Ok I might not be the best girl startup, but take a look at my posts, nearly every second post I have taken some sort of tangible action, to get ball rolling (of course I used be a lazy bum, but if I can do it…so can you ). So by your next blog post, maybe you the listener/reader can talk about a current step you have taken in your entrepenarial/startup pursuits. Lets get some “action” happening!!!  - girlstartup

Sneak Peak at Nomuu bags

Because I couldn’t take a good photo this afternoon of it, I have given you a sneak peak above. Better photos to come.

Denim and linen. Fabric designed by me

Sheesh, me and this blog are having a bit of tug of wars at the moment. It’s there in the back of my mind, to write something really inspiring and yet I find it so hard to pen the words

I am doing stuff in the background I promise, you just can’t hear about it…yet…because… well basically I think it would bore you all, so instead what do I do? Leave long intermitent posts, bad I know.

I can say, I am doing about 20 things at the same time. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing? It’s good it the moment, because I don’t have time to worry about all the things that can go wrong, but that’s not to say it wont all catch up with me later down the track.

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It’s been quite a long road to get to this point in my life, where I kind of know I am heading in the right direction, some may call it “finding your passion”. I don’t know if I have found “my passion” because I think my passions are ever evolving, but I can say without a doubt that I am heading in the right direction.

Yes I was one of the lost souls, clever, creative and smart, and yet I never could utilise my skills to the best of my ability. I would watch on as friends of mine would “seem to have it all together” and yet here was me, someone determined, hard working, helpful, passionate, seemingly getting nowhere ever so quickly.

I was the one that everyone thought had it together and would go far. And I did wonder why? Why was I then one left behind? Why couldn’t I be the girl that walked into a 9-5 job and climb the corporate ladder, why couldn’t I just do it? But instead of hiding my head in shame, and shouting “woe is me” (although at beginning I admit I might of done a bit of that), I sat back and observed, observed and analysed what was happening.

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Nomuu Cushions

The denim is  better than the actual linen, because the fabric is much stiffer and harder, so it makes it much easier to cut strait, unlike linen which expands horizontally and vertically. The sewer finds this fabric much easier to use too. So I need to find this fabric somewhere and in bulk. I need a fabric supplier that I can buy the same fabric again and again without changing.

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

Marilyn Monroe

I’m usually pretty good with coming up with domain names, but for my own online shop site, I am finding it really hard to come-up with a good domain name. It makes me wonder if there is something else blocking me from taking on the actual project that I set out to do?

Maybe I am not meant to go “all-out” as I wanted with this project…rather scale down.

I have one domain name that I am really interested in, but the owner wants $1500-2000 which I think is way too much. I would love to share the domain with you, to get feedback, but unfortunately as soon as “Mr Domain owner” sees I am talking about it, he will want to jack up the price even more. I have had someone offer me some feedback and his advice has been quite invaluable, but it still would be good to get more user feedback on the domain.

I guess you wouldn’t know but I have quite a big domain portfolio, not that I ever profited off it yet. I got my first real offer a few weeks ago for $100 bucks – rolf (not bad for a $7.00 year investment)! Domainers as they call them, make a living out of selling domains and good domainers are not making a piddly $100 bucks off a domain. Most domainers make anywhere between $600-$10000 per domain and then you have a lot that go for ridiculously lot more. Have a look at http://sedo.com to see some of the sales that have taken place…yep $200,000 sales – insane!

I tried many years ago to get into it, but alas it does not interest me. Which tells me that I have to be passionate about what I invest my time into…it doesn’t matter how much money I can potentially make, If I don’t like it…I don’t like and no money will change that fact.

Anyway, back to the domain name for a business, there is an art for choosing a good domain name. The trick is to make it as simple and easy to remember, catchy, especially for a shop front. It would be different if I was going to affiliate marketing (that’a a whole other new area), then you could have some long winded name around your niche. But for my site, it needs to be simple. Ideally it needs to be around 4-6 letters and rolls of the tongue quite easily. Why not less than 4 letters, you may ask? All 3 letter domains and lower have already been sold I am afraid and the asking price for those domains are in the thousands if not double digit thousands$$$$. Your pretty lucky if you can grab a 4 letter domain today, as they have pretty much gone as well. I do have a couple, and they are so, so…but I am holding onto them, because in 5-10 years I reckon they will be worth a lot more.

The other thing that seems to be a common trend with branded domains is joining two words together that are catchy. So for example redballoon, redbubble, redenergy, sharktank etc Do you think I can put two names together? Not so far…haven’t had any luck with it.

Usually my best names come up without any thought, girlstartup.com was thought about in two seconds. You don’t want complicated names that are hard to remember how to spell. Like I enjoy visiting the entrepreneurs-joureny.com blog, but I think that’s still way to hard to remember.

One of my favourite new websites is mixergy.com now that to me is easy to remember, especially after a few goes.

I will show tell you two names I have thought of so far, because I own them, which is:

nomuu.com and ammiki.com I still think they’re a bit too artsy. It could work, think aboutetsy.com that word does not mean anything but it’s one of the most popular handmade marketplaces on the web.

Anyway, I prefer nomuu over ammiki. But I would love to hear what others think.

Anyway, in the meantime I’m waiting for the book above to arrive in my mailbox “The Making of a Name: The Inside Story of the Brands We Buy”.

I saw it at Borders a month ago and had a quick peruse of it, and it seemed quite good. Again it talked about simple, catchy words and went into what letters and sounds work well together.