Starting a New Business Series – Part 5
Can you keep a secret?
Hello fellow entrepreneurs!
Last week I wrote about how you can setup your own custom email address and how important email reputation is. Important stuff, necessary to do business, but not super exciting. This week I want to talk about something more practical to everybody…passwords. Specifically how to generate them and how to SAFELY store them.
Absolutely everything needs login credentials these days. How do you keep track of them all? Maybe you have some on your phone, maybe some in a document on your laptop/desktop? Maybe you use a note app on your phone? Maybe you even write them on a sticky note and stick them on your desk. You know who you are…I’m looking at you! If you track your login info with one of the above methods or something similar, the end result is that it takes time to find the info you need, if it’s even within your reach. Further, your secrets may not be safe from prying eyes and could cause you some serious distress if they get stolen.
What if I told you there’s a really simple (and affordable) solution for this ongoing problem that will change the way you store your secrets and make your life a lot easier? There are a lot of password managers out there, some with better reputations than others, with some being hacked regularly. After a lot of research, I’ve been using a piece of software called Bitwarden for years. It works on ALL my devices, and supports Linux, Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. There is also a plugin available for major web browsers.
How does this help me you ask? In a nutshell, it makes ALL of my passwords, available ALL the time from ANY device I own, automatically, in a very secure way. From the Bitwarden website:
“Zero knowledge, end-to-end encryption guides the Bitwarden open source approach to trust, accountability, and security.”
A handy side feature is that when browsing the web, you can use the browser plugin to automatically fill in login info for you, which is a real time saver! For this feature to work, you need to set the website URL field in Bitwarden.
I’m absolutely sure that one of your favorite tasks is thinking of unique and secure passwords for each account your create, right? Good news!
You can generate very secure passwords using Bitwarden, that will immediately improve your security situation. You can specify how many and what kind of characters to use. Since you don’t need to remember your passwords anymore, there’s no real excuse for using weak passwords. You simply have to remember your Bitwarden master password, a single thing to remember instead of many things. Keeping passwords accessible via the insecure sticky note archiving system should also no longer be required, you know who you are 😉
Bitwarden is open source software that is free for personal use. They have several different plans, including family plans so you can share passwords with others. I use a family plan to share passwords with my wife. I can choose to save a password just into my own account, or share it with her account. This comes in very handy for all our shared entertainment accounts like Netflix and Amazon Prime etc, so when one of us creates a new account, the other immediately has access to the login details through Bitwarden.
A good password manager is simple to integrate into your devices and will save you time and give you peace of mind, and maybe even save your bacon. It’s one of those little utilities that nobody really talks about, but absolutely everybody needs. Check it out and give it a try, you have nothing to lose! I also have nothing to gain if you try it, other then knowing I helped you make your life just a little easier.
As always, I want to leave you with some words of encouragement.
As an entrepreneur, you’re going to have a LOT of hats to wear and a LOT of tasks to complete, which require a LOT of decisions. Some larger and some smaller, some with big impacts others with small impacts. Sometimes the impact of even the smallest decisions doesn’t hit us until something bad happens. Take the time to carefully consider even the small decisions (like passwords) until you know how it will affect your time and money, but avoid analysis paralysis. Automation and standardization will always help you become more organized and efficient. So wherever possible, implement good solutions and don’t be afraid to try new things until you find the one that works just right for you.
Please don’t forget to visit my website and subscribe to get my weekly blog in your inbox.
Until next time,
Ernst Bergen
B.Sc. Mech. Eng.