Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2020

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially. Marty Zwilling.

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Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 329

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 1, 2015

Every entrepreneur I know has their favorite excuse for a previous failure – an investor backed out, the economy took a downturn, or a supplier delivered bad quality. In that spirit, I offer my perspective on ten common startup failure sources that rarely get admitted by entrepreneurs: Choose to skip the written business plan.

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 12, 2020

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Make your focus and priorities clear.

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Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 336

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Here, the key metrics are Acquisition and Referral, combined into the now-famous viral coefficient. If the coefficient is > 1.0 , you generally have a viral hit on your hands.

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Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 31, 2014

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” business entrepreneur funding investor startup'

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Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 285

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2018

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 139

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 139

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 29, 2016

Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup. Others do far too little, assuming the viral effect and word-of-mouth will soon kick in, and sales will suddenly grow exponentially.

Social Media 120

Social Media Metrics Viral Channel 120

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth. Cost of Acquisition (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a user through a given channel. If the CAC is above the LTV, but not too much—there’s some potential in this channel. Apr-15: Head of Marketing (growth team).

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Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2016

Entrepreneurs looking for investor funding often fail to realize that all money comes with strings. For example, if you have watched the Shark Tank TV series, you probably noticed that the Sharks always ask the entrepreneurs for their intended “use of funds.” Make your focus and priorities clear.

Elevator Pitch 120

Elevator Pitch Salary Angel Investor Viral 120

crowdSPRING Blog

MAY 17, 2010

As a Kellogg alum (worlds greatest marketing school, after all, uh huh) I would be remiss not to write occasionally about marketing in the context of our world: online entrepreneurs. This drives our own product development strategy, and we constantly ask for feedback and suggestions to help us understand how we can do better.

Marketing 84

Marketing Startup Small Business Viral 84

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 27, 2011

This partnership speaks to a core philosophy of the program where we encourage entrepreneurs to get as much customer validation as possible before raising too much money, use other people's channels if you can get to them, don't burn too much cash, and all that good fiscal conservative stuff. LetsGiftIt. SOCO Games.

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Dilution Revenue Finance Entrepreneur 114

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

This may sound crazy, coming as it does from an advocate of c harging customers for your product from day one. I have counseled innumerable entrepreneurs to change their focus to revenue, and many companies who refuse this advice get themselves into trouble by running out of iterations. And what of the product development team?

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Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

I too would be concerned about false negatives, but perhaps this strategy could be integrated into a broader market research strategy that included user engagement, viral marketing, etc which would all be quantifiable under the Google analytics. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

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Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the Udemy course, Alistair and Ben expand these basics into a description of how to create empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and scale. Stickiness, Ben and Alistair say, is where people move on too quickly--they don’t make sure they really have a product that has the right features and functionality to meet their customers’ needs.

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The Next Web

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

This is native advertising in real life, on a real website, acting as a key player in the race for the strongest, viral, engaging content. The company, known for viral social content, is predicted to bring in $100 million in revenue in 2014 from native advertising on 150 million unique visitors a month, according to a 2013 Forbes article.

Advertising 139

Advertising San Francisco New York Viral 139

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business. Product second.

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Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Unit economics are something I’ve found most entrepreneurs (and investors!) As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business. Product second.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2017

Practically speaking, the burning need was to begin hiring employees so that I could spend more of my day on product development, partnerships and driving sales. RL: At a high level, technology has created many ways to increase our productivity while also providing freedom to run the business from anywhere in the world.

Marketing 48

Marketing Design Acquisition Bootstrapping 48

crowdSPRING Blog

JULY 13, 2016

In some situations the product or service itself can accomplish these goals, but often it is great brand identity that can make the difference between your first customer or a lost lead. Though most startups know the importance of brand identity, it can often take the back seat to more pressing matters such as product development or finances.

Marketing 48

Marketing Startup Differentiation Naming 48

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 11, 2009

If you ask an expert in Facebook apps to come help build yours, youll usually hear the same advice: build your app for virality. Thats sensible advice; most people who have made a business on Facebook rely on the viral driver of growth. If you have a virally-growing app, you dont need the extra installs. Bring your questions.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Social Network Lean Continuous Deployment 68

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. As the channel gets more and more crowded, just launching an app in the store is getting worse and worse as a strategy for each new entrant. On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

Startup Lessons Learned

DECEMBER 14, 2009

In a previous post , I covered the three main drivers of growth: Paid, Sticky, and Viral. A minimum viable product in this category must answer the question: does my media content or channel command the attention of a valuable audience? Let’s look at a viral growth company, like Facebook. As soon as possible!&#

Customer 156

Customer San Francisco Viral Lean 156

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

To give you a better idea of what entrepreneurs in this industry are thinking about during each phase of the startup process, I interviewed SaaS entrepreneurs from all over the world, including our own COO Noah Parsons. Noah has been a key figure in the making of LivePlan, our own SaaS product. One-Page Business Pitch Template.

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Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

There are other models, in other distribution channels. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. Those companies who have learned to build apps that optimize the viral loop dominate in every category where they compete. So far, I dont see any apps that have much in the way of viral distribution.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 24, 2009

This is a common problem that results from viral-loop optimization. By copying the exact same registration flow as every other successful viral app, many viral apps completely lose their positioning. The solution for app developers caught in this vicious cycle is to develop competency in positioning.

Metrics 88

Metrics San Francisco Lean Viral 88

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

” April, 2012 – Andrew Chen writes Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing , which goes viral (2.4K Now, people begin defining growth hacking as a process, a systematic approach, a “viral loop”, etc. 6 Growth Hack Techniques You Can Try Today by Entrepreneur. Step 1: Product Development.

Retention 48

Retention Metrics Acquisition Conversion 48

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Again, its critical to focus your marketing launch on those publications, venues, and channels that your potential partners are paying attention to. Figuring this out takes time, and few entrepreneurs have the patience to wait it out, because the business plan does such a good job of explaining what customers are going to think.

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San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

No doubt early-stage companies can be started on a shoestring by low-paid entrepreneurs, but when financing a scalable, sustainable product, a free application server won’t make much of a difference. For example, my company decided early on to hire a UI designer, which has helped tremendously with our product development.

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ReadWriteStart

JUNE 20, 2012

Editor's note : This is the second in a two-part excerpt from the book The Startup Owner’s Manual , a step-by-step how-to guide for entrepreneurs. But even as nonpaying users, these earlyvangelists are willing or eager accelerators of your viral growth. They understand they have a problem. MVPs for Web/Mobile Are Different.

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mashable.com

JUNE 11, 2013

Lucky for you, time-strapped entrepreneur, weve gathered some tips from the pros to help you avoid some of the most common, game-ending mistakes committed by young startups. How many entrepreneurs opening words are about how stealth their project is, followed by a 10-page NDA to hear word one? As an entrepreneur, theres a lot going on.

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Cofounder Technical Review Startup Software Review 111