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We are now in the final stages of development and will be ready for launch soon. Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter for all the latest news and announcements of our launch date.

If you haven’t signed up for a 2large2email account yet now is the time to do it.

We have just updated our uploader to be more stable and more secure. It also keeps you informed as to how you upload is traveling. It gives you statistics such as: time elapsed, transfer rate, percentage uploaded and the all important “time remaining”

This upload make sending your large files just that little bit less annoying and stressful

So sign up for a free account today and give it a go

Note: require flash version 9 or later

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

A great feature of 2Large2Email accounts is being able to set up every individual in your company as a unique user. The benefits of this include:

- having unique logins for each user

- each user can send files that show their own personal name & email address

- the account administrator can control the users & track their usage

- people sending you files on your dropbox can select a specific user to send to

Everyone in your company can have a user account and can upload and send large files as needed.

2Large2Email free accounts only allow one user but our standard and premium accounts allow unlimited number of users.

There are different kinds of businesses in the world. Some require lots of capital and lots work just to turn a buck. And then there are some businesses that seem to check all the boxes when it comes to being the great, simple business.

Here are a few things to look out for:

Low start up costs. This is important when you’re a new business because you want to keep your cash handy. Remember, cash is king. Most businesses go broke simply because they run out of cash to pay bills. For instance, someone who has just started a bookshop might not be able to pay the phone bill because they’ve just bought nine pallet loads of books. When we started 2Large2Email we decided to keep all the costs down as much as possible. We’re not funded by some deep pocketed VC - and actually, even if we were, it would be irresponsible not to treat it like our own hard-earned cash.

No physical product. Somewhat tied to low start up costs, not having actual physical product can reduce cashflow problems, which allows businesses to grow more steadily. I don’t necessarily mean having a services company but companies that can offer intellectual property (such as e-books, music, software) have a great advantage. Once it’s produced the costs can stay down.

Actually make some money. Strange concept huh? I have never been able to fully comprehend why the internet industry has evolved to be something that gives things away. What other industries do this? Petroleum? Grocery? Travel? I don’t think so! I’m all for offering free samples, trials and the like, but premium services and so forth can be justifiably charged for. If you offer something of value, people will respect the value and they will contribute financially. And obviously the long term benefits of revenue include profit, which is always nice.

Be scalable. If the business is going to grow, be ready to grow with it, but don’t put yourself in a position where the hundredth customer requires as much input as the first did. You need to develop systems to automate the processes of customer acquisition, processing and support as much as possible. Once this can be achieved you’re well on the way to allowing your business to work for you.

There are other factors that you can build into developing the right business strategy. Start with the basics listed above and build on them. I’d be delighted to hear ideas!

Hey all,

Just added some new features to make finding your contacts easier.

For example if you have a lot of users set up in your account and you open your address book your users and your address book contacts will show up. Now you can simply click Show/Hide Users to only see your address book contacts.

Also i have added a quick search function so you can type in any part of the email address and click search and your list will changed to show the new results.

The address book popout in the send files tab:

In the address book tab:

Did you know that you can change the look and feel of your 2Large2Email account pages and emails?

It’s easy to add a logo, change colors and add unique messages to your account. Below are some examples on how to make your account have the look and feel of your own company and brand.

1. Add your own Logo

All you have to do is click in the top left hand corner of your account page in the box that says “Your Logo Here”. You can then browse for an image on your computer and upload it to your account. If you want to change or delete the logo, click on the preferences link and then the Style/Branding tab. The logo will appear on your account page, email template and on your dropbox page.

2. Change the colors of your email template

You can change the color of the header, sidebar and header text of the email that is sent out to your recipients when they receive large files notification emails from you. Just log in to your account, click on the Preferences menu option, then choose the Style/Branding tab. You can enter the Hex color code if you know it or just click in the box and a color chart will appear for you to choose your colors. Click the preview link to test your color combinations, then when you are happy click update and start sending large files with emails that match your own company colors and branding.

The internet has brought amazing changes to our lives. We can send emails (for free), we can phone around the world (for free), we can meet partners (for free) and we can get software (for free). In fact the so-called “web 2.0 phenomenon” has created a culture where people expect free software.

Very few software is 100% free with little or no revenue potential for the vendor. Almost every service I can think of (ie, ZoneAlarm, Skype etc) that’s famous for its free products has a paid product too. But why wouldn’t they? They’re businesses, with investors. Most web-based software requires at least some kind of registration to get started using the product and although that can sometimes be annoying it’s often for a greater good.

Personally I want to jump straight into using the software; putting in even a few lines of personal info is just annoying. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the easier it is to get started using a product, the more likely someone is to continue through the process. Ideally the first sign-up page should require the bare minimum of information to kick-off and putting in more information should be optional (maybe there could be a reward!).

I received an email from PayPal today. I don’t consider it spam because it was relevant to what I was doing. You see, I have never had a PayPal account and last week I went to sign up. Unfortunately I got half way through and something came up, preventing me from finishing the registration. I totally forgot about it! This morning I received an email from PayPal, reminding me to complete my registration. I thought that was great!

I just wonder how this unobtrusive registration method could work to allow people to complete their 2Large2Email details at their convenience. It’s all about making it easy for the consumer, right?

In 1942 Erwin Rommel commandered the German Panzer division that was sweeping across North Africa. With little opposition Rommel was routing his enemy and pushing towards Egypt. The British had nothing to throw at Rommel and the future looked dim. If the Germans were to reach Cairo the Allied war effort would be in serious trouble as the Panzers would open up the rich oilfields of the Middle East, giving the German war machine unfetted access to oil.

In mid-1942 British High Command took the decision to install a new commander for the badly depleted British Eighth Army. Immediately after taking control of the situation General Bernard “Monty” Montgomery changed the British tactics. Controversially Monty decided to stay and fight. He ordered his men to dig in and to make the defences impenetrable. It’s said that High Ranking Officers were physically sick when he ordered all fallback, retreat and surrender plans be burned. There was to be no option but to fight to the death.

In the current impending recession businesses need to make the same kind of decisions. Do they make a whole-hearted, brazen stance and aim to weather the storm, or is it better to cut losses early and leave the market before compiling too much debt?

From an outsider’s perspective, those companies that “stay and fight” might look stupid risking capital, reputation and goodwill. But the potential upside for the companies that are still alive when the economy turns is massive. They will have a database of customers, intellectual property, reputation and a few years of experience.

On the other hand, some companies don’t have this luxury. Imagine a listed company with shareholders making the same kind of stance! (I’m talking deliberately, not through negligence). Our parent company is publicly listed with shareholders all over the world. I’m pretty sure the majority of these people would be pretty angry if they lost all their money through a strategy as outlined above. Our little division that runs 2Large2Email is pretty aggressive but we’re also formulating plans to ride out this nasty financial crisis wave. We want to be around, helping people send their files, for many years yet.

So don’t expect 2Large2Email to hit the headlines because of some mad “dot-com-boom” style “get users at any cost” shennanigans like giving away cars or trips to the moon or whatever. We’ll just focus on running a solid little business that sends large files, thank you very much.

Note: In case you didn’t know, Monty and the Allies won at Alamein, driving Rommel from North Africa and depriving the Germans of the much sought-after oil. That’s a pretty big upside.

You’d have to be blind Freddie Mac if you haven’t at least noticed the global financial crisis this week. Wall Street recorded its biggest one day point slide and markets around the world followed suit. Interestingly though I haven’t heard anyone refer to this week’s event as a crash. Does that conjure up too many nasty images?

Personally I think this crash (that’s what I’m calling it) is going to lead to a recession. If that’s the case there will of course be major repercussions. I know a lot of people advocate the idea of worrying about the here and now, but we take a long-term view and we’re preparing ourselves, JIC (just in case).

I’ve taken inspiration and sketched out a little mind map for the benefit of the team here. It’s important that everyone realizes the seriousness of what might happen - especially the Gen Y types who haven’t experienced a significant downturn before. So I drew a little word map for people to more easily understand some of the aspects of economic recession:

Word map of what happens in a recession

I hope that’s not too complicated to follow! It was a rush job, so excuse the mess.

We’ve developed what we think is a great way to send large files around the world. 2Large2Email has done away with the need to mail those massive files on a CD and it sure has reduced the number of emails that bounce because the attached files are too large! Now our mission is to make sure we’re presenting the product to a market with reduced cash flow in such a way that it’s still presenting good value and a worthwhile alternative to email and couriers.

We’re a small part of a public company and we have to pull our weight. If we better understand the environment in which we work, the better our product offering will become. We’re here for the long run and we’ll keep adjusting our business model to make sure we’re still offering what the customer wants.