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7 Keys to Successful Business Websites: Free Webinar
Jan 31st
Websites are the best, most affordable, yet underused marketing tool for small businesses.
But sadly few businesses understand how to utilize these powerful, measurable marketing vehicles for their businesses.
At Made by Wheat, our professional web design services company, we’re doing a special educational workshop on Feb. 23 titled “7 Keys to Successful Business Websites.”
In this free webinar you’ll learn how to:
- Get a Website You Can Control
- Start Talking to Google
- Get Blogging
- Help Customers Easily Contact You
- Build a Following
- Motivate Actions
- Evaluate and Refine Your Website for Maximum Impact
Signup for this special workshop led by myself and Ty Carlson of Made by Wheat here:
7 Keys to Successful Business Websites
Thursday, Feb. 23 at Noon Central Standard Time
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/227459018
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
Score One for Web Freedom
Jan 20th
The good news is … SOPA and PIPA have been delayed by the House and Senate.
The bad news is … they will come back with brand new clothes, a shiny new name, and more teeth soon. In fact, they could come back with a venegeance because of the forces behind them.
Millions of people rallied together to tell those who represent us that we will fight to protect our freedom on the Web — the greatest communications tool ever invented.
These are historic times. People coming together to present a unified voice. I am inspired. I think we all are.
The protests were billed as the largest online protests in history with sites blacking out. WOW!
I know this for a fact though: People will come together only when something seeks to destroy what they hold dear.
SOPA and PIPA did that for those of us who enjoy, respect and cherish our web freedom. It rallied us all together.
But the fight is not over.
YOU, like us, must be ready to let your voice be heard …. and the power of your vote known to those who represent us. The message must be clear:
Seek to take away our web freedoms by legislating crappy bills, and we’re going to put you on the unemployment line.
Looking at these numbers … I think some people in Washington started to take notice.
We can and we will vote them straight out of office. So I hope the lobbyists helping to create these flawed bills have a job open for them when that happens.
So this week is an epic week, a historic week … one we cannot forget. They will simply wait for our fervor to die down, and sneak something sleazy in again.
We must be ready for the next wave.
In the meantime, here’s a quick thought for the industries who have sought to buy (I mean “lobby”) the votes to get this legislation created and passed:
Instead of protecting your once cash cow, now withering business models and spending millions of dollars to legislate it back to relevance … HOW ABOUT REINVENTING IT INSTEAD?!
Make [whatever you produce] BETTER for the world. Not just your pocketbook.
Think about value instead of how fat your vault is.
For examples, please look to iTunes for the music industry. Netflix for the video rental industry. And Google for the entire advertising industry.
If you don’t … we’ll continue to vote you out of business with our pocketbooks … and as you recently saw, the people who represent you.
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- Ideas Suck, Implementation of Ideas Rocks
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
The Entrepreneurial Adventure Book is Here!
Jan 6th
In 2008 I started my entrepreneurial journey with the founding of iThemes. This month, in fact, is my four year anniversary of becoming a full-time entrepreneur and living my lifelong dream.
Throughout the years as we’ve enjoyed our definition of success and others have seen it, I’ve been increasingly asked by friends and acquaintances about how they can get started in entrepreneurship.
Thus, I started StartupSofa to be an online resource for budding entrepreneurs, done talks, webinars and workshops, and now am proud to release a short book called “The Entrepreneurial Adventure: Is It For You?”
Entrepreneurship is an adventure — a long, arduous journey like climbing one of the world’s highest mountains. As such budding entrepreneurs should know the risks involved, what an entrepreneur does for the world and ask themselves some tough questions before starting on the journey.
In this book I share my experiences as a startup entrepreneur and offer advice on aligning your life’s passions and purpose, and how to prepare for the entrepreneurial climb.
It’s short enough to read in less than an hour, but I’ve packed with lessons I’ve learned and resources I’ve found extremely helpful for starting a business.
In this book, you’ll …
- Learn how a compelling vision of the future helps keep the right motivations aligned
- Realize the risks and rewards of being an entrepreneur
- Be challenged with essential questions to unearth your life’s passions and purpose
- Understand what an entrepreneurship does for the world
- Get tips for starting a business without risking everything
- Find a blueprint of essential books and resources to prepare you for your entrepreneurial journey
If you’re an aspiring or budding entrepreneur, this book is for you.
Here’s how to get the book:
- Purchase it in the Kindle Store
- Signup for this email newsletter (or be an iThemes customer!)
- (Coming Soon! In print)
Here’s to those daring and ready for the entrepreneurial journey!
Related posts:
- Wanna Start a Business? Check Out our Pre-Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Dec. 17
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
Made by Wheat to Offer Custom WordPress Design
Nov 29th
I’m pleased to announce our new web design services division named Made by Wheat and led by our newest team member Ty Carlson.
I began my entrepreneurial journey first as a freelance web designer in WordPress before I started iThemes full-time in January 2008 (and still get random requests for custom work which I don’t do anymore).
As such we’ve endeavored to build tools and offer training to help others become web designers and build high-quality sites for their clients.
I continue to be amazed at the opportunities for good, quality web designers all over the world, but none of us should be amazed at it. (Google with over 30,000 people and almost $30 billion in revenue didn’t even exist 15 years ago!)
Dependable and able designers and developers are hot commodities right now. There is more work than able and/or available people to do it!
Through Made by Wheat, we want to serve a different and unique kind of client who doesn’t fit our iThemes “ideal” customer, but wants more custom, hands-on consulting and design services.
Often I say that iThemes is like the Home Depot of web design. You come to our store, pick out the tools and templates you want to use and you do-it-yourself. We offer a great support forum backed by knowledgable and helpful moderators, but ultimately, you build your sites yourself.
Made by Wheat will serve customers who want to pay someone else to just do it for them.
So with this introduction, I wanted to offer some details about Made by Wheat and what you can expect.
WHAT IS MADE BY WHEAT EXACTLY?
It is a team (or company within a company) we started to offer custom, high-quality web design services using and showcasing all of our products — from iThemes Builder to BackupBuddy and everything in between.
It is led by Ty Carlson, a veteran web designer / developer from Oklahoma City.
This is our custom services division. We will work hard to keep the brands separate, except for showing off work done through it that illustrate what you can do with our products. Made by Wheat will market and find its own clients.
WHY ARE WE DOING IT?
We decided to push forward with this for a number of reasons, including:
1. To give our customers what they have been asking for – which is custom services for our products, primarily, iThemes Builder. We’ve long had a services page on iThemes and have gotten an increasingly large volume of requests, but to date have been referring to other outlets. We will continue to refer most of those services out to others, but this will give us an outlet for custom sites. And we’ve actually done client services before. Almost two years ago, we were doing all client work through WebDesign.com before we unveiled our training membership. We ultimately shut that down as it was bad timing on our part.
2. To be a showcase for our products – We want to show what’s possible with our products through our services division, in particular, iThemes Builder. You can see Ty’s work on my personal site here at CoryMiller.com, built with iThemes Builder.
3. To be a shining example of how a custom web design shop can be run – I anticipate us using the things we’re learning, almost every day, with this team through our WebDesign.com training division and other venues. As such, it will serve to be an actual R&D lab. My hope is we can share tips, tricks, ideas, trends and more to our community.
4. To give input to our dev teams on how to make our products better – having a custom shop in our company allows our dev teams from iThemes and PluginBuddy to hear from and see how the Made by Wheat team is using it, what needs to be improved, and what gaps we have in our product offering.
***
There’s a little bit about Made by Wheat.
You can follow progress by signing up at http://MadeByWheat.com or on Twitter @madebywheat.
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- New WordPress Custom Graphic Design Service
- A Custom WordPress Theme Design and Logo I’m Really Proud of
- Start a Custom WordPress Theme Freelance Web Business
View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
Wanna Start a Business? Check Out our Pre-Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Dec. 17
Nov 18th
Since I started my business full-time in 2008, achieving a lifelong dream, I’ve had numerous people, most of whom are friends and family, ask me what it takes to become an entrepreneur.
Helping others start the adventure of entrepreneurship is a passion of mine, so I’ve teamed with a couple of veteran entrepreneurs to do the Pre-Entrepreneurship Bootcamp: What You Need to Know and Do Before Starting a Business on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. in Oklahoma City at our nonprofit foundation, The Div.
This event is designed for aspiring or budding entrepreneurs – those who have an idea, itch or passion to run your own business, but need some direction and help getting started.
We want to provide basic training where entrepreneurs find answers, tools and help to start and grow great businesses that change the world.
WHO’S PRESENTING
Here are the people who will be sharing their experience and expertise in entrepreneurship for this event:
* Michael S. Smith — ran Gemini Industries in El Reno for a number of years and took it from $8 million to $35 million in sales before eventually selling the company. He now leads Oxygen for Organizations, mentoring entrepreneurs.
* Christian Brim – is a CPA who founded and runs Core Group, an accounting and financial services firm with locations throughout Oklahoma, and a member of Entrepreneurship Organization.
* Cory Miller – that’s me. I co-founded iThemes in 2008 and since starting our business in my home we now have 23+ team members scattered throughout the world, three primary brands (and more coming), an office in Edmond, Oklahoma, and this summer started The Div, our nonprofit tech foundation where the bootcamp will be held.
* We also have a couple of local attorneys who are going to be on hand to present and be available during the event for those who need direction on how to get legal help for your business.
REGISTRATION
I believe you’ve got to have a deep level of commitment, drive and passion to be an entrepreneur, so we’re asking for a donation of $50 per registrant for this special bootcamp, with all proceeds going to support The Div and our work through this nonprofit foundation, including lunch for the day.
We are also offering an online version of the bootcamp via webinar for those not in Oklahoma. The donation for this will be $40 a person.
If you have any questions about the bootcamp, please contact The Div through our contact form.
SIGNUP FOR PRE-ENTREPRENEURSHIP BOOTCAMP DEC. 17 HERE
SCHEDULE & TOPICS
8a.m. – Registration and Coffee
8:30 — Welcome and Intros
9 a.m. – SESSION 1: IS IT FOR YOU? (Cory Miller) — We’ll weigh the costs and benefits of entrepreneurship, talk about the purpose and role of an entrepreneur and what they do for the world and ask some hard questions.
9:50 a.m. – SESSION 2: MONEY (Cory Miller) – We’ll talk about the role of your personal finances in becoming a full-time entrepreneur, along with the role of money and how to get your financial house in order.
10:30 a.m. — SESSION 3 (Michael Smith): PERSONAL & TEAM ASSET INVENTORY – Taking inventory of your skills, strengths, experiences, expertise will help you on the journey.
11:15 a.m. – SESSION 4: THE COMPELLING VISION (Michael Smith) — Knowing where you want to go will help keep you on the right path.
Noon – Working Lunch (Lunch is provided)
1:00 p.m. – SESSION 5: SUPPORT (Cory Miller) — Getting the right support system in place before you start is key to your continued success. We’ll talk about the key people you need on your team.
1:50 p.m. – SESSION 6: YOUR ONE-PAGE BIZ PLAN (Michael Smith) — you need an initial game plan for your business idea. We’ll talk about the basics of a good plan and how to start one.
2:30 p.m. – SESSION 7: ACCOUNTING (Christian Brim) — Without money, and good accounting practices, your business is dead. Get nuts and bolts tips for vital aspect of running a business.
3:15 p.m. – SESSION 8: LEGAL (TBA) — Things you need to know about getting your business legal and how to find the right help.
4 p.m. — SESSION 9: RECRUITING & RESOURCES (Cory Miller) — How to gather the right resources and recruit the right people to your team.
4:45 p.m. — SESSION 10: WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION (Cory Miller) — The work of an entrepreneur almost never stops. Here are some do’s and don’ts, including personal stories, pitfalls and experiences.
5:30 p.m. – FINAL WORD & CHALLENGE & Q&A
* Please note times will vary. We want to provide practical help for those eager to start their entrepreneurial adventure.
SIGNUP FOR PRE-ENTREPRENEURSHIP BOOTCAMP DEC. 17 HERE
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- Do You Have What It Takes to Start a Business?
- On Giving Back – Our New Nonprofit Launched This Week
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
Homepage Text
Nov 11th
Cory Miller
{ Entrepreneur | Blogger | Author | Hubs }
Cory Miller (that’s me) is a passionate entrepreneur who believes in finding and maintaining work happiness (for himself and others) that aligns with your purpose and plays to your strengths, talents and ambitions, while challenging you to do great things with your life.
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On Giving $100K in Free WordPress Resources to Educators
Sep 23rd
One of our core values at iThemes (and my personal life) is … Learn and Grow, then Teach and Share.
Our commitment has always to helping individuals on our teams grow and push themselves to do more.
We started a nonprofit web tech foundation to help individuals in Oklahoma aspire to make careers in web design and development.
Today, we just announced our Education Program with another example of how we live this core value — we’re giving away about $100K in free web design resources to educators.
Learn more about our new Education Program here … and if you’re an Educator, see if you qualify and submit an application!
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- Why Free Internet Delivery Is the Future for TV and Movies
- WordPress Plugin Store Launches Tomorrow
- On Giving Back – Our New Nonprofit Launched This Week
View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
On Giving Back – Our New Nonprofit Launched This Week
Jul 22nd
Since even before I started iThemes in my home in 2008, my partners and I were thinking that if at some point our fledgling business succeeds and thrives, we wanted to find ways to give back in various ways.
Now going on our fourth year of business, we’ve started to put our money and time and effort where our mouth is.
This year, we donated money to a local project that helps refugees in Oklahoma City through iThemes.
And this week I’m delighted to help announce a new nonprofit foundation that Digimedia LP and iThemes have created called The Div.
The purpose is to foster web innovation and creativity in Oklahoma City. We’re going to do that in a number of ways, including offering local training opportunities through weekly and monthly workshops and classes, coworking days to gather the local web community, hosting web-related user groups, and social gatherings periodically.
Learn more about The Div and what we’re doing here and be sure to follow The Div on Twitter. And if you’re a web professional in Oklahoma City, please signup to volunteer or sponsor events and activities.
Related posts:
- Intermediate WordPress Developer Training in Oklahoma City
- Learn and Grow Days, Project Sabbaticals, or 20 Percent Time
- Our Newest New Venture: WebDesign.com
View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
On Communicating Transparently Our Business Plan
May 20th
Yesterday, I did a State of iThemes presentation to our community in order to unpack our core values, philosophies and business objectives and goals for 2011.
I’ve done this before, but in the last 3+ years running a business, especially an online one, I’ve realized how valuable it is to simply communicate transparently who we are and how we run our business.
With over 250 people registered, the response was overwhelming, exciting and motivating. We’ve had a number of community members tell us they love our business and our team and are committed to being customers with us for the foreseeable future.
Key takeaway: Explain who you are, your unique philosophy about how and why you do business … and it wins fans.
Here is the video replay from the webinar:
Here are the slides from the webinar:
2011 State of iThemes Address
View more presentations from Cory Miller
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
My First Book is Out: WordPress All-in-One for Dummies
May 2nd
It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to write a book and thanks to my friend Lisa Sabin-Wilson, I had the privilege of doing so by co-authoring WordPress All-in-One for Dummies (Wiley 2011), which debuted last month.
Arguably one of the hardest projects I’ve ever taken on, I couldn’t have done so without the help of my excellent team at iThemes, especially Chris Jean and Matt Danner.
Our “book in a book” in this 900-plus-page tome was the one on WordPress themes. It is a great desk reference for anyone interesting in using WordPress to build great sites and includes information on search engine optimization, WordPress multi-site and plugins, among much more.
Check out the book here on Amazon and for a limited time we’re giving away copies as part of our WordPress Web Designer’s Toolkit package (with over $3,000 in themes, plugins and training).
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View full post on Cory Miller | Adventures in Entrepreneurship
