A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 13, 2015

Founders typically revert to whatever they’re already expert in, and decide they need more of that. So, a technical founder decides she needs another developer, or a sales-oriented founder decides she needs another sales person. The question is: How do you decide what role is most important to hire for?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise with a silly company name like Smart Bear. They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise without a human sales force using Salesforce. They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise over GoToMeeting, with a demo and no slides, from a geek with no webinar.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Ask a technical founder about his startup, and he'll proudly describe his stunning software — simple, compelling, useful, fun. Four uncomfortable seconds later, a smile breaks across the founder's face. This is Part 5 of the 5-part series: 5 lessons from 150 startup pitches. Frightening honesty. Making Oprah cry.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

By definition, if you're a startup founder you're explicitly not your customer. founder Blogger & Twitter. "If Repeat after me: You are not your customer." — Eric Ries , Lean Startup leader (repeating a conversation with a startup founder). It's the spark of inspiration, not the strategy.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

” He explains: Either the founders failed to achieve their goal, or – far likelier – they failed to dream big enough. It’s classic founder naïveté to think that “youthful energy” would have been maintained had the company remained independent. Companies are constantly changing.

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Acquisition Technical Review Stock Options Employee 120

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! The trouble with this form of delegation is it results in a team that is not materially better than the founder , at anything. Not all selfish acts are bad ones! And it’s wrong.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 28, 2012

Subject: Announcing new pricing for ${product} This is ${name}, founder of ${company}. I’ve coached a handful of founders through this process, using this technique. But the last two founders I coached through this process both intuitively thought this was impossible, and weren’t going to do it.

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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. At the same time, I personally observed at the startup incubator of Telecom ParisTech the impact of one co-founder leaving his company after 18 months. He has a personal blog about cloud computing. is here to stay.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2011

This episode was expertly co-hosted by Joshua Baer , founder of OtherInbox , progenitor of Capital Factory , angel investor , and previous founder of SKYLIST and UnsubCentral, both sold. How to “size a market&# when there’s no good data, and some common pitfalls when you try.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 18, 2010

As it turns out, it's not even just business founders. Don't founders forge ahead even when others say success is impossible? Doesn't a founder invent a new product based on her confidence that others will want it? Sounds like the stereotypical attitude of the arrogant startup founder, but wait! But wait, how can this be?

Software Review 335

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 11, 2010

These are problems with the business concept or the founder's attitude, not specific to raising angel money. You don't need statistically-significant studies before you begin, but it's astonishing how many founders blaze ahead before they've found even a single person willing to give them money.??? Not that I blame you!

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 11, 2010

In this installment we hear from startup expert Bob Walsh , whose many works for startup founders include: Blog: 47 Hats. Online guides and support network for founders: StartupToDo.com. What are the big killers lurking for the new startup founder? Podcast: Startup Success. New book: Web Startup Success Guide.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 20, 2011

As you’d suspect, I was similarly ignorant of such things while watching the sale of ITWatchDogs (where I was a co-founder), and still harbored misconceptions as I went into the sale of Smart Bear. So, once and for all, I’d like to share my own perspective on how this works. Many people start by looking at “the Multiples.&#

Sales 260

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

We founders unwittingly focus on how to make the best customer experiences better , rather than making the worst experiences less worse , and sometimes this is a mistake. Another thing we can do is literally measure customer “happiness&# and intercede before it goes from bad to 32B.

Technical Review 236

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 15, 2014

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.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This is why investors (and founders) wishing to build enormous companies are so fixated on hyper-growth (not just growth). . (“Interesting size” means you can go from 10 customers to 20 in six months and then be proud of your “rapid growth.” ” Going from 1000 to 2000 in six months is more like it.).

Software Review 300

Software Review Technical Review Startup Channel 300

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

Clickbait works. Stop clicking on crap and get back to work.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 31, 2011

If you listen to a sampling of the 600 Mixergy interviews, you’ll find a common thread to how all those illustrious founders got their first few customers: There is no pattern. But for every one of those, another founder has the opposite experience. Some techniques you might indeed be able to copy outright.

Customer 279

Customer Software Review SEM Technical Review 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

The way Bitvibe broke in is that the co-founder is the drummer for several really big bands that you’ve heard of from the 80′s and right now he’s in Gregg Rollie Band. But the answer is the co-founder’s been in the industry for 30 years and he’s somebody and so they can get meetings. Interviewee: Right.

Cofounder 199

Cofounder Technical Review Chicago Technical Cofounder 199

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

This post is by Scott Edward Walker , the firm's founder and CEO. It is here where my father began his 15-year journey from entry-level engineer at Western Union to founder and CEO of Walker Telecommunications Corporation , a NASDAQ-listed public company. This post is by Scott Edward Walker , the firm's founder and CEO.

Entrepreneur 246

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

As much as you’re a minor deity when it comes to TextMate or Balsamiq, so are almost all the technical founders of all high-tech startups. The trouble is, this is almost certainly not the activity that would most benefit your startup. We can all make a functional website — at least well enough to produce orders.

Fractional CTO 310

Fractional CTO Coder CTO Hire Design 310

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Because they’re good at it, they don’t waste time hang-wringing over whether or not to try an advertising campaign on the latest social media platform; they just do it.

Engineer 264

Engineer Framework Social Media Acquisition 264

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Maybe you worked there or a co-founder or investor has some juice). Either of the following scenarios makes sense for a new startup going after a large-scale enterprise market: You’ve identified a deep pain at a large company. You land a contract to build them the solution.

Customer 231

Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 10, 2012

As the startup founder, what do you do about all this? In the case of the Marketing Tools, the customer buys based on the comfort of white-glove service in achieving that cost-savings, not on the cost-savings itself, as is evidenced by tools which do the same thing, causing the same cost-savings, and yet command 1/10th the apparent value.

Software Review 256

Software Review Product Software Developers Software Development 256

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 12, 2014

Whatever it is, that is what defines the startup and it’s purpose , and is the answer to the all-important question: Why should anyone — employees and customers both — join the founder on this journey, sharing this very personal responsibility? When we need to make a tough decision, our values determine the outcome.

Laos 279

Laos Technical Review Startup Engineer 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 21, 2009

Okay okay, "Planning == Bad," but the supposed benefits of planning are still important: designing for profitability, understanding your customers and competitors, focusing your attention, deciding what's worth doing next, changing directions, and ensuring the founders agree on important issues. Cartoon by Andertoons. Or switch off.

Startup 315

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 12, 2010

In all the interviews you've read about founders' success, how many credit their MBA program? If you've lived in the software world for a few years you know the stuff they teach you in school is irrelevant, so who cares what degree you have? How many even have MBAs? It's not bad to have a degree, but neither is it a significant advantage.

Intellectual Property 319

Intellectual Property Bootstrapping Software Review Open Source 319

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 22, 2012

Maybe they’re stingy because they’re still being run by a parsimonious small-business founder (like me!) But although they have the process and controls of a large company, they don’t have the budgets to match; there’s no large reward for successfully navigating the painful, Herculean sales adventure.

Marketing 235

Marketing RSS Employee Software 235

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 16, 2014

Was there any startup founder who didn’t feel depressed when that happened? Another collective sigh shudders through the ranks of startup founders, as we grumble over our trifling grindstones. Instagram had 13 employees when they sold for a billion dollars. Yes, depressed. They’re next!

Metrics 246

Metrics Early Stage Retention Revenue 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 13, 2011

co-founder Alexis Ohanian is so cool and smart and rich and funny and successful and good-looking that really he doesn’t deserve to be alive. co-founder Alexis Ohanian is so cool and smart and rich and funny and successful and good-looking that really he doesn't deserve to be alive. Hey flamers, for God's sake it's a joke!

Design 253

Design Lean Database Cofounder 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 15, 2013

But that prose is aimed at the founders, not employee #8. That is what the company can do for itself and its founders, not what the company can do for its employees. We dwell on how startups enable founders to quit their day job and master their own destiny. But what about everyone else? of any other job.

San Francisco 247

San Francisco Austin PHP Social Media 247

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. “Maybe,” thinks the startup founder, “I can tap that ass. “Maybe,” thinks the startup founder, “I can tap that ass. So far, approximately zero have resulted in an successful deal.

Startup 293

Startup Hosting Distribution Revenue 293

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

In a recent Capital Factory all-hands discussion, one of the founders started a question with a well-worn preamble: “I talked to a bunch of the mentors and they all told me the same thing about pricing, but I’m telling you, they’re wrong. I know our industry , I know how our customers think, and in our industry …&#.

Lean 269

Lean Software Software Developers Software Development 269

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

In each case, the founders were super-smart, had complimentary skill sets, worked together well (or well enough to get to important success milestones), and as a team represented a unique, powerful, and (in retrospect) unstoppable force. The Dream Team. The VC game is more lemming-like than most care to admit. Existing customers.or

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

A virtual assistant (VA) is a remote worker hired to complete tasks you should not be doing as the founder of a startup. Any ongoing work that can be described in a written process can be outsourced to a VA and save incredible amounts of time for the founders. This article intends to answer those questions.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 16, 2010

The real reason they're pissed is that VCs are increasingly unnecessary to get companies started , both because of inexpensive technology and marketing channels and because there are enough angel investors that founders don't have to sell the entire farm for ridiculous amounts of cash they don't really need. But founders often win.

Exit Strategy 246

Exit Strategy Angel Investor Finance Incubator 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Just read the history of any startup or interviews of famous founders and you’ll find one thing in common — no one had mentors or found value vetting ideas and brainstorming with people who have trod this path before. All the great startup founders are known for 30-hour work-weeks. Get it right the first time.

Stealth 309

Stealth Database Software Founder 309