Receipt and business card digitization serviceShoeboxed is now starting to do something with all the data it scans and stores online, which now includes tens of millions of receipts. The company this week launched a new initiative called “Shoeboxed Labs,” which will allow it to roll out experimental features to its core service more rapidly. The first feature is called “Price Deputy,” a price comparison service that alerts consumers to better deals after they purchase.

What's so sad about a predicament like mine is that I am being penalized for not doing anything wrong. I just haven't done anything right (which translates to that I haven't owed anyone any real money...doesn't that sound weird?). So for someone like me, it's a Catch 22 situation where I can't get the benefit of the doubt from banks who want absolute assurance (with good reason) that I can pay off my debts and I can't get anything else done (like renting an apartment or even getting cable) without credit. 

Haha...

Luckily, I managed to pay a visit to a Radioshack near my neighborhood and realized that the best first step of getting some credit? is paying off your own cellphone bill. LOL, I know a few people who, if they heard me, would faint at such a suggestion. I am the opposite: I am a relatively light cellphone user and even though I have an iPhone now that I pay some big bucks on for the plan, I never really go overboard. Perhaps it's because I don't have enough friends (or any? Just kidding) or I am simply a strategic smartphone user. That basically means I have downloaded the Free Wifi Finder app and always use the Wifi at work, at school, and at home to counter all the times alongside my Google Voice account to really manage. Anyway, once I realized that cellphone providers reported the credit to the credit bureaus, I rushed to the opportunity. The entrance is always small for a big house: think of a door and how big it is and then think of a house (regardless of what kind, the door will always be smaller, don't argue with me on this one). I definitely needed an entry and alas, I went.

A key point on keeping good credit is PAYING YOUR BILLS. That one got you didn't it? It seems weird to me that most Americans don't quite understand that concept? and treat credit cards (or even their debit cards) like they are magic. Sorry kiddos, but magic doesn't exist. I just got my first cellphone bill and, despite of the large number I am getting for the sake of a smartphone (I just do talk and data, a lot of my texting goes through Google Voice via data/wifi), I am really excited to finally get out of the paradox of my personal credit crisis. 

What are my next steps? Well saving up enough to secure a limited credit card at $500 (with a good enough APY for my own sake) and continue afford to pay off my now 2 year contract bill. I don't really need to cry over it since the last time I called Verizon customer service convinced me well enough that it was worthwhile to stay with the carrier (my last carrier was pink and not at all great at giving me a service).  After I get that, I can finally charge my monthly unlimited subway card as well as my cellphone bill and gather more credit. Yay!

I recommend that everyone start using the online resources we have at our disposal to manage their money. I have been using Mint.com, a free personal money management site that I saw on moneyisnotimportant's blog. Although I can't say it's NOT confusing initially, the overall idea and the app have been helping me keep track of my money much better than I would have done so on my own. 

Advice as to best use that site? I might post an entry about that soon. I will spare everyone' the two weeks that it took me to really get how to use the budgeting option (although I think that has to do more with me refusing to read directions than the site itself). 

A more intuitive site alternative, I would say, would be Pocketsmith. It has a calendar and a great bank statement syncing option but you have to pay a monthly subscription to gain all the benefits of the site. If you are someone with heaving financing and am more visual about your data, then definitely try it out. 

I also forgot to say that it is very important for myself (and you if you want) to keep a personal track record of each transcript I make. I haven't really been doing that (lol, maybe that's why everyone refuses to give college students the benefit of the doubt when it comes to money) but I believe having a handy app like Expensify or Shoeboxed should make it a lot easier for me to appreciate my self accounting. The reason why it is always good to have a manual financial organizer is so that you can always check if a bank or Mint.com made a mistake.

Money is precious and if you think about minimum wage and how hard you personally try to earn a few bucks of cash, I would say that a few seconds of pausing and taking a picture of a receipt would be definitely worth it. 

In part ii of my video interview with Tobi Walter of Shoeboxed, we touch on the importance of company culture in a startup, what Tobi thinks about VCs, and why he thinks Shoeboxed will be worth more than $50MM in 5 years. 

As I've noted more than a few times over the last couple months, one of the goals of this blog is to highlight the interesting entrepreneurs who I meet with on a regular basis.  One very basic way I'm doing this is through video interviews, which I'm calling Startup Stories.

I had a lot of fun with the first try at this "minimum viable video" strategy when I interviewed James Avery of Adzerk.  I also learned a lot on this first try - including the importance of making sure that the camera captures the faces of everyone in the shot. So with this version, there's 100% less Zack on camera, which I'm sure no one will complain about. 

For the 2nd of what I hope will be many Startup Stories, I interviewed Tobi Walter of Durham's shoeboxed.  Tobi and Taylor have been entrenched in the local startup scene for a few years and it's been really great to see the maturation of both the team as entrepreneurs and the company as a whole.  shoeboxed has always been scrappy and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed (if you keep your eyes open you'll see random shoeboxed stickers all over Durham).  In the last couple years the company has begun to scale revenues and just a few weeks ago announced a $1.4MM round of financing led by Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

more here... http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/your-business/business-categories/web-strategy/four-must-have-apps-for-small-businesses/article1969717/

Amplify’d from www.theglobeandmail.com

4. Shoeboxed – The life of a small businessperson is a life spent tangled in receipts. Shoeboxed offers a digital reprieve: The mobile-enabled service promises to keep a digital copy of your shoebox full of receipts.

Like most web operations, Shoeboxed offers different tiers of service. Full-paying customers can actually mail away their receipts in Shoebox-provided pre-stamped envelopes. The company will take care of the data entry, and send back the receipts along with a scanned, sorted and human-verified digitized version, ready to be imported into accounting software.

But if mailing your receipts to parts unknown seems like a leap of faith, the Shoeboxed smartphone app gives you another option: You can use an iPhone or Android handset’s camera to take a picture of the receipt, and shoot that off to the company. Instead of letting receipts pile up for processing, they can be snapped and filed as soon as they’re handed to you.

Plans start at $9.95 a month;

Native clients for iPhone/Android

Read more at www.theglobeandmail.com