Top Five Reasons Why Free is a Good Business Model & How We Plan to Use it to Retire Before We're 90

Pawfun, the site I hope will one day allow me to say "I used to be a corporate social media consultant", is one year old this month.

My partner, Caimin Jones, and I started out thinking we'd sell a ton of t-shirts, customized photo note cards, and personalized pet photo greeting cards to pet lovers. We've sold a bunch, but not enough to allow us to retire from consulting before we're 90.

Then, Eureka! We realized that we weren't using the very community-building tools we've spent the last 10 years cajoling our Fortune 500 clients into trying.

Pawfun's new focus: free
We're changing our focus. You can still buy products from Pawfun. But now you can also design and share free photo e-cards of your pets, using the fast and easy Design Wizard that Caimin, aka Technical Paw, created for Pawfun.

You can share your Pawfun e-cards with friends via email, Twitter, Facebook and more.

Pawfun Gallery
You can see, send, and share all the creative pet photo ecards people are creating with the Pawfun Design Wizard in the continuously updated Pawfun Gallery. The latest designs also are on our homepage and on Pawfun Blog too.

We've also got a series of community-based features planned - also free - and the focus of all of them is fun. Can't wait to show them to you!

Why give away free e-cards? Because

• We know from long experience that the more you give away, the more you get back.

  After all, I've been giving away information on this blog for eight years. In return, it has brought me clients who allow me to make a wonderful living and enjoy my entrepreneurial lifestyle.



• Sites with lots of traffic and an involved community are attractive to advertisers


• any new business needs traffic, community, and a reason for people to return to the site on a regular basis.


• Companies are already suggesting ways we could tie in our Design Wizard and their sales of pet products. We're sure more than one of these liaisons is going to be great. And we're interested in any licensing or other opportunities you want to discuss.


• And the best reason of all: it's fun seeing everyone's wonderful creations.