DISQUS

I've been around a long time as well and I have two points to contribute:

1. Leopard being "talked" about in the tech blogsphere is not the same thing as market adoption or a forthcoming, general market trend. check out the awareness/adoption stats on google apps vs the amount of airplay they get on blogs for reference. virtually no one outside the tech blogsphere has even heard of them.

2. nothing about a mac makes me want to use it. I'm not exactly a windows fanboy, but i quite simply do not believe the pain in moving away from my current computing environment, to a set of apple products is going to bring me a large enough of a return. windows works fine. mac probably also works fine, and it probably has many of the same problems (including security problems) that windows has. PCs are "sticky", given the hardware expense, software expense, and the peripheral expense -- so what's the real motivation to move? if I were buying my first machine, I might go with a mac, but as an overall percentage of the pc market, how many are "first-time pc buyers"? in my mind, apple may have the majority of first-time buyers, they will have a cut at the upgrade market, but overall, in my mind, general windows users are relatively safe. I really do not see a lot of them moving, as your post attempts to foreshadow...

Another "con" can be: making sure you get paid. Contractors and freelancers often have this problem -- clients are happy with the work, but stretch their payment terms out, or they're unhappy with perfectly acceptable work, so they withhold payment. Unfortunately, part of your job as a freelancer is also to manage the business. Fortunately, there are great tools to help manage these aspects of the business.

Interesting post on how successful businesses can leverage their competencies and drive additional revenue. I can see how mature businesses may take this approach to get a step up in revenues, but I think some smaller, less mature businesses may think that they are really giving away the farm. I think it takes a certain amount of maturity to go this route, and those who do will see significant upside.

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I'm not surprised. They both seem very down to earth. I heard that Liz was helping to judge a small business contest the other day along with Carolyn Kepcher from The Apprentice:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/11/29/microsoft.co...

Also agree. Local businesses should focus on the hard-to-find and unique, non-commodity type goods. When they do this, they don't have to compete on price.

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While that is a great application of your blog post's point, we're not in a position to do that just yet... We're bootstrapping right now, and as you can probably guess, cash poor. :)

Thanks for the offer, though.

Cool idea. I really like these posts that suggest a twist on something completely normal.

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I'll add a number 6: keep your burn rate so low, it's essentially on the floor. That way, #4 becomes nearly moot.

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Thanks for contributing this article to the Carnival of Home Business, 10th Edition! See the other entries at the SimplifyThis Blog

They do have a good product, but they are certainly not the only game in town for online invoicing and payments. Keep an eye on us over the next month:

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