Hey fellow techTravelrs!
I just ordered 1,000 business cards from business-cards.com. I designed the card myself with Photoshop, but uploading it was a breeze and they have pretty reasonable and competitive pricing. I had ordered from vista print previously, and the quality just wasn’t that great. I’m really hoping these cards have a good print, because I used some smaller fonts that wouldn’t work well with a low-quality print.

I ordered the cards not only because they are good to have around for unrelated things (such as someone just needing my number) – but also as a motivation factor. I have very strong feelings about putting any money into a company, unless that money came from said company. For example, I just created an iPhone app (with the friend that just came back from China, read about that in my Maiden Voyage post) and I am not going to pay for anything related to it, until it makes enough money to support those payments.

There are a few exceptions, however. The first, obviously, is my business cards. The reason I bought these with non-techTravelr-earned money is simply because I know that if I have invested some money, I’m going to strive to earn that amount back from the company. I still don’t have a plan to monetize techTravelr, and I don’t really want to spam you with ads or anything. Maybe tech related travel gear with affiliate links, so it’s no extra charge for you, but I get a little kick-back if you buy from this site.

The other exception is advertising. In some mediums, you have to advertise your company, or you won’t make any money, because nobody knows you exist! The iPhone app will have enough buzz being what it is (not telling till it’s approved! Apple is taking forever to approve it. Hint: It’s travel related, and it’s on an iPhone, so it’s tech as well) so I’m not worried about that.

In regards to our Caribbean cruise, I just bought my wife a massage on the island of Sint Maarten, so she’s pretty excited about that. Not sure what I’m going to do for that hour though – anyone have any ideas?