One of the biggest problems that most small businesses face in this day and age, scratch that, throughout time, has been that of getting paid for their work. Billing or invoicing, whatever you want to call it, is one of the most important things you have to keep track of as a small business person. As an entrepreneur your goal is to collect as much money as you possibly can within a resonable amount of time. What this means is that it is your job to make sure you get paid for the work you are doing.As a small business owner, I think that the current solutions out there leave much to be desired in the way of functionality. There are two basic choices for invoicing for small businesses: Quickbooks (or its equivalent desktop software) or an online tool like BlinkSale. There is one major problem with all of these options (and this isn’t a jab at blinksale btw, i think their stuff is great), they only function in one direction. What I mean by this is the following: the invoicing process is only accessible to the business owner, the client can’t see their invoices unless they are sent to them. It becomes a one way street, with the service provider controlling the gates to the information.So with this in mind, you might be asking yourself: “well what the heck are you doing complaining, we don’t see you doing anything about it?” Well thats exactly what I am trying to do, so as of this moment I am announcing infiniBill, my new invoicing service. It is still in private beta, but you can go on over and enter your name and email, and I will send you the details on how you can sign up.Why should you care about infinibill? Aside from the fact that you’re reading my blog, thus meaning you are either interested in small business issues or technology, well it probably means you have money you need to collect from time to time. So with infinibill you can give your customers access to their invoices so that they can see them at any time, and you can track all of them quickly and easily from the web.So what does this mean for your small business? Well you will be able to centralize your billing in one place, create and send your invoices, track what people owe you and how long its been (this is the biggest problem freelancers face - reducing the collection time as much as possible), and much more.While I have your attention, I’d also like to see if there are any special features you are dying to see in a billing solution. So if you think of anything let me know. In the mean time, get on the mailing list: infinibill.com

Umair posited that in a truly Friedmanesque world, the only thing of value is the idea, because executing it is cheap. This was part of his argument that the whole VC structure is broken, and even though I don’t want to piss any VCs off, he does seem to take the whole Friedman argument in its logical direction. If Friedman (The world is flat is the book we are referencing, for those of you unaware) argues that because the world is getting more connected, that costs are being reduced, then it would make logical sense for the cost of a startup to drop. In this day and age, that makes a lot of sense, as the cost of execution is going down.Execution is the area where VCs traditionally shine, that and having piles of cash at their disposal, and thats where they like to contribute. VCs bring to the table quite a bit of resources that the average entrepreneur would normally have little access to: Harvard MBAs by the dozen, millions of dollars, and more important than any of those things: connections. Umair figures that the most important thing is ideas in this day and age, but ideas alone are nothing. Ideas are a dime a dozen, people can come up with hundreds of decent ideas, its the great ideas that are worth something.When great ideas are paired up with great execution and great resources, then that is when we see something magnificent emerge. Now the fact that one can probably raise the money to build a business by getting a small business loan, finding cheap developers, and using viral marketing, does not mean that the VCs are not necessary. You can’t raise the money necessary to operate a server farm by just asking friends (granted you don’t need a server farm up front, but thats not the point).So you might be asking yourself, what the heck am I arguing then seeing as I’ve backed both sides of the equation. Well I am trying to argue that ideas ARE becoming more important with the lower barriers to entry, but for those really big projects, the VCs are going to be sticking around for a while. They are a smart group of people that aren’t likely to sit idely by and watch as the industry topples its inverted pyramid.

When starting a new business venture, one of the first things most of us do is fail to break down the matter at hand. What I mean is, we are all so excited about our revolutionary new idea, that we fail to pick it apart and break it down to its core. Most people have good ideas from time to time, some people have great ideas from time to time, and a select few have what others would refer to as genius (these people already assume their ideas are genius ). Its those good and great ideas that make up most businesses in America and the world, these ideas are what the “fortune 5 million” are made of (that term is borrowed from 37signals).The issue I’d like to cover today is not what you would normally think of when discussing new businesses, no we aren’t talking about how to write an effective business plan (you can read guy kawasaki’s books or blog for that), what I’d like to cover is how to make your good ideas into great ones.The first step in your idea evolution is going to require either a pen and paper or a computer. What I want you to do is write down your idea. Now if you are on your computer, email it to yourself. Trust me. You are probably wondering wtf I am talking about, well let me tell you, I’ve had my fair share of ideas, and this is how the filtration process works. Ok now walk away from your desk, couch, or wherever you wrote this down, go outside, and do something COMPLETELY unrelated. Usually I take my dog for a walk, this gives me fresh air, and the time to mull over the idea. Normally my mind starts racing from idea to idea to idea, and that is all fine, but what this really does is gives me a brainstorming session where I am likely to only remember the best ideas (remember you are removing yourself from the vacuum that is your computer).Now that you are back at your workspace, read your idea outloud to yourself. This works pretty well despite your inherently not thinking it would. Now I want you to ask yourself the following questions (and write down your answers):

• Do I need this product/service?
• Do I have the background to create this service?
  • If not, do I think I could find the right people to do so?
• How much will I charge for this product/service?
  • If it is free, then how will I pay for this?
• Who is doing this already? (google is your friend here, even if they are your competitor, they will help you find out who else does it, and how they do it)
• Who will want this product/service? (target market, etc.)

Ok so those are basic questions you have probably heard alot, but you would be amazed at how many people fail to run this gamot of tests on an idea, despite it taking only a few minutes.As part of my feeling generous and whatnot, I think we should do an experiment, whoever sends in a good idea to brian [at] webimpresario.com will get it posted and dissected and have suggestions posted here for everyone to discuss.