You have no control over where you're born, who your parents are, where they send you to school, how much money they have, the genetic blueprint they give you or the decisions they make over the first years of your life. You have little control over how you look or how "smart" you are or the things you're exposed to while growing up. The only thing you have full control over is how hard you work, how much you put in, how much sweat you give and how many times you smile while doing it.

My father always told me that the hardest part of any job is finishing it. Here are somethings you can do to make it easier to finish:

• Launch. If you don’t launch, you’ll never finish.
• Have a reason to finish. “To make my wife/parent/child proud.” “I’m going to change the world with this.” Keep this reason in mind when the going gets tough.
• Don’t do it alone. Have someone that will pick you up and keep you going.
• Make something people will fall in love with. And then fall in love with helping them.
• Put all your eggs in your own basket. If the the other option is going to work for someone else… Who wants that?
• Wear cool shoes. This won’t actually help you finish other than you’ll know you’ll look cool once you do.
• Not only will you feel like a failure if you don’t finish, but by definition you will be a failure.
• You are awesome! Not finishing is not an option.
• Your friends will quickly tire of congratulating and encouraging you on yet another new idea. (They never tire of it if you finish.)
• Your mother will love you anyways, but she will love you more if you don’t quit. Yes she will.
• You’ll look better at your high school reunion.
• You’ll feel better about yourself.
• Whatever you do next will be more successful.
• Chicks dig quitters. Not.
• Would you rather tell the story of how you gave up or that you finished it and gave it everything you had?

Not far from my daughter’s school is a little drive through cafe that makes great coffee. There’s not much else around there, just some small neighborhoods, a veterinarians office and some day care places. The cafe closed down two months ago. As I drove by this morning I heard the voice of the owner saying “If every parent, resident and dog lover stopped in for a cup of coffee then we’ll do great!” And it reminded me how many times I’ve heard “If we only get 1% of the market…”

In today’s world the most important thing when opening a web application is location, location, location. The difference is that location isn’t the url, it’s the niche market you’re going after. Choose wisely.

Derek Sivers spoke at LessConf2009 about business models and profitability. Derek Sivers founded CDBaby.com and is currently working on other projects like MuckWork

Mike McDerment of http://freshbooks.com spoke at LessConf2009 about how he built a successful web app company.

Our surprise guest was Jason Fried of 37signals.com via video chat. Jason talks about the business philosophies of 37signals and other insights into his work day and inspirations.

Everyone should be creating content. And so should you.

There are many reasons to create content: to inform, to make money, to get fame (ego), as a creative outlet, as an excuse, to share yourself. Of these your prime motivation should be sharing yourself. That means being honest and open and letting your personality shine. Putting yourself out there. The money and fame will follow.

What is content?

Writing a blog is obvious, but content can be anything, a video, a tutorial, contributing to an open source project. You can share recipes or pictures. Jokes or stories about your stupid boss (or incredibly handsome, chubby boss). Whatever you have to share, share it. There aren’t many constraints here, it doesn’t have to be long or short, it doesn’t have to be topical or persuasive. You don’t even need to have an audience. It just has to come from the heart.

Who’s making content?

We are.

What: If you’re reading this, and I suspect you are, then you are reading content created by us.
Why: We wanted to share our thoughts and ideas about business and life.
Who’s it for: You.
The result: By sharing ourselves we’ve made friends, gained a bit of popularity and fooled clients into picking us over others.

Sorry Ladies We’re Taken (link)

What: A video review site.
Why: Allan and Dustin Bryson started it as an excuse to justify leaving their poor, overworked wives at home with the kids while they go watch movies.
Who’s it for: Themselves. There are a few other’s that enjoy it.
The result: At least one movie a week and their wives feel OK about it.

Web 2.0 Show (link)

What: A podcast that profiles the people, technologies and businesses of Web 2.0
Why: Meet people the coolest people on the internet by interviewing them and ad dollars.
Who’s it for: People like them, people building web apps and interested in internet technology.
The result: Money that supplements their Adam’s income, a bit of fame and connections

Chris Messina’s Flickr Stream (link)

What: A flickr stream of web app user interfaces.
Why: I don’t know the original goal.
Who’s it for: People like Chris, people building web interfaces.
The result: Fame which leads to money and networking.

DOCTYPE (link)

What: A how to video series on web tips and tricks put on by Nick Pettit and Jim Hoskins
Why: Share knowledge, get famous, make money.
Who’s it for: People in the web world.

Google (link)

Why: Larry and Serge attempt to organize all the worlds information.
Why: They wanted a non-naptser excuse to use up all of Stanford’s bandwidth.
Who’s it for: everyone.

A personal tumbler

What: A close friend has a tumbler blog with very personal thoughts that only three of us know the url to.
Why: She wanted to share inner thoughts, but not with everyone.
Who’s it for: Her most intimate friends.

Create content!

All of you have something to say, something to share. Most of you don’t think anyone wants to read it, but the truth is that there are at least a few of us that do want to view it. I can promise you there are more people that want to see it than you think. Start today. Start small. Leave a link to in the comments. Put yourself out there, risk it. See what happens. (And when you stagnate or think about giving up, keep at it!)

David Hauser of Grasshopper.com speaks on "How to build a company beyond the start-up stage". Grasshopper.com is a virtual phone system designed for entrepreneurs. Follow David on Twitter at @DH. Also Grasshopper labs just released Chargify, which simplifies recurring billing for Web 2.0 and SaaS companies.

Here's the video David shows at the beginning of his presentation.

In the past year our apps and blog have finally started getting some traction! It's exciting, but let's not pretend this has always been the case or that it happened overnight. Here is a list of things we've done over the past few years, that we think have been instrumental to our success. The items are in no particular order, and may be either missing the real secret sauce and/or containing things have haven't helped at all.

• We've always been ourselves. We've never pretended we're more than two chubby guys that speak our minds, build simple software and care about people.
• We give a damn. Steve and I have always tried to be kind and give to people. We've always tried to give of ourselves when someone has asked for help. We've always tried to be honest when someone asked us.
• Tried to make applications that make peoples lives easier.
• Blogged a lot. The first two years, we blogged almost every day. We've slacked off a bit this year, but we have always tried to write short, easy to read blog posts that are meaningful and talked about business or technology.
• Tweeted a lot. Always attempted to engage in real conversation. Although we're sometimes offensive, we always speak our mind. Shared links and things we liked. Allan on Twitter and Steve on Twitter
• Contributed to open source by releasing LovdbyLess, our open source social network.
• Traveled to conferences to speak and attend. And actually talked to people, like real people do. We haven't hidden behind our computers, we've shaken hands with people and tried to make friends.

There is no recipe for success, or if there is we don't know it. We've just been working like mad men for 3 years and doing these thing everyday while seeing little or no result. Finally it's beginning to pay off.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who runs a small web consultancy and is looking for some consulting work. A great website design can help your consulting. But if no one is coming to your site then no one will notice the new design. If your current site is good enough your time is better off networking, blogging, talking to people and helping on open source projects.

My wife has a friend that sells MonaVie, it's a health juice. The company signs up independent distributors. In turn these distributors can setup other independent distributors "under" them, it's a bit of a pyramid scheme/multi-level marketing. These distributors will give you a "free" bottle of the juice, hoping you buy more, if you don't buy more juice they try to charge you for the "free" bottle ($40).

Does a good product really need a sales "scheme" behind it? Yes it does. If your product is just "good" you'll need some clever way to get the word out. However if your product is "great", you do not need a scheme. When was the last time you talked about how awesome Amway products are? Customer, users and clients talk about great experiences and bad experiences. Employ no scheme, just deliver a great product and experience they'll talk about.

Des Traynor and Eoghan McCabe of Contrast.ie speak about web conventions at LessConf 2009. Follow Des Traynor and Eoghan McCabe on Twitter.

Steve and I met Jesse Lamb in September at BarcampTampaBay and quickly fell in love with how genuine and kind Jesse is. We consider Jesse a good friend and we're excited to help announce his new podcast "Jesse Lamb is NOT my lawyer".

Jesse Lamb is a lawyer, but he's not YOUR lawyer. Jesse loves law and he loves helping people but didn't enjoy being a practicing lawyer. Because Jesse isn't your lawyer he's not giving you legal advice just legal information. His new site (notmylawyer.com) is soon to be packed full of legal information as it relates to the tech and creative industries in the form of a podcast. If you're a developer, designer, freelancer, entrepreneur, or all of the above, you need to bookmark this site.

Jesse's posted his first podcast (15 minutes long) is an clear overview of the main branches of Intellectual Property Law: copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. Our own Steve Bristol will be joining Jesse on the podcast.

Listen to his podcast

My friend Tim Chilcott just moved to New York City and yesterday morning lost his iPhone on the subway. So he tweeted that he lost it, as iPhone users and friends, we all felt his pain. Later that afternoon he tweeted...


...within a few hours his friends on Twitter had donated the money for a new iPhone.

As silly as it sounds, yesterday Tim started a movement; not everyone can start a movement but here's how he did it.

1. Feeling Connected: Possible supporters must feel the victim's pain to be emotionally moved to contribute. Anyone with a cell phone knows, or can imagine how crappy it feels to lose one. Everyone that donated money to Tim's movement feels like they know him, so he's not some stranger asking for money.
2. Make It Easy: You must arm your supporters with the proper tools so they can help. Tim linked us to his paypal account.
3. Empower Supporters: To join your movement people must feel they can directly make a difference. Tim's goal of a new iPhone was seemingly reachable, he wasn't asking for a new car and he doesn't ask for help very often.
4. Show Progress: For your supporters to evangelize to their peers they must feel their contribution is helping the movement reach the goal. Tim tweeted how much money he needed left after each donation. You could track the progress. No one wants a movement they've helped to die before succeeding.
5. Say Thank You: Your supporters are buying on emotion and need to feel appreciated. Tim tweeted a thank you to everyone that supported him.

Tim's movement was successful both because the goal was met, but also because last night I went to bed feeling good that I helped. A successful movement will make the supporters feel great after helping the cause. If you create the right movement your supporters will give you something and feel good about themselves for contributing.

You'd think a health club's best form of advertising would be thin, healthy members but they really don't care about their members' health. In reality if their whole member roster showed up, they wouldn't be able to fit everyone inside the building. Their business model is betting that you don't show up and utilize what you're paying for.

My Dad's friend owns an Outback steakhouse, in the months leading up to Christmas they make 10% of their annual gross revenue by selling gift cards. Even more surprising is that only 35% of these cards are ever used by the recipients. Obviously, the profit margin on gift card sales are huge.

Credit card companies sign you up for a $35.99 per year "credit/id fraud alert" plan and hope you forget about it. You might notice an odd charge on your statement, but you'll probably forget to call and cancel, so they charge you for another year.

These type of businesses get you signed up and then try to keep their billings under your radar. But why? Why can't a gym call if your attendance is lacking and invite you back? Maybe even offer a free trainer for a week. A restaurant should call the recipient of an unused gift card and offer them a free dessert if they use their gift. Why you ask? Showing your customers that they're appreciated and loved is long tail. Keeping them locked in a few more months is a fleeting way to make money.