Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

I’ll give you an example with my own startup LaunchBit and how our understanding of the problem and the customer became more refined over time: V1: Helping online marketers get customers profitably. V2: Helping online marketers who have previously bought ads in email lists get customers profitably. Or in between?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. But, if they are not, it’s very hard to use paid acquisition to generate that type of traffic for under $5. Marketing first. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every repeat, previously-successful-founder focuses on the same thing for their respective startups: customer acquisition. But, if they are not, it’s very hard to use paid acquisition to generate that type of traffic for under $5. Marketing first. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2017

I’ve spent most of my corporate career in online acquisition marketing and while the numbers always start out nice, there will always be a ceiling of how much profitable marketing one can do through the web. We don’t have a budget that has to be spent so I wanted to think outside of online acquisition.

Marketing 48

Marketing Design Acquisition Bootstrapping 48

Spencer Fry

JUNE 29, 2011

At the end of the day, you have to build a service that people want to use or no amount of marketing or advertising will help. The Viral Strategy. We're all familiar with the idea of viral user acquisition: Your current users invite other users to use your service. The viral strategy isn't without its problems, though.

Philippines 77

Philippines Viral Bootstrapping Europe 77

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

My read on the business is that it needs to go to market in a B-to-B mode, expanding the scope of gift registries on major sites like Macy's and Crate & Barrel. It certainly will be a better way to bootstrap the company. The game has started getting some traction already, and has a good virality index. Brainscape.

Dilution 114

Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Because they have no presence in the market, they have to find distribution channels to bring in customers. Over time, they have found a formula for acquiring, qualifying, and selling customers in the market segments they have targeted. What’s the total available market? What’s the ROI on acquiring new customers?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

The big enterprise software companies almost all bootstrapped their way to profitability before they got their first external investors (typically via an IPO). But this discipline also means that the product fit to market tends to be very good - you don't end up with solutions looking for problems. Photo by LotusHead.

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

High infrastructure companies Traditionally, software investors have loved being in the software industry because the capital costs are low and also because you can get something into the market quickly. Do you have virality built into the product? In the beginning, this may not be a problem — you can bootstrap.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48