An Urge to Action

There are way more business ideas than there are businesses. A good business idea is worthless until it is acted upon. The main thing is to take the first step. It is not possible to predict the outcome of everything. John Maynard Keynes wrote, "Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities."
In other words, if you feel inclined to do something positive, spring to action. Inaction is the default outcome; most people just do not take the first step.

Take www.smoothclay.com as an example. Though there are lots of wise people extolling the virtues of 'Doing what you love and the money will come,' we found through our own experience that there are very few business opportunities that make it possible to do what you love. So we made a business that puts people who love crafts into a sustainable business that they can grow as they wish. The product is a turn-key business package that will help you begin your business, and make your products rare and unique.

It is worth taking a look. Have fun!

Web of Trust

There is a web site rating social network that works pretty well, and gives web users some feedback from those who have been to a particular site before. it is called Web of Trust, or WOT. There are four rating criteria, trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. It is good to see a green circle on a site. A gray circle is not necessarily a bad thing, only that it has not been rated yet. If you want to get your site rated, you can by going to the web site and requesting a rating. Read the forums to find out how to go about it, and be patient and cordial. A Google search with Firefox will show the WOT rating beside each of the listings before you click. Perhaps others do that too, but in general with other browsers and search engines, I find that you have to go to the site before the rating is shown.

WOT also has a way to monetize their offering for commercial sites. The subscription approach looks to be useful but I have not used it yet.

It took a while to get the rating for smoothclay.com, but I am glad I did it. The green symbol is a badge that indicates that others trust the site.