How to Participate in an IPO for only $100

If you haven't heard about the LOYAL3 brokerage firm, you should. The company allows investors to invest as little as $10 in a variety of stocks, without having to pay a commission. Enrollment is very simple with just three steps and takes only a couple minutes.

$10 Minimum Investment

You can buy full shares and partial shares based on the dollar amount, and you have the ability to invest one time or automatically on a monthly basis. There are no account management or account minimum fees. LOYAL3 receives compensation by performing various services for companies on its platform, and charges them for those services. Click on the link below for more information on the commission-free stock investing.

Invest Fee-Free. LOYAL3 is the only online stock platform that charges $0 fees. Enroll!

IPOs Open to Small Investors

More importantly, LOYAL3 participates in various IPOs, which allows the small investor to get in on some stock issues that are usually open to just wealthy investors and institutions. Some of the IPOs and follow-on investments that LOYAL3 has participated in include AMC (AMC), GoDaddy (GDDY), GoPro (GPRO), Virgin America (VA), and Dave & Busters (DAVE).

As a matter of fact, they are currently participating in an IPO for a major tech company, which is expected to price this Monday, October 5. Click the link below to sign up for the list of upcoming IPO opportunities.

IPO Stock at LOYAL3.comOwn IPO stock in 3 easy steps.Learn more at LOYAL3.com.

Easy Sign-Up

You are not guaranteed that you will get the entire amount that you request. The minimum investment is $100. In addition, there are maximum investment limitations for the IPO. Plus, you need to have the funds available in the account in order to get shares, so I recommend that you open the account now and fund it so that you are ready when the next IPO that you are interested in comes out.

The LOYAL3 brokerage firm is a member of FINRA and SIPC. In the interest of full disclosure, I have an account with LOYAL3. I participated in two of their recent IPOs, and made roughly 60% the day the stock went public for one of the stocks and 30% the first day for the other stock. The sign-up process is easy and the customer service is superb.

Hey Startupers! Here are the Top 10 Books on Startups

Are you looking to start a startup? Or maybe you are already a startuper, trying to grow your startup, find venture capital, increase followers, or go public. Need advice on what to do? Try some of these books. They are the top selling books on Amazon in the category of New Business Enterprises (that's what Amazon calls Startups).

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Steven Kotler

How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It by Mark Cuban

Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble by Bernard B. Kamoroff (Note: This is a classic book that has been around for many years - recently updated)

How to Make $1,000 Per Day Clear Profit on Amazon with One Single $35 Product You Choose by Bradford Sullivan

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. by MJ DeMarco

Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (Touchstone Books) by Nicholas Lore

Hopefully a few of these books will be useful to you and your business. Read on!

Uber Reduces Drunk Driver Deaths

The government, non-profits, and even insurance companies have been trying to do this for years: reduce the number of drunk driver deaths. Leave it to a startup, albeit a big one which has been around for a few years, to solve the problem. And that startup is Uber (although Lyft may solve the same problem, but I haven't seen any studies on it.

A recent independent study done by researchers at Temple University Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, discovered that with the entry of Uber into markets in California between 2009 and 2013, findings suggest a significant drop in the rate of alcohol related motor vehicle homicides during that time. Drunk driving deaths dropped 3.6% to 5.6% in 14 counties in California.

There was actually a previous study conducted by Uber and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also known as MADD, which showed similar findings, but the one from Temple University was an independent study.

It goes to show you that sometimes creating a successful startup has unintended but very positive consequences.

DeLorean "time machine" provided by Uber

Picture created by Ed g2s via Wikipedia

Checkout SMARTCAMP 2015 for Startups and Win $25,000

Have you heard of SMARTCAMP 2015? If not, you should check it out. You could win $25,000 plus acceptance into the 12-week, LAUNCH Incubator.

This is a startup competition taking place in 30 cities, with IBM and LAUNCH as the hosts. The cities include:

Auckland

Austin

Bangalore

Boston

Cairo

Casablanca

Chicago

Istanbul

Johannesburg

London

Los Angeles

Melbourne

Mexico City

Montevideo

Mumbai

Nairobi

New Delhi

New York

Raleigh

Sao Paulo

San Francisco

Silicon Valley

Singapore

Tokyo

Toronto

The finalists will get to meet top Silicon Valley investors in San Francisco at the SCALE Conference which will be held on October 13th and 14th. They will return to the LAUNCH festival held March 2nd through the 4th, next year.

Need an application? Go to the following link:

smartcamp2015.com

GoPro versus Soloshot: Competition or Complimentary?

Many people are familiar with GoPro, maker of the high def extreme action video recorders, that can be attached to a helmet, bike, skateboard, or just about anything, and can capture the viewpoint of the action sports participant.

The company has had a volatile stock since it went public last year, trading for less that 40 and above 90 over the last 12 months.

GoPro is even becoming a media company. It has its own television channel on Virgin America Airlines.

But there is another company in the action sports camera business, Soloshot.



Soloshot's camera's will track you as you are moving (surfing, biking, skateboarding, skiing, water skiing, etc.) by following a tag device that you have attached to you, such as on an armband. The cameras are referred to as a robot cameraman.

Soloshot was founded about ten years ago by Chris Boyle, who developed the idea as a way for surfers to film themselves.

So are Soloshot and GoPro competitors? Do you think they compliment each other? What do you think?

Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed

When I first started looking through the Table of Contents of Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility and Crush Your Competition by Patrick Schwerdtfeger, the first words out of my mouth were "Wow." I could see right away how complete the book was and how it covered all possible areas, as it has 80 chapters!

This is the kind of book you wished you had before you even started your business. The chapters are short and concise, and leave out the time-wasting fluff often found in other books. The author provides specific resources and web sites to go to, which is extremely helpful.

One of the things that I found interesting is that some of the recommendations could be applied to other areas of the business. For example, Chapter 6 - The Elevator Pitch describes the structure of creating such a pitch. But the same structure could also be used to create a blog post.

Chapter 9 on Google Codes and Alerts was great. I thought I knew all of them, but I learned a couple new ones, and it also reminded me to start using the ones that I already knew about.

The keyword research trick in Chapter 13 alone is worth more than the price of the book. Easy to do and very useful.

I could go on and on, as the book covers everything from analytics to sales copy to outsourcing. If you are just getting started in your business or you are already into your first, second, or third year of of your startup, I highly recommend that you read Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed.

Another Boring Derivative Piece of Crap Business Book

Do you want more promotion for your business? Do you want your company to get free publicity? Do you want to get attention-getting headlines for your product or service? Then you need to read Another Boring, Derivative, Piece of Crap Business Book: Make The First Basic Leap In Work in 100 Years, Laughing All The Way by Mike Veeck and Allen Fahden.

The book makes it very clear that the best way to get the publicity you want is to do the opposite of what everyone else is doing, and not only that, but do something stupid.

One of the interesting chapters in the book is about how author Allen Fahden wanted to come up with an idea to promote his book. He realized that he should take the advice of his own book, and did something stupid. So he set up a one book bookstore.

He rented 1,000 square feet of retail space, set up various bookshelves with different sections, such as travel, philosophy, and history, with just his books in all those sections. The sign over his shop said One Book Bookstore. He also posted a little sign that said Shoplifters Welcome.

A woman walked by and asked what he was selling. He invited her in, showed her around, told her about his top ten best selling books list (his book was in all 10 places of course), and she was very impressed. She told him that she writes a small column in the local newspaper and would write about his store.

Within a month, the One Book Bookstore was written about in major magazines and newspapers all across the country, and was covered by ABC and the BBC.

The book has numerous and hilarious ideas and true stories. Here is just a small sample of some of the chapter titles:

Think One Person Can't Make a Difference? - I Killed Disco
We're Number Three and We Don't Try at All
If You're Worried About Covering Your Ass, Learn to Walk Backward
The Joys of Wine Slobbery
English for Me is a Second Language - I Don't Have a First
Bat Night with Tonya Harding

The book is only available in hardback, but it is a small size book, about the hight and width of a regular paperback, so it fits easily inside a briefcase, purse, or carry-on. The book even has a flip page video inside.

For light amusing reading with great, inspirational, funny promotional ideas, I recommend Another Boring, Derivative, Piece of Crap Business Book.