October 30, 2006

"Jump Up" and Start a Business with Intuit's New Web Site

Intuit has launched a new site to help budding entrepreneurs start their businesses - "Jump Up" at jumpup.intuit.com.

The site is simple and easy to use. It's content is 100% focused on starting a business and includes information about business planning, help & training, structuring your business and more.

What I like most about Jump Up are the encouraging success stories which take a look at what others have done to start their businesses and encourages you to do the same.

Intuit's new site is not just about content but you can also click to specific tools and services to help with you take action on the things you need to do to grow your business.

There are many web sites geared to helping a bushiness grow or startup. Some that come to mind is the Small Business Administration's web site and SCORE (part of SCORE). There's also a lot of content by media companies such as Inc, Entrepreneur, WSJ (Startupjournal) and others.

Intuit's new web site is an excellent tool for its own customers (Quickbooks, Quicken & Turbotax) but also non-customers who are looking for help in starting their businesses.

Going to "tools and services" on Jump Up, you are not just given a bunch of links, but can rate the tool, save the specific tool so you can easily find it again or email a link to the tool to a friend.

Many of the tools are not provided directly by Intuit, but third parties. This is a common practice on other web sites as well.

Following the community spirit of the Internet, JumpUp lets you connect with other members (experts or otherwise). Small business guru, Anita Campbell is an expert member, as well as a manufacturer of dust covers (an expert of dust covers of course and business startup/growth.

I had a look at Startupjournal.com as a comparison and like the web site of any respectable media company it has a lot of content. It offers a few tools (from many of the same sources as Jump Up) but not nearly as many. What's missing is the community of Jump Up, being able to book mark the tools you like (not really needed as there are only a few), rate the tools/content and other features that Jump Up offers.

You'll see many smart companies, like Intuit, creating web sites to help their customers beyond just standard support pages. Constant Contact for example, has a lively discussion board, "Connect Up", for its customers to learn from each other.

If you have always wanted to start a business or know someone who does, Jump Up is a resource you should try out and bookmark. If you're an expert make your own profile. If you are not an expert - make your own profile and get help from the experts on Jump Up.

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