This is probably the link you were looking for: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1522327 (great post -- it piqued my interest too, so I'm very interested in hearing more ideas)
Yeah this was great, only my library doesn't subscribe to ReferenceUSA. My wife also works at both of the colleges in town and neither of their libraries subscribe either.
You are asking for legal trouble in a major way. Yelp seems fairly forward-thinking, so I doubt they'll come after you with their lawyer-guns blazing, but they could. And if you don't change your name, you'll leave them with no choice.
Then there's the whole TOS issue of reproducing Yelp content, and on top of that you're violating the copyright of the Yelp users who posted the reviews -- they gave Yelp permission to publish their review, but they didn't give you permission.
I like the idea, and I'd like to see you make it work -- not just for Yelp, but for all the major review sites. If you get the Yelp trademark out of your domain name, serve reviews from multiple sources (Citysearch, etc), and then use excerpts in a defensible fair-use way, then I think you might have something more workable.
Also, sell them framed. No one wants to find frames, and it's a great opportunity for you to create additional profit margin.
I agree that something like "PrintedPraise.com" or something would suffice, and then you could also print praise on other review sites without it being weird.
Great suggestion. Changed to PrintedPraise.com. Added CitySearch. Going to add plaques shortly (solid wood, lacquered, just like the fancy magazine article plaques).
I use Authorize.net with Automated Recurring Billing (ARB). I only intervene to handle exceptions like an expiring card or failed transactions. I bill each customer each month on the day they signed up to avoid explaining pro-rated transactions.
I don't typically email invoices or receipts, but when customers request it I setup a Blinksale recurring invoice to coincide with their billing cycle.
Authorize.net CIM is great if you need to bill irregular amounts or at irregular intervals, but it requires an outside trigger to initiate a transaction. The Authorize.net ARB service is more self-contained and works for my needs.
Every couple of months I reconcile my accounts spreadsheet with my recent charges to be sure that no accounts fall through the cracks.
I don't claim to have the most amazing admin panel ever, but it saved me lots of time and money, and allowed me to deploy my app quickly and start making money. My clients are happy with it.
I got about halfway through the survey before realizing it was about workstation backup, not server backup.
Time Machine + Dropbox makes workstation backup a solved problem.
Slicehost Backup + Tarsnap makes server backup almost a solved problem. And I say almost because I don't like having no choice but to store my full bootable backups with the same provider that hosts my primary server. If I could store bootable weekly images off-site, I'd be golden.
Here's my off-the-cuff analysis based on the limited information you've provided:
Keep it. The consulting business is worth very little, I think you're right to view it as "selling a job". Take it out of the equation for now. You have $25k - $35k in passive product-based income. That's your sellable asset.
So what's it worth? Three years of demonstrated profit would probably be a fair selling price. Based on that you're looking at about $75k pretax. Why do that when you can just sit on it for three years, realize the profit, and still have a business that generates income?
If you don't want to do any more consulting work but have recurring business coming in, consider finding a trusted developer who can assume your clients and will pay you a commission on future billings.
Do you have an iPhone app on the way? Currently I keep a Mint account for my business which I check frequently on my iPhone. That being said, Mint is just a toy for me; the real work gets done in Quickbooks.
Your pricing seems oddly segmented. Intuitively, I don't know how many transactions I run each month. I'm not even sure how I'd count them. I'm pretty sure it isn't more than 500, but who knows. At the 'enterprise' level (and I'm certainly not enterprise) I would have a tough time justifying a price nearly equivalent to buying a copy of Quickbooks Pro every single month. Especially when my accountant is still going to want a Quickbooks file to prepare my taxes.
"I would have a tough time justifying a price nearly equivalent to buying a copy of Quickbooks Pro every single month"
Three reasons why this pricing is clever:
1) The aim is to get you using the $30/month version, then when your business grows larger just start charging £100/month. It's so painful for a company to switch accounting software that they will gladly pay twice as much as if they had never heard of it before.
2) You can give out special offers like '25% off - only $75 per month'. This would probably sell better than a normal price of $75.
3) The £30 per month looks more attractive when it is placed directly next to a more expensive option.
This is the one we use at work and it works like a breeze :). Very easy to use and you can vary flavors without cleaning the machine, which is as far as I know one of the main cons for automatic machines.
