Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

is an elegant way to model any service-oriented business: Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue We used a very similar scheme at IMVU, although we werent lucky enough to have started with this framework, and so had to derive a lot of it ourselves via trial and error. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA CTO Hire SEM 167

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Products can find sources of validation with impressive stats along a number of dimensions, such as high engagement, viral coefficient, or long-term retention. Do you have any thoughts on scalable customer acquisition in cases where a decent bit of knowledge work has to be invested into each customer?

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. I think its helpful to think about two kinds of competition for distribution: acquisition competition and retention competition. Retention competition is how you get people to come back to your app. Then, if your retention is good enough, you can stay there.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Retention Lean SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

At IMVU , we would routinely find retention effects that would stem from registration changes and have impact days or weeks later. Why, we just unified acquisition and engagement! I do think the concept allows us to unify acquisition and engagement, and is important for that reason. helping you balance engagement vs acquisition.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

If you haven’t figured out the ecosystem, growth is useless – whether it is a acquisition-only viral loop, like Tagged, or an advertising blitz like countless dot-bombs. Case Study: Continuous deployment makes releases n. They get focused solely on growth. Take the minimum viable product , for starters.

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 16, 2008

We were trying to broaden the conversation beyond just viral customer acquisition. I wrote about this challenge for iPhone developers, in an essay on retention competition : the battle over what icon the user will click when they go to the home screen. Have you struggled with engagement and retention? What do they get out of it?

Viral 140

Viral San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 140