Start my own business

One of my partners at Fourio, Ryan, came up with a great idea to map out all of the “Web 2.0” companies from a variety of lists scattered across the net.

The result was the Web 2.0 Innovation Map ... a growing collection of 200+ cool websites and the locations that spawned them (yes, a great many are in California, but New York and Dallas have good showings, too). And thanks to ranking on Mark Millerton’s Top 10 Innovative Web Applications of 2005, we didn’t even have to shamelessly plug our own NetworthIQ into the list … it made it on its own merits. :-)

Anyone out there with feedback, feel free to send it to the whole Fourio team at contact@fourio.com or make a comment on this entry. We live for the comments!

The super-secret 1.0 release of NetworthIQ is coming soon, too. I can’t wait!

We’re not on that hockey stick type growth curve, but we’re doing really well … 1500 users with almost 500 public profiles … and a major redesign in the works … we plan to kick off the new year by coming out of beta and doing a bit more advertising. If you haven’t taken a look (for the dozens of you reading this! LOL!) sign up and let us know what you think.

NetworthIQ

Well, it’s not all that bad … just one of those times when I wish I could still pull the infamous “all nighter” for days in a row … buzzing with caffeine and a million ideas all at once. Instead it’s more like pumping yourself full of diet soda and sugar and trying desperately to retain something like coherent thought patterns while coding (my business just launched a website that has a to-do list a mile long) ... I have to admit, though, that the reviews have been positive, the teamwork has been great, and I’m really jazzed about the whole concept end-to-end …

I’m really eager for comments … take a peek and let me know what you think.

... to get positive reviews, even if there’s still a long way to go! :-) We got reviewed again by a couple of other personal finance bloggers, Free Money Finance and Everybody Loves Your Money ...

I’m not a huge personal finance afficionado, but I’m very concerned about the spending habits of the friends and family I have, and have tried to be a bit more prudent in mine (especially with a big family).

If anyone has a chance to check out the site (NetworthIQ.com) and provide some feedback, I’d be very grateful … we’re hoping to make this a free tool that everyone can use … and maybe even enjoy (ok, maybe not, but at least make it tolerable).

Couple more weeks of this kind of growth and I’ll consider this goal accomplished (with a lot of work still to do).

One of the many bloggers that we were inspired by actually wrote a review of our site … and he had good things to say! If anyone’s interested, take a peek at Consumerism Commentary ... even if you aren’t interesting in what we’re doing, the blog is a great resource for personal financial info.

A few more reviews like that and I may have to celebrate (in a big way)! :-)

Well, the feedback yesterday from about 12 people was fantastic and gave us a lot of info to work with … and burned the midnight oil to get things ready to roll out this morning (about 3am PST). :-)

It’s out there, people NetworthIQ.com ... anyone who cares to comment, please do … we’ll take it all, good, bad or ugly.

Well, we did it … launched the service I hinted at earlier … it’s still a beta, still has features yet to be released, and can use a bit more spit and polish, but it’s out there for the world to see and comment on …

NetWorthIQ.com is the first baby of our startup and will hopefully be warmly welcomed into the web family of social tools … we like to think of NetWorthIQ as a social personal finance tool … a means to track your net worth and, if you choose, share and compare your stats with others in similar age, occupational, geographical or custom categories.

All the info is safe and secure, and we don’t gather any personal info other than an email address (which isn’t displayed on the site) ... and you have to choose to have a public profile if you want to share … otherwise it’s a personal tool just for you.

Okay, I’m rambling now … comments, suggestions, feedback … I’ll take it all. :-)

I’d love to say that my new business venture is in “stealth mode” but my two partners and I are not quite that, ahem, well funded and super-secret. We are, however, about to launch a website service that we think is pretty cool and I’ll definitely post the URL here as soon as it’s out the door … which should be very, very soon (less than 7 days). :-)