Thinking of starting a new business? Need help with a business that you just started? Enter our “Jump Start Your Business” contest and win a b5media Prize Pack valued at more than $2000 including free financial software, merchandise and valuable business advice from the business professionals at b5media!

Our Rules
Our Questions
Our Prizes
Our Sponsors
Our Experts
Our Disclaimers

Our Rules

• Entries must be sent via email with “Jump Start Your Business” in the subject line to businesscontest@mac.com by 11:59p.m. EST on September 25, 2007.
• Format: Plain Text or PDF Only. No other attachments or formats will be accepted.
• You must be at least 18 years old to participate.
• Contest is open to new businesses or fledgling businesses which have been in existence for less than one year.
• By entering the contest, you agree that b5media may post any part or all of your submission, as a part of the contest announcements or promotions, with the exception of your email address.
• To be considered, entries must also include the following:
  1. Name of applicant (either team or individual)
  2. Where you live (city and state or country is sufficient)
  3. Email address. We won’t publish your email address, but we do need contact information for the winning entries. We respect your privacy, and we will not send you anything unrelated to your entry in this contest.

Our Questions

• To enter, send us your abbreviated business plan for a your new or fledgling business with the following information:
  1. What’s your business idea?
  2. Who is on your business team - in other words, who is going to make this idea work?
  3. When did you start your business? Or when do you plan to start your business? What is your time frame for success?
  4. Why is this business going to be a success?
  5. Why should we pick you as the winner?
• Your abbreviated business plan should be no longer than 1000 words.

Our Prizes

The Grand Prize winner receives the Prize Pack including:

• A subscription to Entrepreneur magazine, courtesy of Entrepreneur.com
• A Web Developer host package for one year (consists of 5 domains, 600 subdomains and 200 host external domains; 300 GB web space 3,000 monthly transfer volume and 50 ftp accounts; 4,000 email accounts and 2 GB mailbox space; $475 of vouchers to get you started with Microsoft adCenter, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search marketing and Citisearch; 10 free blogs and more), courtesy of 1and1.com
• A Private Jet billing package for one year (up to 500 clients, unlimited invoicing and customer support), courtesy of Freshbooks.com
• A b5media tee shirt, courtesy of b5 media
• Your choice of a taxgirl organic tee or long sleeve tee and $25 gift card to amazon.com, courtesy of taxgirl.com
• Wireless mouse, wireless keyboard and keyboard riser, courtesy of InterviewChatter.com
• A twelve month subscription to the Sales Leadership Zone, a place where sales leaders and small business owners can find everything they need to increase sales and drive business, courtesy of thesalespractitioners.com
• A copy of Phil Gerbyshak’s book, 10 Ways to Make it Great, courtesy of SlackerManager.com
• $50 in Pecunix Digital Gold Currency, courtesy of digitalmoneyworld.com
• Jason Alba’s new book, “I’m on LinkedIn…Now What???”, courtesy of LinkedIntelligence.com

and over $1000 of free business advice (in the form of email, phone or Skype) from our experts to get you started!

The first runner up will receive:

• A subscription to Entrepreneur magazine, courtesy of Entrepreneur.com
• A Business Developer host package for one year (consists of 3 domains, 200 subdomains and 100 host external domains; 250 GB web space 2,500 monthly transfer volume and 25 ftp accounts; 2,500 email accounts and 2 GB mailbox space; $250 of vouchers to get you started with Microsoft adCenter, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search marketing and Citisearch; 10 free blogs and more), courtesy of 1and1.com
• A Shuttle Jet billing package for six months (up to 25 clients, unlimited invoicing and customer support), courtesy of Freshbooks.com
• A copy of Phil Gerbyshak’s book, 10 Ways to Make it Great, courtesy of SlackerManager.com
• and free consulting advice from two of our experts of your choosing.

The second runner up will receive:

• A subscription to Entrepreneur magazine, courtesy of Entrepreneur.com
• A Business Developer host package for one year (consists of 3 domains, 200 subdomains and 100 host external domains; 250 GB web space 2,500 monthly transfer volume and 25 ftp accounts; 2,500 email accounts and 2 GB mailbox space; $250 of vouchers to get you started with Microsoft adCenter, Google AdWords, Yahoo Search marketing and Citisearch; 10 free blogs and more), courtesy of 1and1.com
• A copy of Phil Gerbyshak’s book, 10 Ways to Make it Great, courtesy of SlackerManager.com
• and free consulting advice from two of our experts of your choosing.

Our Sponsors

A big THANK YOU to our sponsors! Please let them know that they are appreciated!

1 & 1 Internet, Inc.
Entrepreneur Magazine
Freshbooks, Inc.

The entire b5 media Business Channel community:

Behind the Buzz
Brandcurve
Business and Blogging
Buzz Networker
Common Sense PR
Contract Worker
Copy Blogger

Digital Money World
Franchise Pick
Home Biz Notes
Interview Chatter
Just Make Money Online
Leadership Turn
Life Dev
Linked Intelligence
Pimp Your Work

Property Crossroads
Slacker Manager
Small Business Boomers
Start Up Spark
Successful Blog
Taxgirl
Work Boxers
Yielding Wealth

and thanks to Don at Archetype Digital Solutions for designing our promotional badge!

Our Experts

• tax tips from Kelly Phillips Erb of taxgirl.com
• consulting and marketing advice from Jim Norton of smallbusinessboomers.com
• marketing direction from Rico Masterson of contract-worker.com
• personal finance and blogging information from Miranda Marquit of yieldingwealth.com
• using a range of social media tools in marketing and connecting with a community from Rachel Clarke of behindthebuzz.com
• hiring practices and creating core competencies for positions from Darlene McDaniel of interviewchatter.com
• identifying business purpose and strategy for a blog from Des Walsh of deswalsh.com
• coaching from Miki Saxon, courtesy of rampupsolutions.com
• Linked In makeover from Scott Allen of LinkedIntelligence.com
• marketing and brand identity critique from Sean Kelly of franchisepick.com
• copywriting tips from Brian Clark of copyblogger.com
• home business advice from Mary Emma Allen of homebiznotes.com
• Copy editing, writing, or website usability advice from Eric Eggertson of CommonsensePR.com
• Customer service and community relations advice from Douglas Hanna of ServiceUntitled.com
• tech marketing advice from Sunir Shah of Freshbooks, Inc.

Our Disclaimers

• The winning entries will be determined by a panel of judges from b5media at our sole discretion. Our decision is final.
• Prizes cannot be redeemed for cash or cash equivalent.
• Donated prizes cannot be guaranteed; we reserve the right to make substitutions of equal or greater value if necessary.

How Does It Work And When Does It Collapse?

As his most famous 1920 operation became larger, Charles Ponzi, started to get questioned about his ‘investment’ scam. The most serious questions were centered on two topics. One set of questions looked at him personally and one line of questioning looked at his investment company.

The personal line of questions dug into Mr. Ponzi’s background. People asked reasonable questions such as, “…how Charles Ponzi could have gone from being broke to becoming a millionaire in so short a time.” The year was 1920 and a dramatic increase in wealth during such a short period of a few months was a real miracle.

Inquisitive people checked into to Mr. Ponzi’s background. They wanted to find what schools he attended or the financial firms he had previously worked for…..but they only found that he had been in prison. There was no legacy of higher learning or earlier years of experience working in finance. They began to ask, how he could be such a financial genius with no formal education, no financial investment training and only months earlier he was broke?

The question that echoed was, “…how did he become so good so quick?”

The next line of questions attacked his business. As it turned out, Mr. Ponzi’s largest scam was promising outrageously large returns and claiming logistically impossible numbers. People asking the questions then reverse calculated his ‘investment’ numbers based on the amount of money he was taking in….and alarm bells started to go off.

Ponzi’s largest scam, centered around ‘postal reply coupons’ and he claimed his company business earned returns in excess of 400%. He then offered the public a 50% return in 45 days, or a doubling of their money in 90 days. Sound familiar? After calculating the total investor funds and the amount of interest payable to his ‘investors’ the reverse engineered numbers quickly proved that his business was a total scam.

For his 1920’s operation to have been legitimate, there would need to be more then 160 million postal reply coupons in open circulation. But at the time of his operation there were just 27,000 actually circulating. When the public saw this problem, there was an ‘investor’ run on his bank. He no longer took in more than he paid out and the scam collapsed.

Let’s take a closer look at the A3Union Ponzi scam. They offer three basic investor options, three different lengths and returns: [7 days 12%], [14 days 28%] and [92 days 200%] I’ll examine two, the ‘Classic 12%’ and the ‘Low Risk Classic 200%’ options.

Read more

Last week ushered in a shiny new golden beginning for digital money users. C-gold, a Malaysian start up digital gold currency, quietly entered the marketplace and now just a few days old it is rapidly gaining acceptance. C-gold, operates very similar to e-gold and even has that deja vu look and feel of the e-gold web site. However, in the past few days, there has been much discussion on chat lists revolving around whether this new business is just a clone or much more.

After a brief investigation, I believe that www.c-gold.com is one of a kind and I predict big success for this venture.

C-gold is a new ‘digital’ gold currency platform which not only operates online, but also will soon work offline through brick and mortar global locations. The management is forecasting that soon it will launch additional shop fronts, mobile wallets and integration for handheld devices.

Some other successful companies management is associated with include: CyberFrontier Corporation, CyFroCA$H Incorporated, Cyberica.NET Limited (www.cyberica.net, www.u2planet.com),CyberGoldBank.NET and is also responsible for the Private Gold Equities Exchange Limited which is being developed as a privately operated alternative to public stock exchanges.

What I considered so unique to c-gold is their over-the-counter bailment’s and redemptions. This operation is handled at brick and mortar locations. Verified, account holders simply drop off a bar and pick up a bar when funding or redeeming their digital account. There is NO surcharge or extra fees for this operation. Bars are also shipped worldwide and the service is fast Nice! (shipping, handling, insurance charges will apply)

Of course, you can’t drop off a 1 gram bar, so I’m out of luck….the minimum bailment in or out is 1,000 grams (999 fine, marked and certified bars only) They predict that smaller denominations and bullion coins will be added as that part of the business grows. Today, which is about 4 days into their new operation, 5200 grams are already on deposit. You can see their daily holdings right down to the bar mark and number from the c-gold holdings page. c-gold is considered by some the next logical stage of ‘digital gold currencies’, by allowing each local user to bail in and redeem literally over the counter. From their FAQ’s page:

“Any user with an active and verified c-gold.com User Holdings Account can visit a shop of the Commerce Gold Network and add gold to his or her account by bailing in a gold bar (type conditions apply).”

Verified accounts require ID, utility bills and other personal information. Why? The c-gold operators understand that the ‘The Know Your Customer’ (KYC) rules/regulations/laws spanning multiple jurisdictions around the globe are very important in today’s digital economy in order to combat terrorist funding, money laundering, child pornography, copyright infringements and to help eliminate attempts to abuse the c-gold system.

The first retail location for this operation is now being prepared in Penang, Malaysia. Negotiations with interested and qualified parties are also underway including franchise shops, ’shoplets’ and strategic global locations.

Another ’stand out’ feature of c-gold will soon be their multi-lingual site options and customer support. In the weeks ahead, they are adding German, French, Russian, Spanish and even Mandarin, Japanese. Other languages can be added by request and/or demand possibilities now under consideration include Korean, Arabic and Farsi.

C-gold already offers a fine referral program. Earning a few coins while spreading the ‘word’ has always been an integral part of the digital currency world and c-gold is no exception.

Accepting c-gold from your web site is simple just add their Click-to-Pay code. Also if you are familiar with HTML you can easily add their point and click shopping cart interface. Easy stuff if you have just a bit of HTML experience.

Updates: As I understand it a keystroke pop up tool and a turing number are currently being added.
c-gold egold