A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 13, 2011

We recently underwent a Cinderella-like transformation: A total redesign of the WP Engine website from despicable steaming pile of hideousness to a designed, thematic — dare I say artistic? Neither is it an absolute either-or whether design is important; WP Engine is a good example of this. — sleek new look. Does it matter?

Design 253

Design Lean Database Cofounder 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 12, 2010

Google was the 11th major search engine, not the first. Their technology proved superior, but "a better search engine" was hardly a new idea. Disruptive in hindsight, sure, but the genesis was just "incrementally better" than the 10 search engines that came before

Technical Review 243

Technical Review Software Review Engineer Search 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

No brand, no features, no customers, no money, no distribution, no search engine rankings, no efficient advertising, no incredible executive team, no NPS, no strategy. Do you feel the crushing weight of the disadvantages facing every new company? How do the successful startups rise above all that?

Software Review 133

Software Review Technical Review API Algorithm 133

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 12, 2011

It’s happening now at WP Engine.). You’re not hiring a Systems Engineer III for IBM or a Senior Regional Sales Manager for Dell. So why wait until the interview to see whether your personalities mesh? Put it right in the job description. Be funny, reflect your personality, reflect the uniqueness of your company.

Hiring 282

Hiring Employee Ruby Java 282

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Young founders may fancy themselves wizards of coding, design, and salesmanship, because they’re individually excellent; I did! And it’s your job, because anything less is by definition holding the company back.

Warrant 120

Warrant Founder Engineer Matching 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Don’t tell me “they need to see a working product before they’ll have a chat” or any other typical, lame excuse engineers (including me!) .” If you had something genuinely valuable, that twenty people agreed they needed, you wouldn’t need to convince anyone. You’re just stalling.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 10, 2012

This isn’t just true with engineering productivity. Never once in my seven years selling software at Smart Bear, whether 10 seats or 2500 seats did a company make a decision in which a supposed savings in the “Salaries” budget resulted in a boost to the “Tools” budget.

Software Review 256

Software Review Product Software Developers Software Development 256

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 2, 2017

“You must be so proud of what you created” — the reflexive conclusion delivered by visitors to our building at WP Engine, struck by a beautiful place teeming with energy and activity, coming upon the little office of the founder. “WP Engine is an oak tree,” I explain. It’s not false humility.

Engineer 203

Engineer Security Networking Sales 203

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Search Engine Marketing and online ads on the other hand can be set up in minutes. I am sure this hurt me, but I think I managed the campaign as well as most engineers in my position would. SEO is extremely powerful, but it takes time. Anyone can sign up and unleash an AdWords campaign. Isn’t that the source of my failure?

Campaign 272

Campaign Software Review Brazil Conversion 272

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

WP Engine is one of those, and we laugh about how drastic the changes are, in the rare spaces between tackling the latest challenge. We have “youthful energy” for new innovations, but we also have all the challenges of fast-growing companies with hundreds of employees; that’s part of success.

Acquisition 120

Acquisition Technical Review Stock Options Employee 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 14, 2014

Let’s not get into exactly what sort of “shingle” is hanging out with the oldest profession …) This past weekend, WP Engine hung its shingle as well, but this time it’s so much more meaningful, and not just because this building doesn’t have rats: I grew up in Austin. “The WP Engine Building.”

RSS 309

RSS Engineer Metrics Government 309

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 12, 2014

This article originally appeared on the WP Engine Blog. ” We have a swag culture at WP Engine, particularly in T-shirts. .” ” We have a swag culture at WP Engine, particularly in T-shirts. I see those benefits manifest every day at WP Engine. Thanks @shaptora @asmartbear pic.twitter.com/ipAUbBU1DA.

Engineer 229

Engineer America Hiring Design 229

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

If the VP of Engineering thinks the target customer is just like him/her, you're doomed. Smart people agree: "Be a user of your own product. Make it better based on your own desires. But don't trick yourself into thinking you are your user." — Evan Williams ?, founder Blogger & Twitter. "If

Software Review 312

Software Review Part-Time VPE Houston Cofounder 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 22, 2013

Even in sales, which is tempting for Vulcan engineers to think of as revenue-acquisition-robots with zombie-like drive to make phone calls, in which a slew of barely productive “closers” may not be financially efficient but will still get the job done. At WP Engine, we’re living proof of this.)

Engineer 257

Engineer Social Media Acquisition Sales 257

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 28, 2014

As the founder of WP Engine, I receive weekly emails from startups proposing a “win-win” deal. Let’s also assume that WP Engine will receive $50 per sale, which is higher than the typical offer. In our working example, the question is: How can you create new hosting customers for WP Engine?

Startup 293

Startup Hosting Distribution Revenue 293

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 11, 2017

I started WP Engine in a boom (2010) and it went great. Whether you’re bootstrapping like I did with Smart Bear or raising tens of millions of dollars as we did at WP Engine, this is the right question. When the economy rushes back, you ride the wave. When the economy is good and the product fits the market, sales are easy.

Bootstrapping 156

Bootstrapping Engineer Sales Cost 156

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 7, 2014

You still signed that 5-year office lease, hired support, sales, and engineering, and brought in training, a comptroller, and a business operations person. You scramble to hire ahead in support, sales, and the additional demands on engineering. Marketing is over-spending to compensate. So, you’ll need more money than you planned.

Revenue 270

Revenue Finance Equity Engineer 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 1, 2012

Today WP Engine proudly announces a new WordPress page-caching technology which actually delivers pages before the user clicks the link! In a joint venture with CERN, WP Engine has developed a TCP/IP layer on top of a faster-than-light neutrino beam, delivering page content in negative time. Dateline April 1, 2012.

Caching 219

Caching IP Analytics Austin 219

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

Now at WP Engine, I have new ambitions and inclinations. I didn’t want to manage managers or figure out what changes, strategies, hirings, products, marketing, and sales were needed to make $100m/year.

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 5, 2014

Also: Interested in working at WP Engine, in any department? It’s an easy 5 blocks from the convention center, so there’s no reason not to hang out with us for a while, an oasis amidst the craziness. Address: 504 Lavaca, Suite 1000 (10th floor). We have a special event for that too. Announcements'

Austin 206

Austin Engineer Naming 206

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 12, 2012

(from his blog post ) …some civil engineers think the world of project management in their field is ripe for revolution, but do I know enough of them? I talked to 30 people before I realized that a certain idea of mine was a crappy idea, and about 40 people before starting WP Engine. How many should I talk to?

Customer 252

Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

And we completed our Series C round here at WP Engine on Dec 23, 2013. People say the end of the year is a terrible time to raise money or sell a company, because “everyone’s only thinking about the holidays” and “monied people are off skiing in Aspen.”

Engineer 232

Engineer 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 19, 2011

” This is how one of our competitors attempts to differentiate and compete with us at WP Engine. Google wasn’t the first search engine, the iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player, and DropBox wasn’t the first shared filesystem. Is it effective? Most startups insist they’re “first” at something.

HTML 243

HTML Hosting Engineer Leadership 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

I like this model, and we’ve used it to-date at WP Engine. Or a mid-stage company (like WP Engine) might have higher G&A spend (office space, finance, legal, HR) as a percentage of revenue, until it grows into those services. At WP Engine we watch it move month over month from negative to positive and then continue to grow.

Metrics 238

Metrics Revenue Flash Later Stage 238

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I was listening to Noah Kagan (founder of AppSumo and the marketing mind behind Mint , and the author of this great guest post ) talk to the current crop of Capital Factory companies, when he said something so simple, so obviously correct, and yet it completely changed how I thought about my approach to WP Engine.

Metrics 273

Metrics Startup Revenue Engineer 273

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 21, 2009

For example, I'm an engineer, so my first answer to "Why don't you have more customers?" people not knowing you exist, pricing, not enough product features, unorganized sales strategy, look-and-feel of website, haven't identified pain points,). Cartoon by Andertoons. is almost always: "Because we need this feature."

Startup 315

Startup Revenue Cofounder Sales 315

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 20, 2013

” (This is how I currently do it at WP Engine.) Although we’ve been using the Month-Cap method at WP Engine, now that we’re three years into the business we have a much better understanding of multi-year retention rates. Personally I think even d =0.01 Which method?

Retention 262

Retention Metrics Revenue Bandwidth 262

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 31, 2012

For example: Folks call up WP Engine tech support nearly always from posture of accusation. This isn’t specific to WP Engine support, of course. You have to make assumptions of course, but Pascal points out that some assumptions work better regardless of reality, whereas others only sometimes result in positive outcomes.

Engineer 259

Engineer Metrics Email Web 259

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Larger companies like WP Engine can have maybe three or four, but still not many. .” The purpose of a metric is to be a tool in service of your goals, timeline, size, circumstance, even philosophy, not as a master you are thoughtlessly obligated to obey.

Metrics 270

Metrics Retention Revenue Equity 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 20, 2012

But it just a few short months of super-charging our marketing efforts at WP Engine for her to start turning herself inside out about her lack of “success,” and by implication, lack of ability and self-worth: WP Engine is killing it right now. And let’s suppose I started WP Engine at the same time.

San Jose 233

San Jose Bootstrapping Hosting Engineer 233

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Gas-powered engines that are used infrequently have a tendency to stop working, so they have to test and maintain those units. You can’t just hire three more fantastic developers to create a robust engineering team, and you can’t just snap your fingers and find three new efficient, productive marketing channels.

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 12, 2016

Isn’t this true in all walks of life, not only engineering? He then spent another 18 months on the drudgery of trial and error before discovering that a carbonized bamboo filament would last 100x longer, and finally a modern-like light-bulb was born.

Audience 120

Audience Engineer Developer Startup 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Frustrated Engineer writes: I’ve been writing code for ten years, recently promoted to a position where I have to talk to our non-technical customers. This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live.

Software 294

Software Engineer Naming Customer 294

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

GroupOn’s engine that turned capital into revenue growth was a form of force-feeding rather than building a product). It’s my goal to join the ranks of those excellent companies at WP Engine. Of course this is hindsight-based armchair speculation, easy to do from the comfort of a blog post.

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 17, 2011

But even this isn’t the best idea because you’re squandering a chance to get in good with search engines. All search engines consider keywords in the domain name to be vastly more important than anywhere else — even the page title. , you can be GetGumdrop.com or VisitGumdrop.com or eMyTheGrumpdrop.com.

Naming 247

Naming Cofounder Startup Search 247

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 22, 2017

We don’t build MVPs at WP Engine. At WP Engine we pronounce it “Slick.” Product teams have been repeating the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) mantra for a decade now, without re-evaluating whether it’s the right way to maximize learning while pleasing the customer. Well, it’s not the best system.

Customer 336

Customer Video Engineer Social Network 336

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

” Rand over at SEOMoz just wrote up what he thought about how we did this at WP Engine. Since you’re bootstrapping, “cash now” is far more valuable than “cash later.”

Affiliate 261

Affiliate Revenue Bootstrapping Campaign 261