Blogs I Love. Blogs You Love?

Like you, I find high-quality blogs can be a profound source for reflection, self-discovery, inspiration, humor, marketing strategy and business education. I’d like to givea tribute to these outstanding bloggers for sharing their gifts with us, and for me/Startup Princess. I love their passion and appreciate their contributions in “raising the bar” in the blogosphere! I should have called this People/Bloggers I love, not just Blogs I love… this post will show you friends, as well as bloggers. After you check out my list, please comment and add your own, don’t be shy, we’d love to hear about your blogs too!

Home-based Business

Sparkplug CEO (formerly eMoms at Home) Wendy Piersall has more energy, more passion, and more love to give/receive on the web than most, especially now that she’s expanded her blog to be multi-channeled. She’s taught me a great deal about life, business, blogging and building a community, as a dear friend and mentor, love her posts! Taking Chicago-based Wendy to dinner/shopping in SLC last year was a true highlight for me. My all-time favorite post last year 94 ways to keep your kids busy for the work at home parent

Startups/Online Entrepreneur

Small Business Trends Anita Campbell and team are really on top of it, check it out for seeing what’s going on in the world of small biz, great tips and resources, one of the most successful blogs on the web for business. I read it when I feel like I need to be “in the know.”

Entrepreneurs-Journey, Aussie Yaro Starak is knows how to build a blogging community and make it profitable. I took his mind-expanding, intensely successful Blogmastermind course last year. Start with this post, $9000 a month from a board game? And if you’re a blogger be sure to download the Blog Profits Blueprint eBook, it’s very thorough and helpful.

Paul Allen I started blogging/Startup Princess largely because of Paul-”the lesser” who is a brilliant visionary, based in Utah, influencing the world, especially entrepreneurs. He expanded my world and helped me to see what could happen on the web with networking, having a voice/finding others with similar interests and dreams. (In 2006 I went to lunch with him to brainstorm about Princess Sweet and wanted to see what to do about getting funding. He suggested blogging… I started READING blogs for the first time that night and bought the URL for Startup Princess that night, the vision for building a community for women like me was given to me within seconds of buying the URL. Startup Princess soon BECAME the dream.) Paul’s blog is very good particularly if you’re a techie or love tech startups. I appreciate he takes time to blog/share insights in the midst of all of his companies.

Marketing

Seth Godin I love his marketing/entrepreneurial spirit (who doesn’t?) and read his blog regularly, even when I don’t have time to read other sites. I will always appreciate him for sending us major link love back in October 2006 when only Janet, Jason and my mom were reading Startup Princess. Seth’s gesture helped us build an international audience and reputation on the web, with links from other well-known bloggers and helped us get our first sponsor. This gesture happened after I sent him a thank you/email about my theme song as entrepreneur, never expecting he’d even write me back. He surprised me to the core and shifted our universe in just one post–one of the major reasons Startup Princess BECAME more. Thank you Seth for giving us such a boost here! His posts are always a fresh take on what’s going on in branding, marketing, and business. I wish he accepted comments, but I understand how much time it would take to manage that, he’d need to be a full-time blogger and really he’s an entrepreneur/writer, not a blogger, so I’m just pleased he makes time to write daily. One of my favorite experiences was giving Seth a cookie of his book the Dip and helping bring him to SLC.

Michele Miller’s Wonderbranding is all about marketing to women– she and Fairy Godmother Holly Buchanan recently published The Soccer Mom Myth, highly recommend that too. Did you know that women/moms control the majority of purchasing in the home? Read this blog/book to know how to reach our consumers better!

Newspapergrl Not only is Janet an outstanding blogger on anything SEO/Internet/Entrepreneur related, she’s a great friend and mentor to me and Startup Princesses, we love her insight and perspective on how to reach higher/wider on the web. Congrats to Janet and her fiance Steve, getting hitched in July!

Entrepreneurs/Friends/Startup Princesses with great blogs

Jamie-JPD Mom Jamie has a very influential and strong voice particularly for artists striving to retain their orginal style and protect their work, her blog posts represent her passion for work, design, and the balance of raising a family and growing a business. Jamie’s a mentor, a seasoned artist and friend/support to many artists, such as Sarah Jane below.

Sarah Jane Studios Sarah’s blog posts are like a window to her studio, she asks readers for feedback on color palettes, ideas she’s considering, advice for how to move ahead with projects, and she also shares a very authentic look at family life/raising very young kids in the process of it. Her blog represents a thriving community of fans and friends who are cheering this young mom entrepreneur on to success.

Heather Ledeboer/Mom4Life If you don’t know Heather’s blog posts here at Startup Princess, you really should read some of them like this one and this one and then go check out her blog too. Heather’s community are her customers, her vendors, and her friends. She’s very open, honest, and has a beautiful view of life, grounded in her inspiring faith–particularly as she’s shared the tragic death of her unborn baby Sawyer this past month. Heather keeps moving ahead in and through her pain with constant awareness of God’s love for her and shares the rainbows in her days, teaching us so much. Her audience has offered compassion, support, and become bonded to each other in the process. I love catching up with her and always feel my love for God increase and my perspective for family and business can work, she does it too! BTW, Heather’s online store only sells products created by Moms, she’s got a great brand and passion for mothers.

Kristy Glass I found Kristy last year through Startup Princess Melissa and found her to be an absolutely fascinating person to “watch” on occasion. She’s a mom/model/actress living in NYC and often “baby wrangles” on the side. Recently she has had some health issues and she’s completely open and writing about all of it; she’s very brave and inspiring, plus a very talented and sometimes very funny writer. I think she should publish her experiences or maybe a play?

Life-Balance/Time-Management/Organization

Zen Habits I’m sure you’ve all been over to meet Leo in the last year, he has shifted the entire blogging universe over to his site and done it with such humility and contribution. Leo mostly writes about life-balance, but sometimes you can find a gem of a post about things like Children’s Books, which is a fun surprise. I love that he’s a family man and shares so much about their interesting life in Guam. He’s also one of the very few bloggers I really BELIEVE should be doing this full-time. Good for him!

Carrie & Danielle love these ladies and their vision/style/life approach!! Their BRAND-new community started off with a huge following, they had a 900+ email list so when they relaunched their magazine last month the first post had 57 comments the morning after the launch. (no jealousy there, just admiration for their community! Danielle has been a friend/mentor/Fairy Godmother to me personally and contributing articles here since 2006, gotta love growth and watching others you adore do it with incredible strategy, style, and gratitude for what life’s offered and the opportunities to make a difference on so many levels. I love their VOICES.

Mom-related/Family

What about Mom Blog I met “Jane” last month at the Blogging for Business conference in SLC when we were both panelists. While I don’t regularly read mommy blogs, I found hers to be just the right mix of intellectual discussion with kid-friendly antics thrown in, for example check out this fun post she wrote recently that included Startup Princess. I look forward to being a regular reader this year and getting to know Jane and the gang better.

Because I Said So, I recommend this blog because my favorite post/article ever written by a mom is Adventures in Grocery Shopping If you aren’t already aware of how this article changed the lives of Dawn, her six children, and her husband.. you’ll be touched. Dawn wrote this with hopes that if she could make some money writing, maybe her husband could just work 2 jobs instead of 3. Wish granted, I assume! Once Dawn’s writing talents became known internationally she was offered book deals and with thousands of readers, I’m sure advertising alone is helpful to them.

Design

Design Mom Another great blog that mixes family life with the life of a talented art designer/co-founder of Kirtsy. Love this blog for ideas of what to do with my kids, cool new products, and finding new entrepreneurs to interview!! Great giveaways too. I’d love to get to know her and interview her someday. I’d love to bring her to SLC for an event.

Heather Bailey if I were asked who I’d want to trade lives with for a day, it would be her. I’m NOT a seamstress, in fact I can hardly sew on buttons, but I really appreciate and admire great style and Heather’s is just absolutely and utterly incredible. I recently had 6 pillows made from her FreshCuts fabrics and now I’m wishing I could have some made from her latest designs. I’m also a fan of her clever creation, TrashTies. I love her approach to blogging, the perfect balance of design/home/family/personal mixed with business/building a network/keeping in touch with her fans. I also appreciate that she has great design IN her blog, not all designers have great looking blogs and posts, she’s very conscious of her BRAND at all times. It helps her husband is a designer too and photographer! What a enchanting studio she has too… like I said, I’d like to be her for a day. Apparently I’m not the only one. When you think of people who create lifestyle brands, Heather IS doing just that.

Your Turn…Blogs you love??