”

Aqua Vita PPC Note: Testing is key. When you are starting out, don’t bid for the number one spot. Watch your keyword bids and total expenditures like a hawk.

Cull keywords that do not result in conversions or email sign-ups. If a keyword group gets too competitive and expensive for you to make a profit, drop your bid prices so you aren’t competing with the big fish in that pond.

Think maximum ROI for each click you pay for. Make sure you push email sign-ups to get PPC visitors into your marketing list. That way you get more than one opportunity to market to these expensive visitors.

Facebook and Twitter for Ecommerce

“As far as Facebook and Twitter go, we post our email campaigns, special offers and have contests. We also have the ability for customers to share on every product page.

“But to be honest I still haven’t figured out yet how to leverage Facebook and Twitter to increase sales. We are considering an extension that allows us to sell on Facebook directly called ‘Facebook Shopializable.’ And I’m very keen on having an ‘incentive to Like’ functionality.

“I think the genius of social media is if a business comes up with something revolutionary, like Groupon did. That’s something people really want to talk about and it spreads like wildfire. Otherwise, you are a nameless face in a sea of millions on Facebook”

“The reason I think it’s important, however, is for rankings. It’s no secret that Google has incorporated the Facebook ‘Likes’ into its algorithm, which makes a lot of sense. Word on the street is that ‘Likes’ will eventually replace ‘links.’”

Get the full story and more ecommerce tips at Practical ecommerce.

2.27.2010
Design Inspiration

Stan Lee – Design Inspiration

Published by Sean Ferguson under Design Inspiration

Listen, it’s not often that I play favorites. I have a ton of comic book creators that I look to for inspiration. I struggled long and hard trying to choose between titans like Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Steve Ditko, Jim Steranko and Bruce Timm.

But as I gazed at my bookshelf, overflowing with comics, how-to books and art archives, one name leapt out at me. It adorns the cover of my most cherished book, How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, the very first how-to book I ever read.

Stan Lee.

How could I forget Stan? At the tender age of 19, Stan became the editor-in-chief of Timely Comics. Timely served up a bevy of comics from westerns to pulp to romance back in the 1940s. That’s a pretty impressive achievement from a fella that got his start fetching coffee and filling inkwells for the artists. You might be wondering why you haven’t heard of Timely Comics – it’s called Marvel Comics today.

Stan can’t draw. He’s a visionary and a writer. He teamed up with some of the best artists to ever put a pencil to the page. During the Golden Age of comics, this man gave us the “Flawed Hero” concept. That seems commonplace today, but in the 1960s, that was unheard-of.

Heroes used to be perfect. Stan felt people couldn’t connect to that, so he gave them a kernel of humanity. His heroes all lived in real cities like New York City instead of Metropolis. He used comics to confront issues like racism and drug abuse. Today, the industry has completely rebuilt itself to emulate the creations of Stan Lee. Maybe you’ve heard of a few of them: Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Inhumans, Daredevil, and the list just keeps going.

Stan Lee simply did things his way and that’s why he’s my design inspiration this month.

Excelsior!

5.12.2009
Naked Writing

Four Ways to Beat Writer's Block

Published by Michelle Pierce under Naked Writing

It happens to the best of us. You sit down at the keyboard with a steaming cup of coffee (or tea), ready to start typing away, and then…nothing. You’re up and ready, but it seems that your muse’s alarm clock was set for P.M. instead of A.M.

Yes, writer’s block sucks. And sometimes it takes a little more than coffee to get your brain going. Here are four ideas to help you break through the dreaded block and get your writing started.

Frustration

Write by hand

There’s just something about writing by hand. Maybe it’s the sight of words appearing on the page thanks to the swoop of a pen, as opposed to the click of a key. Maybe it’s just having something in your handwriting as opposed to a predetermined font. Or maybe it’s that you don’t have the ability to open your browser and goof off by checking blogs/news sites/webcomics every 10 minutes.

Writing by hand forces you to focus. There’s nothing but you and the pen and the paper. It’s not as easy to get distracted when you don’t have something like the Internet and email to get distracted by. (It’s also especially helpful when you get to feeling like your eyeballs will fall out of their sockets if you stare at the screen for five more seconds.)

Change your surroundings

Right now, I’m sitting outside on my balcony with a notebook, scribbling the first draft of this post while I listen to my iPod. It’s Oklahoma, so I don’t have an outstanding beach view, but I do see some very pretty redbud trees that have survived the schizophrenic and bipolar weather Mother Nature has dumped on us for the better part of 2009.

Whether it’s a back porch, a park, a bookstore, or your favorite coffee shop, staring at something besides the same four walls can give your brain the jumpstart it needs to start writing. And, hey, if you go outside, you might get a tan while you’re at it.

Take a break

Sometimes, you just need to step away from the keyboard and give your brain a chance to goof off. Read a chapter from your favorite book. Color. Watch TV. Do yoga. Play guitar. Play video games. Take a nap. Ride a bike. Go to the gym. Dance like crazy to your favorite songs. Heck, hand-wash the dishes or do the ironing, if that’s your cup of tea.

Just do something else so that you quit knotting yourself up over a block. A half-hour of rest may be just what you need to smooth it out.

Try a routine

W. Somerset Maugham once said, “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

One of the pitfalls of being a creative person is that whole “must” thing. If the muse ain’t talking, we ain’t creating. However, people generally tend to frown on the “my muse was asleep” excuse when you miss a deadline.

Try setting up a routine for yourself. Are you best early in the morning? Then make 7 a.m. – 10 a.m. your writing time every day. Are you sharpest after lunch? Then do it from 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. (You don’t have to do it for three hours. I’m just giving examples.)

If you give your muse a routine, then she’ll start showing up when you need her to. It may be hard at first, but once you’ve trained your brain that this is your creative time, you’ll find it a lot easier to create.

Don’t let the block get you down. Do you have any good ways for breaking out of writer’s block? Let us know!

Photo by Martin Kingsley