A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 4, 2011

This guest-post is from Joannes Vermorel, founder of Lokad which produces sales forecasts for off-line companies. As a result, the pitch was less than useful, and the sales team appeared clueless. A client with a technical question our billing, unsure of the proper contact, decided to separately email sales@ , support@ and billing@.

Email 267

Email Cofounder Technical Review Technical Cofounder 267

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

You can’t sell anything without significant traffic, especially since 80% of it is crap even with a good campaign, and it is preferable that some of that traffic is not costing you dollars per click. On top of that, the cost has escalated tremendously over time. He was on full sales alert. I just explained the truth.

Campaign 272

Campaign Software Review Brazil Conversion 272

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 18, 2015

They have everything: money, brand, momentum, existing customers, press, product teams, distribution channels, expertise, market insight, analysts, sales offices, product features, and, by definition, a working business model. This market is willing to pay far more than cost for this product (else profits wouldn’t be generated).

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Valuation Flash Revenue 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2011

Here’s a simple question, often asked when designing software but more useful when you’re designing your marketing and sales pitch: How are people doing this today without you? Your power users are the mavens to whom non-power users look for advice, so they become your sales force. World domination! Launching Doggie Cards.

Software Review 232

Software Review Technical Review .Net Design 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

product that barely worked, no sales organization (except tech support, which often works better anyway ), and I just hoped they’d run a credit card. Often they’ll agree if it means a steep hourly discount or cheaper maintenance costs.) I had a $39.95 You think you have a great idea.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 23, 2013

of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product. I know the argument: The pay-back period on sales, marketing, and up-start costs is long, but there’s a profitable result at the end of the tunnel. The mindset works like this: It costs a lot of money to land an enterprise customer. Just wait!

Business Model 335

Business Model .Net Revenue IPO 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

If you like this, go see his Shockwave Innovations blog ) Anyone that has taken an accounting class or learned basic business financials knows the interaction between key elements of a P&L (revenue, cost, expense) and a balance sheet (assets, liabilities, equity). At that point, you’ve recovered the cost to acquire the customer.

Churn Rate 288

Churn Rate .Net Metrics Hosting 288

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Yeah yeah, nowadays marketing is about "relationships" and "authority" and other things which cost time but not money. It sounds simple: The average cost of acquiring a customer is $C (advertising, sales, support, doing demos) and the lifetime revenue you get from that customer is $R, so if C < R you have a business.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 23, 2010

Of course you're going to position your company with a unique offering: exclusive features, a distinctive culture, a refreshing pricing plan, an innovative sales strategy, etc. If they don't already know they have the pain, the sales process is going to be excruciating. "No one is doing it like we are.". Example value: Simplicity.

Software Review 275

Software Review Technical Review Software Advertising 275

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 7, 2014

Today you have a business plan, featuring a plausible growth trajectory (neither too conservative nor too optimistic), and an associated cost structure to drive signups and service customers. Costs arise ahead of associated revenue, especially for SaaS companies, so you need a cash investment to fund that growth.

Revenue 270

Revenue Finance Equity Engineer 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 29, 2013

One of the root questions you have at the start, which is supposed to be data-driven (but you don’t have data) is: What’s the maximum I should bid for CPC (cost-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords? So to compute CAC, take your total costs to acquire new customers and divide by the number of customers you acquired.

Bootstrapping 285

Bootstrapping Affiliate Cofounder Channel 285

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2016

past product/market fit and into tens of millions in revenue), you realize that cancellation scales with total customers whereas growth scales with sales and marketing costs, which means cancellation necessarily and always outgrows inbound activity, thus growth ceases. Once you’re scaling (i.e.

Metrics 270

Metrics Retention Revenue Equity 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

When you add up all our costs in Sales and Marketing (SaaS metric: CAC), the result is very small compared to the total revenue we’ll earn from than customer over the next few years (SaaS metric: LTV). ” Here’s the logic: We (Rackspace) have extremely efficient mechanisms for acquiring customers.

Metrics 238

Metrics Revenue Flash Later Stage 238

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 12, 2010

It's hard to explain" should not be a standard part of your sales pitch. There are ways to elucidate the utility of Twitter, but even the good ones are lengthy and require listeners with patience and open minds — two attributes in short supply. You just need to try it" and "trust me" don't cut it.

Technical Review 243

Technical Review Software Review Engineer Search 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 11, 2017

It’s wise because costs are low (every vendor is thrilled to have new business) and if you can get people to buy when money is tight, you’ve really proved you have a desirable product. When the economy is good and the product fits the market, sales are easy. When the economy rushes back, you ride the wave.

Bootstrapping 156

Bootstrapping Engineer Sales Cost 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 28, 2014

Large company should send a few emails to the customer base, generating easy sales at no cost, and the revenues are split. Let’s also assume that WP Engine will receive $50 per sale, which is higher than the typical offer. Free money for all, thus good deal for all. But now let’s look at the economics.

Startup 293

Startup Hosting Distribution Revenue 293

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 10, 2010

These companies typically make money either by charging sellers for listing (akin to the yellow pages) or by charging a sales commission (akin to a "finder's fee"). These are distinct operations — different clients, different technology, different sales process — almost like two separate companies. So what's the problem?

Business Model 310

Business Model Finder SEO Bootstrapping 310

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

For example, the average cost of customer acquisition diminishes. Because you get organized around marketing metrics, because your campaigns get optimized, because your landing pages and drip campaigns become stronger, because word of mouth produces sales “for free,” and so forth.

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 3, 2012

This is a guest post by Jarrod Drysdale — a web designer and bootstrapper who recently broke five figure sales for his ebook that teaches bootstrappers do-it-yourself design principles and strategies. Sacha just wrote about his pricing strategy last week on this blog, and shared that he earned $6,663 for 1,476 sales in 48 hours.

Sales 261

Sales Bootstrapping Design Audience 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 21, 2017

Even if this costs more than 2 years of in-house assembly, it’s still worth it, due to accelerating revenue growth due to up-sales and market-differentiation. Pundits couldn’t agree how to analyze the sale of Instagram to Facebook. This acquirer doesn’t care about the financials of the startup.

Balance Sheet 242

Balance Sheet Vertical Acquisition Revenue 242

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.” Maybe between higher MRR, more targeted marketing, and stronger sales, you can whittle down the required number of customers and impressions by 10x. So what can be shifted?

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Examples: large bidders tripled the cost per click, Google’s SEO algorithm changed, the event organizers changed the rules or stopped doing the event, the link-sharing site became irrelevant, the hot blog lost its traffic, the magazine running the ads finally failed. The product was built on a platform , and the platform changed.

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Marketing isn’t scheduling a launch and recruiting isn’t timing the start-dates of the next 50 hires in customer service and sales. We didn’t line up that press and have those sales materials and ensure code-quality high enough to scale on day one, without predictability. This means you can — and should!

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 1, 2010

What would a sales call look like, starting with your 30-second pitch, then dealing with skeptical questions, trying to earn this potential customer's interest, respect, and eventually money, all with only one advantage? You should go through this exercise because this skill is valuable in every sales call. Doesn't that sound nice?

Open Source 239

Open Source Dilution Software Developers Software Development 239

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

But all that investment in growth and sales force didn’t have a long-term payback, and the actual value of the product to small businesses wasn’t as high as claimed, even though the simplest of customer development reveals this fact (ask any restauranteur).

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 19, 2010

We won the order — the marketing worked, the sale was approved, tech support satisfied the end users — but who knows what in month the revenue would actually hit the bank account. I've incurred the cost, so for planning purposes I have to pretend that cash is gone. Expenses count immediately (accural-basis).

Revenue 232

Revenue Startup Forecast Finance 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 5, 2018

Pricing is often more about positioning and perceived value than it is about cost-analysis and unconvincing ROI calculators. You’ve created a marketing tool called DoubleDown that doubles the cost-efficiency of AdWords campaigns. Growth is much more valuable than cost. Here’s how. Who doesn’t want higher ROI.

Product 283

Product PR .Net Lead Generation 283

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Even if I restricted myself to things like “code review tool,” the cost is two orders of magnitude more per click, and there’s tough, entrenched competition. One gets 100 paying customers from a single TechCrunch announcement; the next says their TechCrunch announcement garnered 10,000 visits and zero sales.

Customer 279

Customer Software Review SEM Technical Review 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 28, 2011

What’s the cost of continuing to run this company in a way that may have that sort of more traditional trajectory. What’s the cost of that? Well the cost of that might be my satisfaction. But I think what we see often is the costs that do come with that. But then again, you’re here a year later.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder New York Conversion Entrepreneur 223

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 28, 2012

As one of my first customers, you weren’t just a “sale – closed – won,” you’re a critical factor in the success of this business, and therefore fulfilling my own dreams and making 70-hour work-weeks worthwhile. In short, we’re hamstrung. But there it is.

Software Review 240

Software Review Technical Review Email Revenue 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

Your startup time plummets to near zero even though your maintenance costs are a bit higher since you're paying someone an hourly rate to handle the task. Customers make it necessary to put processes in place for marketing, sales, support, and back-end admin tasks. And the cost is negligible. You are now an entrepreneur.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

And I really believe I can do, on the sales part, so much more if I have additional people. Jason: That’s true in engineering; it’s true in sales; it’s true in marketing. Is it more the marketing/sales side? So for example, if you say look, marketing, sales, marketing, sales, the product basically works.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 11, 2010

But it costs a lot in time and effort — another scarce resource. And depending on your startup’s market, traditional marketing (paper spam, email spam, sales visits, shows, conferences, display ads, etc.) Q: You’re a big advocate for startups using social media because it's essentially free (in dollars).

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur Social Media Software Web 225

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 27, 2014

Hint: it’s usually increasing price , not cutting costs.) Have you truly clarified your target customer and aligned marketing, sales, and product around that, even if that means saying “no” to other interesting opportunities, including one-off features or consulting work?

Angel Investor 264

Angel Investor Hiring Sales Employee 264

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 9, 2013

It turns out that the cost of customer acquisition for consumers was too high compared to the revenue being generated. “In Most consumer apps get around the high acquisition costs with some sort of virality, but backup isn’t viral. So we had to pivot [from consumer sales] to go after businesses.” Those are horrible economics.

Lean 284

Lean Analytics Metrics Viral 284

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 7, 2016

A good answer is previous experience in the industry, including easy sales contacts and insight into the language, life, and challenges of that industry (although this is also a trap ). Another good answer is previous success by the team at startups, or at executing complex projects together.

San Francisco 170

San Francisco Startup Framework Azure 170

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

So your cost per billable hour is: Nominal Cost: $30/hour. Recomputing the cost of the remaining billable hours, we have: 20 WD/month, $31/hour. That changes the annual cost of your employee from $60,000 to $69,000 with an associated change in hourly cost: 20 WD/month, $36/hour. If the (potential?)

America 330

America Employee Hiring HTML 330