Here are my top five links – all fantastic resources for you and your microbusiness!
1. 99U: Insights on making ideas happen
I have to start with 99U which for many years has been my one main source of ideas and inspiration for the last 5 years. I love it – it speaks to me as a doer and as someone working in the creative world.
The clear quality of writing and intelligence keep my attention and motivate me: the focus on doing (and being); the breadth of interests while keeping true to mission/vision and values; the ease of reading. It is definitely number one for me.
Current favourite 99u blog post: How to give yourself critical feedback
Other great blog posts on 99U:
Embrace Constraints
It's Time to Rethink Productivity
The Surprising Benefits of Creative Rivalry
2. Project Eve: Reinvent your career
Another one from across the waters. I get most of my information from Project Eve on twitter. They post regularly which might otherwise lose my attention but the topics seem constantly relevant to me. They also make sure that they post to European timing. Although they are woman business focused, the information is widely relevant.
Current blog post: What entrepreneurs fear the most
Other great blogs posts on Project Eve:
Ditch Your Desk: A Mini-guide to Freelance Working
15 tips for Marketing Yourself
5 Tried and Tested Promotional Giveaways
3. Tara Gentile: Grow your business, live the future
The guru of the New Economy – Tara's intelligent, curious, open love of business and the new economy is infectious. She regularly confronts old thinking and turns things on their heads.
The new economy for her is the shift from consumer culture to creator culture, and she supports micro-entrepreneurs, helping them to understand themselves in this new context.
Her blog is for solopreneurs, bootstrappers, freelancers, joint ventures, teams, agencies, startups and enterprises.
Current blog post: How to Avoid Saying "No" — and Get More of the "Yes" You Want
Other great blog posts by Tara:
Sell the End Result, Not the Service (or Product, or Program)
Can your business bring love to scale?
You are the New Economy: Meaning, Experience, and Connection as Commerce in the 21st Century
4. The Design Trust: start grow and run your own design and craft business
The Design Trust is UK based and set up to support makers, designers and creators in their enterprises – but it has fantastic resources beyond this group. Run by the inspiring Patricia van den Akker it offers a fantastic range of practical and insightful support in setting up and running your business, pricing and costing, and ways of using all your skills to make money to express yourself and make sales.
Great blog posts from The Design Trust:
How to increase my prices (confidently and without losing clients)
How to identify your niche market
Costing and pricing
5. Buddify 2
I honestly didn't mean to write this about people who are speaking at Small is Beautiful. I regularly recommend Buddify 2 to people I am working with.
As freelancers and micros, we are often working on our own and balancing a multitude of roles – business development, communication, production, marketing, consulting, accountancy, IT, etc. We need to be centred and balanced to keep riding the waves of activity, of doing and being. This magnificent app has saved the day (and night) for me so often in the last few months since it came out.
What are your top links for microbusiness owners? Leave us a comment or tweet your ideas to @smallisb!
