Caribbean Startup Blog written by Ingrid Riley

The Y.E.S movie

September 15, 2009

I’m not even going to say a thing. Just watch the trailer.

46 social media sites for Caribbean entrepreneurs

caribbeansitesWe found this list on venturebeat.com and added our Caribbean information to it for our global Caribbean audience.They had 25 social media sites. We added 21 Caribbean Social Media sites to make it more useful for us. If you’re a entrepreneur who has been seduced by social media tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, you may realize the benefits of using these basic tools to finding and staying in touch with business partners, employers and customers, along with learning new information. More

The Key to a Predictable, Profitable Business

August 31, 2009

This weekend I was enjoying some Margaritas with my friend Chris. He is one of the greatest entrepreneurs I know (and I know many, many entrepreneurs). You have never seen him in the news or on the front of a magazine, and that’s because he wants it that way.

Chris’s company throws off a 37.6% net profit, every month. And when I say net, I mean NET. This is the money left over AFTER all business expenses, all salaries (including his), after depreciation, after interest and after taxes. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention his company does over $1M… every quarter. Just in case you haven’t had your coffee yet, that is $4M a year business, with a net profit of $1,400,000 every year. Like clockwork.

With enough Margarita’s Chris grabbed my arm, and with a slight slur (Margarita’s will do that to you), told me the “secret’ to his success: Recurring Monthly Fees.
Recurring monthly fees are the secret to predictable, profitable businesses. It works for Chris, and it works for me. Now, you need to do the same. more

99 Free Online Classes on Business and Entrepreneurship

August 23, 2009

Are you looking to take business and entrepreneurship classes but are worried about the money and time availability? The courses below are all free and can be taken at your own leisure. They’re recommended to anyone starting an online business - I know I’ll be taking a few myself. Browse through courses from MIT and other reputable schools across six categories - Marketing and Sales, Management, Legal, Finance and Technology/Product. More

PUKSHOP.COM-World’s first integrated digital Caribbean music, video download and jukebox store ?

August 16, 2009

pukshopSiliconCaribe.com first gave you a heads up of the coming of PUKSHOP.com from last August. It’s delay took a little longer than expected but on August 27th they will officially go live. PUKSHOP.com is “the newest software based online digital media store. PUKSHOP lets music fans search for and legally download thousands of songs either as singles or entire albums; download ringtones; store the songs on their computer hard drives; and stream videos, live events and music via the download site or jukebox application before downloading it : all accessible wherever an internet connection is available. For both Mac , PC, mobile handsets and IPTV users. Event e-tickets will also be available to be purchased on this site.” (more…)

Slings and Successes of Trinidadian Parodice Games Developer: Raul Bermudez

July 9, 2009

parodice-gamesSome T-shirt, converse, ruffled hair, a high powered MacBook working in a garage somewhere in the United States or Europe. That’s the typical image of the creators of electronic games, Raul Bermudez is so not that. He’s in his 50s,is Trinidadian by birth, lives there with his wife and is a dad to 5 kids. He’s the Ceo of Parodice Games and inventor of PG-Cricket the board game and free downloadable computer game of Cricket, that’s been downloaded 100,000 times since it first, went online. More

SiliconCaribe TV:MusicPassNetwork.com - iTunes for Reggae Music, well sorta

June 17, 2009

MusicPassNetwork.com is a site where you go to download the reggae singles you bought using the equivalent of a top up phone card. We first got the preview of this online music product at Kingston Beta on April 28th by its lead pitchman Lloyd Laing. MusicPass.com the reggae music card and MusicPassNetwork.com are products from Riddim Jamaica a Kingston-based company that’s also spawned the Reggae News Agency. Watch Lloyd tell you in 3 mins what is MusicPass, MusicPass Network and why it’s important for the Reggae music and Caribbean music industries. He talks about the cost, when it will be launched and what they are doing now.
Then have a look at what the card looks like: (more…)

SiliconCaribe TV: Cliq - the mobile app from Jamaica’s Software Architects

June 2, 2009


This SiliconCaribe TV video blog is an exclusive prelaunch demo. It’s about a Jamaican startup called Software Architects that has built a mobile phone app that works with even the most basic phone on the market and does things like this:
- allows you to top up on your prepaid minutes from you chosen mobile service provider -LIME, Digicel and send some to a friend too
-allows you to transfer funds between bank accounts
-allows you to pay your bills.
and more to come.
We caught up with them at the entrance of the Digicel Electronics Show weeks go. They were not exhibitors just curious attendees like ourselves. We’ll have more on this Jamaican startup led by CEO Damion Daley pretty soon.

SiliconCaribeTV: Pileojobs startup founder explains his Caribbean job search engine

May 28, 2009


PileoJobs.com pitch is what you missed at the last Kingston Beta, you may have missed the post I wrote days after it launched calling this Caribbean job search engine, a simple solution to a real problem. They now have added a social type of site pileojobs.net. Listen to the startup entrepreneur and founder Bill Bailey explain it in his own words.

Related posts
CARIBBEANJOBS.COM NUMBER ONE JOB SITE?

SiliconCaribe TV: The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur in Jamaica

May 10, 2009


Episode 1 - The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur in Jamaica
Check out our interview with Mike Michalowicz, multi-millionaire entrepreneur, best selling author of ‘The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur’ and in demand public speaker. Some of the questions I asked him were:
- His take on the status of entrepreneurship in Jamaica ?
- What are the top two takeaways from this book for Caribbean readers ?
- Why the world needs Caribbean entrepreneurs?
SiliconCaribeTV…are video blogs from SiliconCaribe.com. Like the blog we’re covering what Caribbean people and Caribbean companies are doing online and with technology. Lots more to come.