The Next Web

DECEMBER 4, 2013

If you’re running a startup, working for one, or just considering turning an idea into a company, calling your work life “busy” is a severe understatement. Here are five essential, efficient ways to eliminate guesswork and make your startup a success on social media. Startup Example: Zappos. Startup Example: Cloudera.

Social Media 158

Social Media Media Viral Startup 158

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2023

This dual-leadership approach would have avoided the frustration I felt in a startup a few years ago where beta customers loved our software solution as a free prototype, but we couldn’t sell one in the first few months for a price that seemed reasonable for all our work and innovation. These two jobs need to be done in parallel.

Technical Review 220

Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review Business Model 220

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Paul Graham’s Startup Curve – avoid the “through of sorrow”! Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). Growth Hacking isn’t viral marketing (although viral marketing is part of it). First Steps in Growth Hacking for Startups.

API 167

API Viral Startup Retention 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Thursday, September 18, 2008 How to get distribution advantage on the iPhone I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of iPhone-related companies lately. There are other models, in other distribution channels. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. I havent found any yet.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Version One Ventures

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

A great product is always the foundation but a clear distribution strategy becomes essential to cut through the noise. Your business has a high viral co-efficient (or perhaps even a network effect) that lets you amass users cheaply without worrying too much about the monetization per user or spending money on paid acquisition.

Churn Rate 168

Churn Rate Viral Acquisition Cofounder 168

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Great content again in September that meets at the intersection of startups, technology, product and being a Startup CTO. Chris Dixon , September 12, 2010 My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. Why You Should Write. Your service: the game.

Technology 191

Technology Product San Francisco CTO Hire 191

The Next Web

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Here are their breakdowns of the costs and time investments to create 10 of the world’s hottest startups. Suddenly, those multi-million dollar financing rounds that startups raise don’t seem so outrageous! There’s also the enormous looming cost of distribution — one that’s hard to measure and even harder to predict. 1) Twitter.

Cost 168

Cost San Francisco New York City Ruby 168

VC Cafe

MARCH 16, 2025

Mention that you do “Consumer tech” as a startup founder and you’d be limiting your funding options to one third of the venture capital funds (in Israel that figure is probably closer to 10%). Despite the renewed potential offered by AI, consumer startups still need to overcome significant challenges.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review B2C Generative AI IPO 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Another topic we debated early in the program was “lean startup” vs. “ fat startup ” where we both took the obvious hedge and said “it depends.” But truthfully both Dana and I are more aligned with the lean startup principles and believe you only go FAT when you’ve really proved out your product / market fit.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

AOL was controlled by one company and the Internet was distributed. They controlled distribution to the masses. It did not have the same success as Google’s acquisition and MySpace sold Photobucket 2 years later to a relatively unknown Seattle-based startup called Ontela for a reportedly $60 million.

Social Network 318

Social Network Networking Internet Technical Review 318

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 3, 2016

These things outside your control do happen, but based on my years of experience as a startup advisor and angel investor, I still see too many shortcuts leading to failure that are inside the entrepreneur decision realm. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Startup Angel Investor Viral 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

This dual-leadership approach would have avoided the frustration I felt in a startup a few years ago where beta customers loved our software solution as a free prototype, but we couldn’t sell one in the first few months for a price that seemed reasonable for all our work and innovation. These two jobs need to be done in parallel.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

We then spoke about startups. Again, Seth: “One of the things I noticed when I looked around at startups is that often the founding teams hired people just like themselves. Startups shouldn’t be like this. And I’d recommend them to any talented startup founders out there.&#. And there you have it.

Connecticut 286

Connecticut Cofounder Silicon Valley Web 286

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 4, 2011

Viral marketing and word-of-mouth are not enough these days to make your product and brand visible in the relentless onslaught of new promotional media out there today. Viral is an outcome, not a strategy. Startups need to realize that products are the jumping-off point for building relationships with customers. Want control?

Viral 228

Viral Marketing Startup Demand 228

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

Too many entrepreneurs look for that one magic bullet -- an exciting new technology, perhaps, or their own determination to make the world a better place -- to override any shortcomings in their startup model. Such failures ignore the essential business elements investors look for before committing to a startup.

Exit Strategy 120

Exit Strategy Technical Review Distribution Viral 120

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, September 15, 2008 The one line split-test, or how to A/B all the time Split-testing is a core lean startup discipline, and its one of those rare topics that comes up just as often in a technical context as in a business-oriented one when Im talking to startups. First of all, why split-test?

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 17, 2011

This applies equally to VCs, startups & big company executives. It’s ironic because I believe creativity is the most important success criterion for a startup. Yet most startups seem to constrain creativity to product design. So no whinging about what a long post this is! So I thought I would. That’s a shame.

Technical Review 356

Technical Review Framework Audience Media 356

Hunter Walker

MAY 17, 2024

Hunter Walk: Textio , the startup you founded and CEO’ed until a few months ago, is almost 10 years old. I was publishing quite a bit of original research about bias in workplace documents like performance reviews and job posts, a bunch of it went viral, and I got to know a lot of people who eventually became Textio customers.

Cofounder 132

Cofounder Founder Technical Review Seattle 132

Haystack

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

market by launching in connection with Facebook viral invites? This all represents a huge market for engagement minutes as audio as a medium, while not inherently viral, is likely more accessible to more people in terms of literacy and in many cases faster and more efficient than reading (though not in all cases). Remember Stitcher?

Acquisition 134

Acquisition Media Audio Technical Review 134

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 26, 2024

For their financial public relations strategies, financial companies need to move beyond traditional news distribution and use audience-engaging content marketing techniques. Furthermore, upholding integrity amid viral trends and clickbait culture requires strong ethical fortitude.

PR 147

PR Public Relations Social Media Audience 147

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

These things outside your control do happen, but based on my years of experience as a startup advisor and Angel investor, I still see too many common failure causes that are inside the entrepreneur decision realm. Viral marketing costs real money, and your support staff and hosting systems cost even more.

Intellectual Property 120

Intellectual Property Angel Investor Viral Distribution 120

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 31, 2016

As an investor and former founder, I know that scalable growth (and the pretty hockey stick graph) is the holy grail for every startup. Just a decade ago, most software/cloud startups used a traditional model where product and marketing were siloed: product teams created the product and marketing drove people to the website to buy it.

Software Review 60

Software Review South Africa Hockey Stick Viral 60

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 15, 2013

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! The chart above shows age distribution within major social networks and online communities. Why Branding Is the Next Essential Startup Competency – [link].

Social Media 105

Social Media Small Business Design Media 105

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

One of the things we hear a lot about in Silicon Valley is how cheap and easy it is to launch a startup these days. Then we allocated the saved money into hiring the highest quality developers available — especially those who have experience working with a distributed team. Sign in with Facebook or Twitter to get started!

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 5, 2021

Startups are the corporations of the future, so I have long believed that entrepreneurs who study existing corporate models, rather than ignoring them with disdain, will likely profit from the exercise. That means if your new startup doesn’t plan for continuous innovation, the company may never reach corporate status. Globalization.

Marketing 339

Marketing Startup Global Viral 339

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2022

A common pain of startups after an exhilarating first surge of early adopters is a long and frustrating plateau of slow growth, where it seems like nothing you do will get your business to profitability. Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially.

Startup 335

Startup Social Media Metrics Viral 335

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup? Expo SF (May. . Expo SF (May.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 17, 2010

Like many small companies with limited marketing budgets, we are forced to work with the resources at hand, so creativity, partnering approaches, social media, and viral efforts tend to be our stock in trade. Or right here on the good ol’ Internets? Photo: Dave77459.

Marketing 84

Marketing Startup Small Business Viral 84

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Wednesday, April 7, 2010 Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem) Lean startups don’t optimize. When people (ok, engineers) who have been trained in this model enter most startups, they quickly get confused. In Google’s case, often in the millions of people.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Tuesday, April 14, 2009 Validated learning about customers Would you rather have $30,000 or $1 million in revenues for your startup? In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in and of itself. Let’s start with a simple question: why do early-stage startups want revenue?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 21, 2020

But the insights I see from her book and elsewhere are equally applicable to startup founders of all ages, and businesses of all ages. Viral marketing campaigns to lure new customers will cost you big money. These are chances to broaden your product line, change distribution, offer new services. Focus on your core competency.

Viral 430

Viral Revenue Distribution Cloud 430

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 3, 2012

This reality has fostered a popular startup approach which dramatically improves the efficiency and speed of these corrections, pioneered by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author Eric Ries. Changes to the way a startup captures value can have far-reaching consequences for business, product, and marketing strategies. Technology pivot.

Silicon Valley 273

Silicon Valley Architecture Startup Channel 273

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

AUGUST 5, 2011

Guest Bloggers can distribute content for free. This is a great tool for startups when they are brainstorming product/company/service name ideas. TextLinkAds is a marketplace where advertisers look for publishers that are related to their products/services. Advertisers also buy ads for back-linking purposes here. Nice deal Why?

Web 89

Web HTML Software Review SQL 89

thebarefootvc

DECEMBER 16, 2011

Startups such as Shopkick offered real time deals when users were in stores and Shopsavvy and similar mobile price comparison tools from Amazon and Google empowered consumers to find the best deals. The viral nature of social media no doubt aided this growth, as did improvements in the online shopping experience.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review India Mobile Hockey Stick 110

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

This reality has fostered a popular new startup approach which dramatically improves the efficiency and speed of these corrections, pioneered by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author Eric Ries. Changes to the way a startup captures value can have far-reaching consequences for business, product, and marketing strategies.

Lean 255

Lean Entrepreneur Silicon Valley Architecture 255

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Costs of product on YouTube content is literally 99% cheaper than traditional TV and; Distribution of content can now go viral and can predictably distributed via social networks. Over time if you produce compelling content you can package it up and repurpose it to distribute through other channels. You know you want to.

Silicon Valley 374

Silicon Valley Los Angeles Distribution Java 374

SoCal CTO

OCTOBER 8, 2009

A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp, Sept 2009) View more documents from Dave McClure. We need to make sure we have these numbers. Great stuff.

Metrics 225

Metrics Startup Retention Acquisition 225