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. It doesn't matter what non-entrepreneurs think because they're not versed product/market fit, squeezing blood from evanescent budgets, and using Facebook for advertising instead of sharing the latest FailBlog movie.

Software Review 312

Software Review Part-Time VPE Houston Cofounder 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders. WP Engine is one of those, and we laugh about how drastic the changes are, in the rare spaces between tackling the latest challenge.

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Acquisition Technical Review Stock Options Employee 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

A long-winded but high-quality study from Columbia Business School ( Life after Exit ) interviewed 22 entrepreneurs and every one of them experienced this effect. Now at WP Engine, I have new ambitions and inclinations. This is not only a normal feeling, it’s by far the majority case.

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

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.

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Caching IP Analytics Austin 219

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Thanks to Walker Corporate Law Group , a boutique law firm specializing in the representation of entrepreneurs, for supporting A Smart Bear this month. I am sharing this personal story to help entrepreneurs. He even went back to school at night for four years and obtained an MBA-equivalent in electrical engineering.

Entrepreneur 246

Entrepreneur San Francisco North Carolina Cofounder 246

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?

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Customer Customer Development Dilution Engineer 252

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?" Related posts: Sacrifice your health for your startup Put down the compiler until you learn why they're not buying Rude Q&A Underbelly: What haughty startup bloggers don't tell you Uncommon Interview: Bob Walsh, Digital Entrepreneur.

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Startup Revenue Cofounder Sales 315

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. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs.

HTML 243

HTML Hosting Engineer Leadership 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 5, 2011

The goal of the entrepreneur is not to be “right.” Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. But that doesn't mean as an entrepreneur you're allowed to just ignore critics either. You’ll be right much more often than wrong. Congratulations. I still hate being wrong.

Lean 281

Lean Analytics Metrics Engineer 281

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. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. Surely we should choose the behavior that maximizes our expected value as Wikipedia suggests.

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Engineer Metrics Email Web 259

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. Tweet. -->. On the (un?)importance

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Metrics Startup Revenue Engineer 273

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. circa 2008.)

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San Jose Bootstrapping Hosting Engineer 233

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Witness, for example, this terrific Fast Company article on Bill Nguyen , serial entrepreneur who’s seventh startup “Color” famously raised $41m for a new mobile app before it even launched. GroupOn’s engine that turned capital into revenue growth was a form of force-feeding rather than building a product).

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IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 8, 2012

While I was bootstrapping WP Engine I constantly heard that we’re hamstrung by not taking an investment; after raising a Series A a different set of people expressed their disappointment that I had “sold out.” Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs.

Bootstrapping 231

Bootstrapping Hiring Engineer Web 231

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

JUNE 26, 2012

Specifically, before I validated the ideas behind WP Engine, I validated another idea for a startup. But my experience vetting WP Engine was convergent. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. Truth in startups emerges or crumbles in the same way. ” Everyone.

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Flash Engineer Reputation Customer Development 239

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

I think 1/3 of the people at WP Engine right now are in this last category. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. Or you go work for another startup who’s latched onto something and get experience and a small exit for yourself which funds the next one. Keep spinning.

Startup 254

Startup Algorithm Cofounder Lean 254

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 31, 2012

I still find myself sometimes running WP Engine like the bootstrapped startup that it was for the first 18 months of its life, instead of the funded growth machine that it’s evolved into. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. Next one is in early February! Where do you go for advice?

Bootstrapping 230

Bootstrapping Java Revenue Hosting 230

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 19, 2012

That’s exactly what my company WP Engine looked like for the first 9 months. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. You and every other bootstrapper who by very definition doesn’t explode out of the blocks because you’re doing it part-time and with no cash.

Salary 246

Salary Bootstrapping Web Distribution 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 15, 2014

Keith Rabois famously quipped , “I don’t know of a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly.” And, if you grant my indulgent inclusion in that pantheon, I did the same as WP Engine took off, with a noticeable decrease in early 2012 and relatively little in the past twelve months. And agreeing.

CTO Hire 266

CTO Hire RSS Cofounder Algorithm 266

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

Sure, when WP Engine launches a new product, the marketing department needs predictability for the launch date, but that’s because it’s a highly-skilled, well-funded group, which explodes with press, events, campaigns, social media, and newsletters, grabbing more attention in a single week than a smaller company might garner in a year.

Government 223

Government Startup Cofounder Technical Support 223

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 17, 2011

I put in these particular elements because I did a study of the reasons people cancel at WP Engine , and these are the main reasons for cancellation. For a quality-service company like WP Engine a high cancellation rate is a sign of terminal cancer even if acquisition rates are also increasing, so this metric isn’t useful to us.

Business Model 245

Business Model Metrics Engineer Technical Review 245

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

Mark: But Dan, I want to say, your language, you have to be careful about not coming across as a grumpy entrepreneur. So just because our industry is structured to try and find huge outsized returns doesn’t make, first of all, doesn’t make that right for most entrepreneurs, and it doesn’t make it bad.

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 28, 2011

On the other side of this radio interview are Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams , both founders of their own startups, both coaches and mentors to dozens of other startups over the years, and who together created and still run the In Good Company co-working space for women entrepreneurs in New York City. Jason: Yeah that makes sense.

Cofounder 223

Cofounder New York Conversion Entrepreneur 223

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

If someone wants to become an entrepreneur, is it more important to keep looking for a really good media idea that you can do a month’s worth of customer development on or is it better to think of literally what complete start up can I make in a week? Is that true or is there some engine there I’m not familiar with?

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

Welcome back to Smart Bear Live … the show were Jason speaks with entrepreneurs looking to improve their businesses. I want to go to this homepage and think me, as the founder of WP Engine, I want to go in here and think, ‘Oh my God, we need this,’ and then sign up. Jason: Yeah. I already write agendas. Edwin: Right.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 1, 2010

Customer: You say you have great support, but BigCorp is the one with 100 developers and support engineers willing to help me. You get to complain directly to the engineers who can fix the problem in weeks — or sometimes days. You: "Willing" to help you perhaps, but able? Customer: But they have 24/7 support. Do you have that?

Open Source 239

Open Source Dilution Software Developers Software Development 239

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. If you can’t figure out who the perfect customer is , the person who would agree that you are without doubt their best choice, then you aren’t the best choice for anyone , and how do you market that? And what’s the point anyway? Tweet. -->.

Customer 279

Customer Software Review SEM Technical Review 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 4, 2012

As you’d guess, I can’t do it, as much as I love to chat about startups, by which I mean swapping wisdom with fellow entrepreneurs, by which I mean stoke my ego by telling strangers what to do with neither repercussion nor responsibility. Running WP Engine takes all my time. Most of the email is truly spam.

Internet 270

Internet Email Engineer Web 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 17, 2012

I mean, just look at their growth ( published on SEOMoz ): Was it always so powerful a growth engine? Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. When you talk about explosive, profitable startup growth, a few darlings come to mind. DropBox is one. Hubspot is another. Discussion continues here.

Italy 266

Italy Europe Framework Web 266

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2012

You’re an engineer, is that true? Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. I think there’s no reason not to try to make this step compelling. It’ll only make the future steps even more compelling. Jared: Okay. Jason: I’ll do one last thing. Jared: Yeah. Jason: Okay.

API 220

API Software Review Hosting Technical Review 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 22, 2012

WP Engine is a perfect example of this. Sign up for AppSumo 's daily deals specifically for web geeks & entrepreneurs. ” But there isn’t necessarily an opportunity. Maybe your competitors have figured out that it’s not cost-effective to sell to the middle. Would you do it again? Tips for doing it better?

Marketing 235

Marketing RSS Employee Software 235