I have been working here at Grasshopper for a year now, and most of you probably either know me as “The Ambassador of Buzz” or @grasshopperbuzz. For those who don’t know me, my job consists of a lot of different things jam packed into one. One of these things is trying to get our customers (entrepreneurs) press & buzz.

Believe it or not, it’s actually encouraged for me to do this; our founders are equally happy if I get press for a customer or for Grasshopper. I have gotten customers featured in the Wall St. Journal, ABC news and most recently, I was able to land coverage for Grasshopper customer Lanorma Huggins-Hopes on CityFlight.com and Zak Normandin on Top Entrepreneur TV.

I really take pleasure in helping customers gain buzz and awareness as I understand how big of a hurdle this can be when starting up a business. That’s why I am always looking for new ways to promote customers and new relationships that might help me do so.

I was very fortunate to recently be introduced to MO.com, a site (run by entrepreneurs) that features entrepreneurs and highlights their business strategies, philosophies, and methodologies.

I would like to introduce you to Brian Null; he is the founder of MO.com, and an entrepreneur himself. After speaking with Brian for just a few minutes it was immediately clear to me that we both shared a similar passion for entrepreneurship and learning about people’s unique journeys.

Brian has a great opportunity for Grasshopper customers and any entrepreneurs who follow our blog:

Hi Jonathan and thanks to you and Grasshopper for the recent opportunity for MO.com to interview David Hauser, Co Founder of Grasshopper. MO.com is built to shine a light on entrepreneurs and their “M.O.”, or Modus Operandi / Method of Operating. As you mentioned, we are entrepreneurs ourselves and nothing gets us more energized than speaking with other entrepreneurs.

We have a bit of a slant toward Internet entrepreneurs, because the Internet has created such an amazing vehicle to launch a business in a very cost effective and rapid manner. However, we like to talk with entrepreneurs from all walks, across all industries, and from around the world. We were excited to find Grasshopper (a testament that viral video marketing works) and to discover how enthusiastic your group is about entrepreneurship and supporting those efforts.

For the folks reading this, if you’re an entrepreneur or know of one we should feature on MO.com, please drop us a note. We love to hear new entrepreneurial stories and shine a light on those efforts; it’s our entire focus, or as I like to say, it’s our M.O. .

I can be reached using the contact form on MO.com or you can find me on Twitter at Twitter.com/BrianNull

Thanks again to Grasshopper for this opportunity!

Mo.com is a great opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs and I highly recommend you check out their interviews and pitch your business to Brian.

About Me

When I was about 12 years old, mom would stop the car at the local bakery; I would jump out with a pocket full of change and buy a dozen pastries. It’s Sunday, family dinner day, and I knew what everyone’s favorite pastry was. I also knew which uncles had the most money and which ones did not. As everyone was finishing up their dinners, I set up a table and marked each pastry with a price. Needless to say, the uncles who drove BMW’s had the highest markup!

I’ve always wanted to make a billion dollars by creating something that makes people better at what they do. At my last job I thought I was doing just that, but I was wrong. I cut my losses and quit with about $10,000 in the bank.

Sustainability

Ten thousand dollars might look like it has enough zeroes in it, but it doesn’t go very far. I needed a way to stay afloat while I waited for the billion dollar idea to come to me.

A friend of mine was in the car business. He suggested I buy a car from him at wholesale and resell it myself. I did. I made $1,300 in about 5 hours of actual work!

After a few months, reselling 1 car turned into reselling around 10 cars a month. A one man operation is now a three man effort: myself and my two brothers Jad & Joad. We split profits (and headaches) three-ways, no questions asked as long as each is putting in their 100%. And everyone does.

Birth

It was time to make this car thing a real business. I was pushed into it, and I say pushed because my passion is software and I was starting to get worried that I’d end up being the poster child of sleaziness: a used car dealer!

Motors On Wheels created an entrepreneurial environment around me while I waited for an idea closer to my passion to flourish. It’s like being an entrepreneur to become an entrepreneur.

As Motors On Wheels grew, it became obvious that we needed to streamline many processes to keep our profit margins worthwhile. So we started looking for software solutions.

All the applications we found looked like they were developed in 100 B.C. On top of that, they were extremely overpriced. This is where the entrepreneur and the software developer in me collided to create the idea behind ZipZoomAuto.

Epiphany Day..Today

Yes. We use Ruby at ZipZoomAuto.

After about 8 months in development, ZipZoomAuto was running all of the online marketing for MoW. It was doing the bare minimum and it was very good at it.

The looming question at the time was, should we start giving out beta accounts? Answering no to that question is the biggest strategic mistake of my life. The second biggest mistake was creating cool features that nobody wanted. Some took months to develop and their only contribution was to bloat the codebase and add unnecessary bugs. Also, Motors On Wheels’ success provided us with a comfortable income which made mistakes at ZipZoomAuto feel less detrimental.

Things had to change. Charging for accounts was the only thing that could alter a bad ending.

As soon as a customer starts paying you for something you created (as opposed to a service you’re providing like selling cars) a few things start to happen that alter your behavior:

1. Paying customers will complain and you will listen & enhance.

2. Bugs & features will have real users attached to them and thus more weight.

3. Your application’s roadmap will be guided by your customers and not by cool ideas.

Today, 6 months after we started charging, we have 72 paid accounts with $0 spent on marketing. All we did was give out a few trial accounts to our friends in the car business and they started telling each other.

Our biggest edge over our competitors is we understand the domain of the car business more than any of them. After all, Motors On Wheels is what pays the mortgage. So far.

This brings up a very unusual business model for aspiring entrepreneurs. Work in a domain that is technologically challenged until you understand it profoundly. Then start a business that advances that domain by empowering its actors. Remember to charge early and to be obsessive about customer service.

Thanks to Edith Hernandez and Jonathan Kay for reading drafts of this.

Nash Kabbara is the co-founder of Motors On Wheels and ZipZoomAuto. After working for a few bosses, he decided to start a different kind of company where co-workers don’t feel like they have to be at work, but rather can’t wait to be there. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Houston. When not working towards his goal, you’ll find him reading, training for his next marathon, or simply enjoying life.

You can follow him @nkabbara or email him at nash[at]zipzoomauto.com

This week we are featuring Allan Branch. He’s the co-founder of LessAccounting and also a Grasshopper customer.

Could you explain the philosophy of Less?

We believe business software should easy. It should get out of your way, allowing you to get back to work and make money. Being a business owner is hard enough without having your software make it harder.

I’d love to hear more about your path to entrepreneurship. What were you guys doing before you started Less?

I was a freelance designer and Steve was a contractor doing software engineering. We both were looking for each other we just didn’t realize it at the time.

I’d like to focus on LessAccounting for a second. In college, I had to take this awful accounting class where we learned Peachtree accounting software. After this experience, I vowed to stay as far away from accounting as I could. How does LessAccounting help a guy like me (who can barely add)?

We like to say all bookkeeping software sucks we just suck the least. Bookkeeping should be easy, after all it’s really just adding and subtracting. LessAccounting keeps things simple, organizing your data, showing you where you’re at, who owes you money, who you owe money to, and then having a variety of reports that make it easy to understand your business. We also have bookkeepers on staff ready to help you if you have questions and even help balance your books for you. Ask Intuit or Peachtree to help you do a bank reconciliation.

How is Less different from the software out there everyone’s heard of (Quickbooks)? If Intuit called tomorrow and wanted to buy LessAccounting, would you sell?

Sickbooks is great if you’ve learned it. By learned it I mean spent years banging your head, clicking 17 buttons to discover you’re back where you started, and having your brain numbed with repetitive tasks. LessAccounting was designed to bring people joy. That may sound silly for an accounting software, but we’ve heard time and again that LessAccounting is like a breath of fresh air. Part of bringing joy is making sure we’re there to help when needed: Our tech support is free and Steve and I answer many support calls ourselves. The one thing we do differently from everyone else is we take great care in putting the software together, choosing the placement of every element, figuring out how to make clear what to do next and deciding what not to add so we don’t end up as complicated as other.

I have to admit I’m a huge fan of Less Conference and the work you guys do with that event. The videos rock. Where did that idea come from?

We’ve wanted to do a conference for a while and then we just pulled the trigger. It was a blast and a smashing success. We’re having LessConf 2010 in Atlanta Georgia May 21-22

There are a lot of people out there who have an idea for a great web app but don’t have a technical background. Got any advice for aspiring tech entrepreneurs?

Find that special nerd like I did, someone that complements you well, not a mirror of yourself but someone that pushes you to be awesome, find your “Steve.”

Give us three web apps that you can’t live without. Or that every entrepreneur should know about.

That’s easy: LessAccounting, LessTimeSpent, LessProjects.

Anything else we should know about Less?

I wear a size 15 shoe, Steve changes his hair color often, I started walking at 10 months and Steve’s favorite book is Pride and Prejudice.

Learn more about Allan at Less Accounting or follow him on Twitter @lessallan

First off, you are a great example of a “Young Entrepreneur”. You’ve already been involved in founding how many companies? And are how old?

I’ve founded 2 companies. I started my first, Sparklight Studios, when I was 18 years old. Sparklight is a small creative company specializing in website development, video production and theatrical design. We’ve served nearly 20 clients since we started only 2 years ago, which has been quite an undertaking considering we’re college students. We just launched our new website – http://www.sparklight-studios.com. I also founded RevitalArts (formerly Youth in the Arts) in 2008 with a few friends.

Tell us a little bit about RevitalArts and what makes it so unique.

RevitalArts is an entirely student-run non-profit organization and we received our 501(c)(3) designation by the Federal government in mid-2009. Our mission is to provide young adults with positive, engaging and educational experiences in the arts and to revitalize the participation in and appreciation of the arts. This breaks down into two parts: the first is to put on student-run productions – film festivals, theatrical performances, musical concerts, etc. The second part is to get our local community (in Fairfield/New Haven Counties, CT) interested and engaged in the arts.

We are unique because our organization – from our Board of Directors, to our staff, to our membership, is made up entirely of young people. This is a point we try to push in our PR and fundraising efforts.

Now, I know that you personally have always been involved in music and the arts. What made you want to help others get involved as well?

The arts are my life passion. Some friends and I noticed a lack of summer theatre opportunities in my hometown of Stratford, CT. So we started Square One Teen Theatre, which is now going into it’s 4th summer and is our biggest program. RevitalArts spawned out of the Teen Theatre and another program called the Stratford Film Festival, which was started in 2005. We started the organization as an umbrella company that would oversee programs like the Theatre and Film Festival, and help outside students start their own programs.

Since we were officially formed as of last year, we’ve helped students kick off two brand new programs in Milford and Fairfield, CT. It’s amazing to help and watch these new program grow, because that’s essentially why the organization was started in the first place.

What challenges do you face as a non-profit organization that you don’t in other businesses?

Definitely fundraising. Funding is obviously important for both businesses and non-profits, but it’s very different in our situation. Fundraising involves convincing people that our cause is worthy enough to support monetarily. We had a successful year in 2009 but we still haven’t gotten the full hang of it yet.

Two tips you can give other entrepreneurs looking to start a non-profit:

• Build a strong board and staff who will believe in your cause. Start-up non-profits typically have very limited budgets and you, along with your staff, will have to volunteer significant amounts of time to the organization.

• Focus a lot on your brand and message. Don’t rush through your name, logo, and mission just to get them over with. Spend a lot of time thinking about what the core of your mission is. Then market the heck out of it. For a new non-profit, nothing is more important than a strong message.

You are involved in RevitalArts, Square One, Sparklight Studios AND you go to school. Where do you find the time for all this? You must have some great time management tips to give our readers?

I’m a huge fan of to do lists. I organize my lists into categories (Personal, RevitalArts, School, etc) and pick which ones I’m going to do each day of the week. I’m also a big proponent of sticky notes. I’m also not afraid to delegate when I need to.

Now, we don’t ask everyone this, but since you are a GH customer and have been for quite some time, what is your favorite feature of the virtual phone system (we had to throw in some self-promotion)?

Getting voicemails as email attachments. Grasshopper has a ton of awesome features, but the reason I originally signed up was the convenience of being able to check our voicemail through my email

Thanks to Jared for taking the time to talk with us. If you want more information on Jared, RevitalArts or Sparklight Studios, check out his about page or connect with him on LinkedIn.

This week we are featuring Jonathan Mendez. Jon is extremely well known throughout the online marketing and advertising world, running several successful businesses, speaking at conferences and of course through his blog “Optimize & Prophesize“.

Jon, you have founded how many companies now?

A bunch. I’m in the process of starting my fourth Internet business but I’ve been a lifelong entrepreneur. My first business was in Elementary school. I Xeroxed a bunch of album sleeves and articles from sports magazines and stapled them together in a “magazine” that I sold for 5 cents on the playground. Of course my mother has the only surviving issue. In high school I made a connection with the local Champion sales rep and bought his quarterly sales samples of jerseys, jackets, sweatshirts, etc and resold them to kids in my high school. Eventually we started designing and ordering our own custom lines from Champion. My biggest regret as an entrepreneur is not taking that business with me to college.

What made you want to start your own company initially?

It just never made sense to me to work for someone else besides myself or my family. I was greatly inspired before starting my own business by working for my father who is a successful entrepreneur in technology. By 1998 I had been fully captivated by the potential of the web to change everything about our lives and I wanted to play a part in shaping that. I didn’t know anything about how it worked from a technology perspective but it was pretty clear, even on AOL dial-up that the web would redefine everything and the business opportunities in it over my lifetime would be endless.

Tell us a little bit about Relevance Amplified (RAMP). How was starting this company different from starting OTTO Digital (now Omniture Digital) or Vitamin Lab?

When I started VitaminLab and OTTO I had a very clear picture from the get-go of what kinds of businesses I wanted to create and the problems we would solve. We had specific goals and we were zealous in our efforts to achieve them. When I started Relevance Amplified it was really about professional discovery. I had the luxury of time to experiment with a number of technologies and services while trying to figure out what business problems were most important to solve. So the business/product focus for Relevance Amplified has been emergent based on a ton of learning and also because the web changes so quickly. This has hurt short-term revenue but over the past year we have started executing on the ultimate vision, which may or may not end-up being another start-up all together.

What has been or is the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur?

The difficult part is realizing that no one is going to be as passionate about what you are trying to create as you are. That doesn’t mean you can’t get people excited or inspired. However, one thing it does mean is that you can’t hold people to the same expectations you might set for yourself. Dealing with that realization I’ve found to be difficult in many ways.

For the person thinking of starting a company, what are three things they need to know but aren’t going to find in any books?

• It takes twice as long and costs three times as much
• Everyone’s personality changes when money is involved
• Be prepared to work 18 hour days not because you need to but because you want to. Otherwise, you are in the wrong business.

You have a very successful blog, Optimize & Prophesize, which I’m sure has helped your business grow. Would you recommend that those starting a business create their own blog?

Yes, but the prerequisite is that you have to be a writer. I’ve been writing consistently in one form of another for 25 years so blogging for me has been a natural outlet. If you are not a writer then don’t force yourself to do it. You will fail and you will be taking precious time away from other things that could be helping your business grow. If you do blog, I think it should be a personal blog that covers the business subject not a business subject blog that is covered by a person. If you look at some of the most successful blogs this seems to be the running theme whether it is Seth Godin for Marketing. Avinash for Web Analytics or Perez Hilton for Celebrity. In all types of blogging people make their emotional connection not with the subject but with the author.

And lastly, is there anything you want our readers to know about you?

In relation to being an Entrepreneur I think I will share that I truly love the medium of the web. I have deep rooted passion to change the digital marketing world by making our experiences on it more relevant. In fact, I have this little joke on my LinkedIn profile that my job is Crusader for Relevance. I see that same passion at Grasshopper to help Entrepreneurs. That’s probably why I like you guys so much!

A big thanks for Jon for taking the time to answer our questions. Check out his blog, Optimize & Prophesize or Relevance Amplified for more information. Or you could always follow him on Twitter @JonathanMendez.