Avi Karnani, our tenacious CEO convinced me to forgo dreams of the west coast and join the team in New York. I started in the beginning of September as the Product Manager.

What are we doing?

…we’re building the first on-line, 24/7 financial advisory for young adults. We help people in their twenties and thirties gain control over their financial lives by helping them figure out what to do with their money-aside from spending it!

The Loudwater Labs team had been hard at work with Thrive before I joined, and I’m honored to be working with such a talented group of people. The website is ready for you to use it, so try it for free and tell me what you think in the comments below.

p.s. We’re also looking for talented software engineers to join the team.

Where to cut back

I can’t stop my hair growing. As hard as I will it to stop, my hair keeps on trucking. To prevent myself looking like Cousin Itt’s twin brother, I need to take care of it. That generally means going to get a haircut. I’ve gone to chinatown in boston to save a few bucks, but the guy didnt speak english and I ended up with a great fade, but a terrible haircut. I’ve also gone to newbury st. but ended up with a mediocre haircut for a big price. It’s really not that hard to cut a guys hair. So, my buddy Ben “Le Coiffure” Winterroth does it for me. It’s a great way to save some loot. There are times however, that going the cheap route is not better.

Where to spend top dollar

Ramen is not nutrition. Say it with me Ramen is not nutrition. Food is one area where I will never try to be cheap. The picture to the left is my dinner from Friday. Chicken breast with broccoli and spinach-carrot salad. My diet might change when I’m in Argentina, but in general I buy organic, and cook dinner at home. If you try it for a week, I guarantee you’ll notice the difference in your alertness, happiness and overall well-being.

These are just a couple of suggestions for how to and how not to bootstrap. What are the things you would never give up to save some cash?

Thanks to Nate Aune of Jazkarta and BetaHouse fame for the link!

Unfortunately, I can’t afford to fly like those damn consultants I hung out with the other night. Nor can I justify the price for the luxury bus from boston to new york. I also value my life, so I wont take Fung Wah. I’ll take Greyhound!

Web 1.0 was all about buying 100 servers and having your own techs in data centers. How big was your rack? Companies today are moving to VPS providers like Slicehost. VPS have a fantastic role in providing hosting for your small to medium site (like this one). But what about if you want to build the next facebook? One of the presenters at Amazon’s AWS event “The Start-up Project” showed us this chart:

Pretty scary! This is daily pageviews as a percentage of total pageviews on the internet. As you can see, facebook just destroys CNN and Flickr. Amazon AWS tries to answer the question: How do I scale like facebook!

The alternative to Amazon AWS

One alternative to Amazon is to buy space in a data center and fill a rack with servers in anticipation of users. This is a lesson that was learned by one of the guys in Betahouse at a previous startup. They bought a bunch of servers for customers that never came. What a great way to burn money! The other alternative is to try and scale using VPS providers like slicehost. You’re going to hit some technical difficulties pretty quickly and have to solve the problems amazon already has.

Amazon provides a solution for starting small and scaling big if and when you need it. How many other companies let you pay for 10 extra servers for only 8 hours during peak time in the US when everyone is at the office? If you know others that do, let me know!

I’ll dive into some of the various technologies in later articles. For now, you need to know that you can build a site to take over the world and your starting cost will be $72 a month + data transfer.

Want to win some money using AWS?

Check out “The Startup Project“. Amazon is offering some cold hard cash for companies to use their services.

Get Skype-in

What is it: Skype-in is an add-on that gives you a land-line number
Cost: $60 / year per number

Don’t want to do everything on your cell phone? You can give people your New York office number when you’re sitting in London. Skype-in makes it easy to get a number virtually anywhere in the world . I lived without a cell phone for about two months. During this time, I gave everyone my Skype-in number. Now, I primarily forward this number to my cell phone. No reprinting business cards. You can give prospective customers the illusion of stability, for a mere $60 per year.

Record your calls

Negotiating a business deal? Dealing with customer service reps? Record those calls. Call Recorder allows you to hit record on those important conversations. You can even send the audio to Chillibreeze or a similar service to transcribe it. Audio converted to text makes really easy to find what someone promised / said six months ago.

Skype-out

The big problem skype hasnt figured out is caller id. A lot of people complain that my caller id shows up as 123456789 or 100000000. If you’re using skype, skype out will save you money. Call quality is good, and it is pretty cheap.

Other devices

For the older entrepreneur, check out Phillips VOIP841, a skype phone that requires no computer. Just plug it in to your broadband connection and it works. My parents have one and love it.

As for headsets, on the mac, I’ve previously reviewed Sennheiser’s PC150 headset. I love sennheiser for audio quality and would highly recommend them to anyone serious about skype.

For other software for business people in startups, check out my article on CSS Edit

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.
- Bill Gates

Tim talks of how to outsource to a Virtual Assistant:

Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash.

These are valuable points. In larger businesses and even small businesses in which I’ve worked, “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is too often the answer to a question.

When starting a new business, get your processes and procedures down before you scale.

Eating Right

You can save money on office supplies, clothing, drinking, women, but don’t skimp on fresh food!

When at the supermarket, your best bet is to buy lots of fruits and vegetables and make your own meals. If you can’t cook (you should learn), try and stay away from the frozen food that is heavy in potatoes, pasta and other starchy carbs. Smart Ones has many options that skip the starch for green veggies. Also, try different things out to see how they make you feel. Personally, I feel better when I substitute rice for wheat. Accordingly, I prefer to eat rice cakes instead of bread. I substitute oatmeal instead of a wheat based cereal. Quinoa is another great alternative grain to have with meals. It’s higher in protein than wheat and has a balanced set of amino acids! Now that your belly is full, we’re moving on to jump-starting your mind.

Brain enhancing drugs

We all need to perk up and switch our brains on now and then. For an alternative to coffee, try Yerba Mate. Mate is a great alternative to coffee that doesn’t make your breath or pee strange. I usually drink it with honey and milk. My colleague Ryan seems to drink a lot of sugar free red bull, but that makes me feel a little too wired. If you do opt for coffee, I saw on the today show that unfiltered coffee (aka the expensive stuff) causes high cholesterol.

Eating out

This is the hard one to do well. Generally, it is hard to eat balanced on the cheap when eating out. Generally, I try and avoid eating out because of it. My budget for a meal out is generally $10 a head or less (which is also what I would be willing to spend on a good meal at home). Occasionally, we go out for a nice dinner. You can take a look at the places I like to go on my Yelp! profile. Also, to see where I head when Im too lazy to cook, check out my Cheap Eats list for boston!

*Speaking of flying, I just got in to London this morning and was met by my dad and good friend Shawn at the airport. We grabbed some breakfast at the airport and it was then proven to me that it is STILL possible to get bad food in England. It was one of these british chains – the name slips my memory. I got the traditional english breakfast – fried egg, bacon, sausage, tomato, mushrooms (It was terrible). So, the point is – do as I say, not as I do!

On another note, if you need to combine two PDFs on your mac, check out this hint on how to do it using Automator

Quote from good will hunting (said with Boston accent)

you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f***in’ education you coulda’ got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.

Unless your startup is rolling in the dough, get a library card. The library has a wealth of books – especially in larger and academic cities like Boston. Use these resources to get the knowledge you lack without forking over dough.