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.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Thats the conclusion Ive come to after watching tons of online products fail for a complete lack of customers. Our goal is to find out whether customers are interested in your product by offering to give (or even sell) it to them, and then failing to deliver on that promise. We finally settled on a $1.99 Setup a simple website.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development ► June (3) What is a startup?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

The App Store is a channel for customer acquisition. Customers and prospects are overwhelmed by the number of media and companies clamoring for their attention. Acqusition competition is how new apps get new customers. 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

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

But from a customer experience point of view, Im not yet sold. Today, the fact that the store is open and has almost no barriers to entry is great for the companies I meet, because they can get their first versions in front of customers quickly, and start iterating fast. On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Marketing launch) Make a new product available to customers in the general public. In particular, a marketing launch can help you do three things (courtesy, as is most of my marketing advice, of The Four Steps to the Epiphany ): Drive customers into your sales pipeline. Do your customers really read TechCrunch?

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 7, 2010

Instead, we try to accelerate with respect to validated learning about customers. Many optimizers are in favor of split-testing, too: direct marketers, landing page and SEO experts -- heck even the Google Website Optimizer team. There are often counter-intuitive changes in customer behavior that depend on little details.

San Francisco 154

San Francisco Lean Metrics Design 154