SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Major Phases / Major Features - What are the major features in the major phases for the product? Do you transact immediately or on delivery of some product or service? Social Integration/Viral Outreach - are you integrating in some way with social networks? Any other kind of viral outreach? What has been captured so far?

Developer 396

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 396

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 4, 2011

Major Phases / Major Features - What are the major features in the major phases for the product? Do you transact immediately or on delivery of some product or service? Social Integration/Viral Outreach - are you integrating in some way with social networks? Any other kind of viral outreach? What has been captured so far?

Developer 384

Developer Founder Viral Oauth 384

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 25, 2017

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a long time ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Develop viral content. Seed viral activity.

Campaign 167

Campaign Cost Viral Marketing 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 24, 2020

One of the harsh realities for most product entrepreneurs is that they have deal with hiring and firing as their company grows, and they have no experience or idea where to start. They know how to capitalize on social media, viral marketing, events, and the new tools of the trade. Staffing Professional.

Startup 410

Startup Angel Investor Social Media LLC 410

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

We're putting a 'Retweet' button inside the product to encourage viral growth.". For example, here's what the founder's ( Josh Baer ) availability looks like: Instead of trading emails with lists of available time-slots, Josh just sends the link to this page and the other person uses the product to schedule a meeting.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Development 261

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 17, 2020

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost.

Intellectual Property 436

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 436

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

How much does it really take to build a product like Twitter or Instagram? With mobile development agencies and product incubators on the rise and more corporate “labs” spinning out each day, there’s no shortage of talent to help you build the next great Web or mobile app. Still, a product is nothing without scalability.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 12, 2014

If you’re a technology startup you need to excel at product, of course. The starting point of product IS marketing, which is what a lot of young entrepreneurs that never studied business don’t realize. But being best-in-class at online marketing is also a sine qua non to standout from your peer group.

SEM 379

SEM Viral Marketing Widget 379

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

Investors my tell you that, but what they can look at your product on paper and tell what it does and they will understand if it can be built. Leverage Existing Platforms or Third Party Products - you want to test your social network, grab Drupal and whip something together, or even just use a hosted service.

Technical Cofounder 338

Technical Cofounder Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO 338

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2017

Amazon took a consumer value proposition (buying books, then all retail products) and made the consumer experience significantly better, faster & cheaper. MakeSpace doesn’t need large numbers of local storage facilities near your house, so it has a greatly reduced cost structure for its facilities. years of software development.

Technical Review 268

Technical Review Los Angeles Software Review Artificial Inteligence 268

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

Viral marketing. Viral marketing costs real money, but is often worth it. Wikipedia started this, but it is also used for technical support, software, and product reviews. No SEM plan means you are missing a huge marketing opportunity. " Examples include give-aways, contests, and celebrity stunts that grab attention.

Internet 239

Internet SEM Wiki Viral 239

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2010

Viral marketing. Viral marketing costs real money, but is often worth it. Wikipedia started this, but it is also used for technical support, software, and product reviews. Rates per click are very low, so don’t try to live on ad revenues until visit rates are very high. Crowdsourcing. You can use it for your business.

Internet 224

Internet SEM Wiki Entrepreneur 224

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

It’s important to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s even smarter to learn from someone else’s mistakes, without paying their high price in time lost, cost, and pain. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more. Bypasses intellectual property as not worth the cost.

Intellectual Property 312

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 312

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

Traditional video had very high costs of distribution due to limited time slots of broadcast TV (we only had enough spectrum to support 3-4 channels). Much of network television can cost $100,000 / minute to produce. So what happens when production is reduced by 99% and distribution bends to infinity? Much of it already is.

Video 339

Video Technical Review Distribution Aggregator 339

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Cloud computing and the open source movements have brought down the costs of starting a company by more than 90%. They need a combination of capital and experience to separate from the rest of the pack – the low cost of starting a business means it is even more vital to become the market leader more quickly. The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 8, 2020

Plan to deliver a family of products, rather than a one-trick pony. Even a great initial product, with no follow-on, won’t keep you ahead of competitors very long. A smarter risk is to build a plan, with associated greater resources, that will put you in position to expand your product line and keep one step ahead of competitors.

Management 322

Management Entrepreneur Forecast Stock Options 322

TechEmpower

JULY 31, 2023

One way to approach that last question is to use this simple model: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) How will your business reach prospects? And how much will it cost to win them? Start by building just enough of your product to get early CAC and CLV signals (they won’t be perfect). Apply costs to each channel.

Metrics 260

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 260

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2023

One of the harsh realities for most product entrepreneurs is that they have deal with hiring and firing as their company grows, and they have no experience or idea where to start. They know how to capitalize on social media, viral marketing, events, and the new tools of the trade. Staffing Professional.

Angel Investor 267

Angel Investor Social Media LLC Viral 267

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

Most technical entrepreneurs focus hard on building an innovative product, but forget that an elegant solution doesn’t automatically translate into a successful business. Defining the right business model requires the same diligence as designing the right product, but the approach and skills required are different.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review Business Model 220

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

Plan to deliver a family of products, rather than a one-trick pony. Even a great initial product, with no follow-on, won’t keep you ahead of competitors very long. A smarter risk is to build a plan, with associated greater resources, that will put you in position to expand your product line and keep one step ahead of competitors.

Forecast 304

Forecast Stock Options Technical Review Metrics 304

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

I was recently talking with a startup company who wanted me to try their product. I’m a big believer in product stability & performance before adding too many features. Measuring viral adoption is obviously important. If you have multiple versions of your product, how many are web vs. mobile? SEO is seldom “free.”.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup Acquisition SEM 346

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

It seems to me that there is abundant proof in the marketplace of the financial returns to both large and small businesses, the low cost of entry, and the ubiquity of social networks. Read everything you can about viral marketing. Then continue to measure and learn what works, at what cost. What’s the problem?

Social Media 289

Social Media Small Business Media Technical Review 289

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

In his maiden post on the topic he wrote, “After product-market fit and an efficient conversion process, the next critical step is finding scalable, repeatable and sustainable ways to grow the business. The more the supply of dollars spent in your channel the higher the cost-to-acquire new customers.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review Hockey Stick SEM Channel 384

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 27, 2014

Plan to deliver a family of products, rather than a one-trick pony. Even a great initial product, with no follow-on, won’t keep you ahead of competitors very long. A smarter risk is to build a plan, with associated greater resources, that will put you in position to expand your product line and keep one step ahead of competitors.

Startup 283

Startup Forecast Stock Options Technical Review 283

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2014

Price is as important as any other feature to determine product/market “fit.” ” How many times have you heard someone agree that “it would be great if someone did X,” but when show them someone did do X, but it costs $39.99, they don’t buy? But I disagree. simple enough to be self-service).

Bootstrapping 294

Bootstrapping Technical Review B2C Sales Cycle 294

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 10, 2020

Make sure you integrate video production into your company’s marketing plan. If you manage to get your video production and marketing right, you can dramatically boost your conversion rate. You can’t expect someone who has no idea about your offer to immediately purchase your product or service. Helps In Building Trust.

Video 246

Video Marketing Social Media Mobile 246

SoCal CTO

MARCH 11, 2013

Yesterday, I was talking to a startup founder about their MVP and they said something that finally got me to write this post: "I have a few investors interested but they want to see a product." It is almost never the case that you are building an MVP to "show" to an investor the product itself.

Algorithm 264

Algorithm Metrics Viral Venture Capital 264

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 12, 2018

If you don’t know, Ring offers home security products that started with a video doorbell, then video floodlights, outdoor stickup cams and now in-home security features that innovate in-home security alongside outside protection. We were CONVINCED Dropcam (then Nest) wouldn’t mobilize a competing product quickly if it did sell?

Security 247

Security Los Angeles Silicon Valley Video 247

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

This preference isn’t necessarily due to market size, but rather the structure of the market: are there only a few dozen customers that might buy your product or are there thousands, or even tens of thousands of potential customers? These acts can often be start of a viral growth curve in the enterprise. Final thoughts.

Fractional CTO 154

Fractional CTO Software Review Viral Sales Cycle 154

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2011

Photoshop is a great illustration of a product designed to this extreme. (A Build your product specifically for them, even if that means confusing and abusing everyone else. If your product really is good, they’ll give you money and tell other power-users (birds of a feather already forum and Twitter together).

Software Review 232

Software Review Technical Review .Net Design 232

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

But more spend = more viral opps = more revenue down the road. >50% of our revenue in now viral. The very modest salary that I drew didn’t come anywhere near meeting my monthly costs so I had to eat into savings. I raised $500k in seed money to start the company. year old boy and another one due in 1 months.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 18, 2020

and a full-fledged production crew. The bigger the team, the greater the cost. Film productions, businesses that were aiming to spend big bucks on live advertising are now turning to various animated video styles to get the job done. What about real product demos? Many companies want to showcase their upcoming products.

Video 229

Video Advertising Technical Review Viral 229

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 21, 2013

Creators of new products in environments of extreme uncertainty, startups face enormous risks. Through rapid experimentation, short product development cycles, and rigorous measurements of the right metrics, they can ascertain what customers really want. In the US, about 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years.

Lean 193

Lean Technical Review North America Startup 193

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

But, increasingly, the Apple hype-fests are a marketing—not a product—showcase. For product launches, long-term success relies on cornerstones of marketing research and execution, like a strong value proposition and full-funnel campaign. Yet while product launches are a risk, they’re not as risky as you think. Image source ).

Product 110

Product Campaign Acquisition Social Media 110

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 15, 2019

This strategy of IBM started to fail once the market was filled with clones and fakes of their products. Recently, McDonalds shifted from plastic straws to paper straws after a twitter campaign went viral on how they use 1.8 If the modified version works, thank your gods for sending cost-free advisors.

Small Business 196

Small Business Software Review Technical Review Viral 196

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

Many of them get hung up on understanding how to select the right minimal viable product. He came up with the concept to simply the search for product/market fit by using an MVP Tree. Many startups fall into the trap of building toward a “mission” rather than a minimum viable product (MVP). Your mission is your baby.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

In today’s market ( 8,000 martech products alone ), it’s easier to attract the right customer with material they value than it is to chase down and convert a prospect who isn’t ready to buy. If your product was developed to solve a real-world problem, your ideal customers already exist. Like SEO, demand generation is a long game.

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124