Couple of lessons to be learned from that 1) be proud of what you write, it could come back to bite you on the you know what and 2) the importance of blog writing in a marketing sense.

So, I’ve helped out with causes that I believe in, but not much else. Maybe an interesting technical problem, I suppose. But giving real time to someone who’s going to profit from it? Sorry, I’d rather work on my own things.

And none of these people, in my experience, ever generate much in terms of PR spin-offs. They’re pretty flaky people as a rule.

My advice is to offer to do the work for a share of their business, and make sure it’s a serious percentage (like 10%) and is properly contractually drawn up. You’re doing them a favour right now, getting them off the ground, and if they’re not going to pay you then they’re going to have to treat you like an investor (albeit that you invest time rather than money).

I am a huge fan of social media, but strongly agree that you have to allocate the time to make it work for you – it’s not about selling and scheduled tweets, it’s about interacting, having conversations and meeting great new people!