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sells for 99 cents and now been downloaded 7 million times. that plus the latest high tech tools for small businesses. that's all coming up next on your business. hi there, everyone. i'm j.j. ramberg, and welcome to "your business," where we give you tips and advice to help your business grow.

as more and more people upgrade to smart phones, the market for mobile application software, also known as apps, as exploded. design studios are looking to crash in on the craze and make their app the next big thing. we recently caught up with a few designers and found out how smaller players are competing and in a lot of cases dominating this booming industry. >> you no longer need a studio of 200, 300 people. >> you have a wife and husband team, brother teams. >> these entrepreneurs are referring to the gold rush that is the mobile application or app industry. programmers are downloading apple and google android software development kits hoping to grab the attention of smart phone users. this is office heros. a social gaming app where people

create quirky office faces and share them with friends. it's the creation of high school buddies turned business partners, chris, will and jad. after working on a few simple test apps, they decided to go at it full-time. they quit their jobs and set up shop in will's parents' house. will create the interface and chris created the graphicses. >> the inception of the idea to the actual time in the store i think was about seven to it months. >> every day has been a learning experience. >> they decided to use a premium business model, meaning office heros is free to download, but special office items such as new tiles or foosball table have to be paid for with a virtual currency called pliper clips. the apple store handles the billing and charges developer as 30% fee on all sales. the an destroyed market has the same policy. >> it goes straight through the itunes. they sign up for an itunes account and it's just as

frictionless as it gets. >> we felt like this is sort of the future of gaming. >> to their amazement, office heros was featured on the front passenger of the app store shortly after it was released. the results were instant. it was downloaded more than 500,000 times in just a few weeks. and investors looking to get connected with a hot new social gaming company came calling. >> it was kind of like the moment when we looked at each other and were like are we getting in over our heads? >> in just a few months, their company signed a sponsorship deal with a leading japanese mobile gaming company. but what was it that caught apple's attention? >> we were proactive and we reached out to them and we were lucky enough that they responded. >> apple does a fantastic job at actually picking out great games from all the submissions that they get daily. >> eigor is the co-creator of

doodle jump, one of the most popular apps of all time. it's become something of a pop culture phenomenon that's been mentioned on prime time tv, thousands of youtube videos, and even made an appearance at a lady gaga concert. a mass of success for sure, but doodle jump-started out modestly. >> the way we work is my brother does all the programming. i do all the art. early on, we realized that there is some potential and not necessarily to sell 7 million copies, but to make this a full-time job that you can do and enjoy and i were a decent living. >> they submitted doodle jump to apple for approval and was released shortly after. he decided to charge 99 cents per download. >> looking over the app store

economy, what you've seen is people competing for that top selling stoth spot whipot. and the lower the price you have, the higher on the list you get. >> they built in unique elements and are constantly creating different themes to keep people engaged. igor also resorted to old passioned pr. >> just started writing e-mails to every single game blog that i knew about and telling them, hey, we have this new game. >> in time doodle jump was also featured by apple and downloads increased rapidly. both games are highly successful, but far from being finished products. >> imagine if you had a website that had content static for a year. no one would come back to it. and that's the same thing with the games. but if you have new content, they'll come back. sfwl and while the guys are about to move out of their attic

headquarters and into man at that time than, igor is content to keep his operation small. in this industry, he has the option to do that. >> you have to figure out what your priorities are and whether you want to grow quickly or whether you're hear where you are and doing what you love and being very successful at it. >> a great product is a great product. it has nothing to do with the resources put behind it. >> i think it works for everyone and you have to find the thing that works for you. >> so those are the kind of stories that you hear and you think, god, i wish it had been me. let's turn to this this high tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.wthis hig tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.ethis hig tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.ethis hig tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.kthis high tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.'sthis high tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.his high tech board of directors to talk to them more about it.is hh tech board of directors toalk to them more about it.s high

tech board of directors to talk to them more about it. high tech board of directors to talk to them more about it. bruce, ramon, great to see both of you. so don't you have that reaction like, you know, here's a game, 99 cents, 7 million time, why not me. >> absolutely. >> what i found interesting is frankly, they look like they're 12 years old. they did it for fun and now they have investors. is that kind of the way to approach this if you're young and you've got a game idea, or should you you go ahead and start a company? >> i think you should. i think prior to the internet, you needed a smart idea, a lot of luck, logistics and a lot of money. after the internet, you just need the internet and a smart idea. and whether you're 12 or 42, you can do it. >> i think it's important to recognize the difference between a hobby and a hobby that could go into a business. what a lot are doing is publish and pray. and they may catch lightning in a bottle and develop enough proceeds to build a real business, but to recognize the

difference between getting lucky on a hobby and making a new sustainable business. >> those guys were so successful, but every one of those, there are thousands who develop a game that doesn't go anything. >> that's the beauty of it. thank to the internet, you can have that hobby and see will it work because it doesn't cost you very much. so you can spend minimal money and if it works, leave your day job, quit school. and then you can pray and have your hobby at the same time. >> igor said that he then wrote to every gaming blogger out there. and i find sometimes people get a little bit nervous about approaching the press or bloggers and they forget it's a real person on the other side. >> i do talks sometimes on how to deal with media relations and one of the things that i say, journalists are real people. and it's smart what he did.

talk to them like you were a friend. if they say yes, that's one who are person that's covered your company. >> and since so many of these things are ranked by customers, leverage your social network and it becomes a virtuous cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> i got an e-mail from a friend that said my movie is out on netflix. and it takes me two seconds for me to put it in my cue. other thing interests is they had this premium business model. so they gave the game for free and then charged for other accessories. if you want a foosball table, you have to pay with paper clips. so they're not business people to start, but they had looked at different business models. fechb i

>> chris anderson talked about this long tail and i think it works with this model. would you rather have 100 paying customers or hundreds of thousands of nonpaying customers and 500 paying customers. so i think the premium model for this type of industry works perfectly. because the barriers to entry are low and you can build massively. >> and what was interesting is apple originally if you gave your app for free, they didn't allow you to charge within it, but that's how much the business model changed. and what's good about getting it out there for free, you just don't know about it. you get it, play with it, and if you like its, then start adding and get addicted to it. >> definitely a gold rush. very successful people out there and surely going to be more. thanks so much, guys. >> who scissors tays the latest technology has to come at a price? here are five web paced services

that can help you save some money. open office.org offer as free sweet ig of office software that can be a substitute to purchasing expensive software licenses. if you're looking to do some cost effective market research, check out question pro.com. a basic pack sanlg free aage is. tired of paying an accountant for routine services? outright.com provides secure, automated accounting. before you buy a new piece of hardware, check out slick deals.net. this collects specials on all kinds of gadgets. and if you're looking to brush up on a particular piece of software but don't want to pay big buckses for a clarks check out linda.com. you have access to tutorials for many different products. >> still ahead, ramon is back to show you what's hot in the world

of high tech tools for small business. has our advice helped your sfwhis help us help you. tell us what you'd like to see more of. go to your business survey.ms mbs.com. at diapers.com we like to say we deliver everything but the baby. my name is marc lore and in 2005 we launched a business out of our garage. back then nobody was selling diapers or formula online with overnight delivery. for us that was a real opportunity. we've been using the american express open plum card. basically anything we can put on that card, we do to take advantage of the early pay discount. so far we've saved over a million dollars with the plum card. booming is saving every time you spend.

there are a lot of really innovative tech tools available to save time, money and boost productivity. here again to demonstrate some of the latest high tech gadgets on the market is ramon ray. thank you. i love these seeigments. this is a printer. >> this is from hp called photo smart and the advantage of this printer, many times printers have to connect to pcs. this can connect to the web without a pc. you can scroll through your applications with no pc. this is about $200 to $400. >> that's reasonable. okay. what's this in. >> this is from ignite and net gear. so a traditional hard drive. you store files on it on

premise. however what happened when you're traveling? so this tool enables you you to have your files also in the cloud accessible via the internet. >> so it saves you. about something happens to this, you have it in another place, also. >> absolutely. >> and what's this? >> this is a traditional bar code scanner. but the advantage is small businesses can do that, as well. so you simply pull the trigger and for example let's say you have a form that requires a lot of data entry. put that information on a bar code to save time, be faster and increase accuracy. >> and then moving on to these. these are very cool. >> and what these two devices are are credit card scanners. so let's say you're a flor rest in the middle of manhattan. instead of having to say i can't

accept credit card, you can take not worry about what happens. you take your wallet out, hers my credit card, just slide it like that, put the information in, generate a receipt and there you go. >> car rental companies have been doing this for it a long time. but it's so neat that any small business can do this now. >> and this is a similar product. of course you can't get a receipt here, but you have a small slide, you put the device in there and similar you have your credit card, you slide it and you charge the person. >> and if you could accept credit cards if i owed you 20 buck, could i gii could give to credit card. >> i like it. we also have here a scanner. what's nice about this is you have the scanning technology here and you have a receipt, let's say you came back from a long trip. instead of manually inputting all the information, the scanner

reads the information on the receipt and can intelligently find out what the information is. so that's the advantage of that. it pulls the information in and reads the receipt, and adds to your device. >> and no more manual inputting. >> absolutely. >> this is a fancy looking printer. >> exactly. is this a printer from photos a it's small and speed. most scanners -- >> takes as long time. >> this, you open it up, put your document or photo in there. and will -- >> that's so fast. and awful these are pretty reasonable? >> yeah. >> well, thank you so much. this is so fun. hopefully some of these help out some of the small businesses out

will. >> i hope so. time to answer some of your business questions. we'll stick with our high tech theme today. bruce and ramon are back with us once again. the first one comes from the founder of a web base the musician's network. >> when is it bested to bring software development in-house and when is it best to outsource that task? >> a good question. >> the model, i think it's always better to do everything out that you can. the larger you are and as you grow, if you can justify the expense, bring it in-house, but predominantly, try to do it as much outward as you can but manage it carefully. >> that is very key to somebody's business, so if you outsource it, maybe you can't call that guy at 3:00 in the morning. >> i have an i.t. generalist in staff, but because there are so many specialized programs and applications and platforms, there's no way you'll gettal lebted people to do all those

hingeses in-house. so if could you have a good i.t. generalist and then bring people into augment the work is probably the best way to go a start up. >> and maybe make them feel part of the team. >> and that's key. being part of the team but still have somebody else do it. >> the next one, do you trust remote backup services or do you think i need to back up my hard drive myself, as well? do you think you need both? i'm safety, safety, safety, have 17 insurances. i would do both. >> both is good, but i definitely trust online backup, absolutely. i've had to recover files and it's worked flawlessly for me. both is not bad, sure. but i think online backup works. it's low cost and assigns you can get remote access, as well. >> it could be something like

$50 a year to do it remotely. >> i haven't used online because of the security concern and i was backing them up on an external hard drive and then when i went to recover a file, the drive had a faulty power supply and it was corrupted, so now i do use and online backup system. and it's been great. >> so you're not worried about the security anymore? >> not worried about the security anymore. worried more about a bad hard drive. >> exactly. moving on to the next one. this is from a firm that deals in wi-fi applications. >> my company is a provider of business to business products for industrial applications. given all of that, how can my company take advantage of the new social media technologies that are available today? >> first of all, he needs to stop thinking of themselves as new panning gell things that th using. so how does he figure out how to

take advantage of them? >> i think one thing is probably especially for a specialized product like that is to make yourself the go-to source, an expert in the area. and steer people from facebook and twitter and linked in to a blog on your website. but if you're known as an expert in that area, people will turn to you and eventually do business with you. >> one thing i always say, god gave us two ears and one mouth. so regarding social net works, first listen. listen to the conversation. whatever your industry is, put in those key words and listen to what your competitors are saying and then dip your toe further in the water. >> and finally, we have one more question about going public. >> as a technology company that's based in cleveland, we're on a rapid growth path and we want to know what's the prospects for the opening up of

the ipo market in the next 12 to 24 months. >> as the economy improves, the apat this time for ipos will increase and it went from a recent low two years ago.795 in '96. one thing to keep in mind is the need to sale. the number of ipos have been going down and the number of trade sales been going up and one reason is increased regulation like sarbanes/oxley. people don't want to be a public company. >> you can explain spend the rest of your days on the golf course, but you don't have to run a public company.

it was fun having you guys on today. if any of you out there have a question for our experts go to our website, the address is openforum.com/yourbusiness, there just hit the ask the show link. again, openforum.com/yourbusiness or if you would rather e-mail us your questions or comments. the address is yourbusiness@msnbc.com. now that we heard from ramon and bruce, let's get survival tips from entrepreneurs just like you. >> most businesses have a tough time operating in today's environment because whatever the dollars they normally would have spent on traditional means is not generating the kind of lead sources that they used to get to grow their business. so they have to think out of the box. they have to think what the competitors are not doing. they have to do things and monitor. as soon as they try something,

if it doesn't work, you stop it. >> to make sure they take baby steps, they do their homework and that they understand that they must include marketing in their budget, or they're not going to be able to get where they want to go as quickly as they want to get there. when it comes to protecting your digital intellectual property, it is wise to prioritize. today we have a few steps you can take for a more secure i.p. environment. hanna hasl-kelchner is a business attorney and she is here to talk to us today. thanks for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> you say before you do anything, you should protect your nondigital ip first. >> absolutely. any kind of intellectual property starts in the real world first, not just in the digital world. you can't be a little bit pregnant, so you have to start in the real world. >> so protect your brand with trademarks. tell somebody how they do that.

>> trademark protection is one of the things, especially if you are in the internet space, where you will want to get federal protection. there's a website where you can get general information. and there's an application process, it typically starts with a search to make sure nobody else is using your particular brand. the one thing people need to remember about any intellectual property is that this is the portion of your unique selling proposition that is being galvanized by the law. it's focusing on that unique part. so make sure nobody else is using your name, so that when people hear it, they come to you and not your competitor. so you want to search it, number one. then there's an application process. it probably is a good idea to get a lawyer involved for that. though it's not necessary if you are really a do-it-yourselfer, it's possible, just more difficult. >> next you say protect your copyrighted work with proper notices and registrations what does that mean? >> since about 1989 it wasn't essential to put copyright

notices on things that you created. the word copyright, the c in a circle, and then the date it was first published and the name of the owner. right now, the way the law stands, the minute you put something in a tangible form, even saving a file on your computer tsh computer, it has a copyright. when you put things out on the internet, you can run into somebody using your material and they say i didn't know it was copyrighted, and they try to assert innocent infringer defense. >> so if i put something out on the internet, i should put that little c on it. >> you could. that knocks out the innocent infringer defense. if somebody says i don't know, you can say i have the word copyright on the bottom. no excuses. >> if i put something out on my blog and i copyright it, could

somebody else come to me and say i had that idea before you, look at this article? >> it's not about the idea. this is where sometimes people get mixed up. copyright deals with the form of expression. >> right. okay. protect your trade secrets with tight security and confidentiality. that has a lot to do with employees and partners. >> absolutely. trade secrets, believe it or not, is something we learned about, the secret part, when we were five years old on the school playground. the smart kids knew that before you told the secret, what did you do? you made the other person swear not to tell. promise you won't tell. then you leaned in and you whispered in your ear what your secret was because you wanted to limit access. those are the two things that in the grown-up world are done with confidentiality agreements. >> and finally monitor the web for infringements. >> yes, definitely. when it comes to entrepreneurs, small businesses, your resources, your time, your money, they're limited. so there are some ways to do it

without spending a whole lot of money. google alerts, for example, if you go to google.com/alert, you can set up an alert and it's great. >> it's a great way to keep on top of things in this area and in so many areas. keeping track of your competitors. hanna hasl-kelchner, thank you so much. you gave us a lot of good information. we appreciate you coming on. thank you. >> thank you. improvements in camera technology and sites like youtube made it possible to easily share videos with a huge number of people. if that is something you would like do for your business, our website of the week can help you get started. onlinevideotoolkit.com provide asset of ten handy tips for creating videos. you can look at what type of camera to use, how to light and learn about the editing and uploading process. site registration is free. to learn more about today's show, click on our website,

openforum.com/yourbusiness. you will find all of today's segments, plus web exclusive content to help your business grow. don't forget to become a fan of the show on facebook. we look forward to getting your feedback. you can also follow us on twitter it's at msnbc/yourbiz. >> next week -- >> they looked conventional wisdom right in the eye and said you're wrong. we're not going follow everyone, we will innovate in every way, shape or form on our products, marketing, business model. >> how the grateful dead's counter culture marketing style can make a whole lot of sense for your business. until then, i'm jj ramberg, remember, we make your business our business.