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Lessons Learned: SEM on five dollars a day

Startup Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Saturday, September 13, 2008 SEM on five dollars a day How do you build a new product with constant customer feedback while simultaneously staying under the radar? SEM is a simple idea. Trying to answer that question at IMVU led me to discover Google AdWords and the world of search engine marketing.

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Your Product Needs to be 10x Better than the Competition to Win. Here’s Why:

Both Sides of the Table

Last night I had the great privilege to interview Bill Gross , one of the Internet’s true pioneers. He took out an ad in the Yellow Pages (it was the early 80′s, pre Internet), which cost him $1,000 / month for a half-page ad. If it worked in the Yellow Pages, why not on the Internet? Overture was sold to Yahoo!

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Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. For example, its always nice to have someone constantly optimizing your SEM accounts, driving down your CPA. But its not really viral growth, even when its exponential.

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Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

I am somewhat of an expert in this having created one of the first pioneering labs and incubators in the Internet era, from N AZ where the normal course of action was to prove lean ventures with our retirement only to see them copied by deeper pockets on the coasts when we went searching for capital.

Lean 168
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Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

Dont worry about selecting particularly good keywords, if youre new to SEM. SEM only gets at one segment of users, and for a brand new product, you presumably need some skill at marketing in general and adsense in particular to get any useful info. Just put in your credit card. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click.

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Lessons Learned: Customer Development Engineering

Startup Lessons Learned

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.

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Lessons Learned: Just-In-Time Scalability

Startup Lessons Learned

► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. The visionary’s lament The Superbowl ad test Lo, my 57692 subscribers, who are you? How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.