I heard this question in the start-up podcasts a few times recently: “Do you want it perfect or do you want it done?”
I play with a lot of fun tools because of Data Wonderment. Marketing my own company allows me to go back into my school experiences and incorporate new apps in the mix.
I’m particularly excited about Canva. I actually used it first because my boss at AAA (*ahem*) gave a presentation to the Orlando Tableau User Group and we wanted to make sure that we had the rights for all of the images and charts we used. I made a very cute chart that had a little car going up a diagonal road that represented different stages of data.
For Ddubs, we’re also using it for rights management, since I learned in the podcast, Legal-EASE, about a woman who used somebody’s image on her Facebook page three years ago and got sued. The cover photo crop cut off the copyright on the image! I also get to add different captions and titles with the images and really make it my own work. Below is my first image I made and the first image we bought for our website.
Did I learn a lot about creating newsletters last month! (If you’d like to receive a copy of the Data Wonderment monthly newsletter called “imcy”, feel free to email me at PattiAndMedia@yahoo.com). First, I started building it with Publisher, but it wouldn’t let me not email it from my own email, so I had to scrap it. So I tried to copy it into PowerPoint hoping I could PDF it. But my partner was not very excited about sending a PDF attachment as the newsletter. And we wanted to get it out by the end of the month, I made some quick comparisons of newsletter distribution options. I found SendinBlue had a very robust free option (I really like free right now) but even the paid version wasn’t too costly, so once we expand beyond the 50 people on our list (all opt in of course), it will be able to grow with us!
My partner and I are currently not big fans of Go Daddy and how they have us access the WordPress site. Heck, I’m not even particularly excited about WordPress. But it was something I had learned to use with this blog, and thought it might translate well into managing a website. One thing I do know is that sometimes you have to leave some things to the expert. So, once we get a decent cash flow going, we will definitely be hiring out for someone to build and manage the website! While I love marketing, there’s only so much I can do.
Next, I need to learn more about accounting! Luckily I took classes in my MBA (the Accounting 101 class was actually how I fell in love with getting an MBA instead of a Mass Comm). I need to figure out if Freshbooks or QuickBooks is a better option, or if there any other options available? I know a few of you that read this blog might have some experience with this, and I would love any feedback you can offer. Feel free to email me anytime or write your comments below and let me know what you think. I’ll definitely be doing another post on what I learn about that very soon!
Patti is still learning 