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Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. The first input is CAC. Customer acquisition cost.

Metrics 150
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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.

SEM 164
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Why Young Entrepreneurs Are Into Digital Marketing

YoungUpstarts

The use of digital marketing among young entrepreneurs does not come as a surprise since they are digital natives who do not know what a world without high-speed Internet looks like. With the rise of Internet technologies, people have new expectations. Simple and Reliable Metrics for Measuring Success. Email marketing.

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

Startup Lessons Learned

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

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What is A/B Testing? The Complete Guide: From Beginner to Pro

ConversionXL

For conversion optimization , the main difference is the variability of Internet traffic. Define your target metrics. The Internet is full of case studies steeped in shitty math. We’ll measure this using (data metric). We expect to see (data metric[s] change) over a period of (X business cycles). External events.

Analytics 127
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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.

Demand 167