Remove Founder Remove Hiring Remove Metrics Remove SEM
article thumbnail

Why Misunderstanding Startup Metrics Can Cost You Your Business

Both Sides of the Table

There has been a lot of public debate over the past several weeks about whether it’s a good thing to be “gross margin positive” or not and commentary always reminds me that some people at startups don’t quite understand financial metrics or even how to think about which ones are healthy. And of course ultimately on profitability.

Metrics 150
article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: The three drivers of growth for your business.

Startup Lessons Learned

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008, London) This presentation should be required reading for anyone creating a startup with an online service component. He also has a discussion of how your choice of business model determines which of these metric areas you want to focus on. Choose one.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

How to Use Growth Hacking to Increase Revenue 20x in Just 12 Months

Up and Running

I strongly believe that the first few hires of a startup should belong to the growth department, whether they’re marketers, community managers, or salespeople (selling your product is the best way to learn how to improve it). This is when metrics come into play. See Also: The Top 10 Tools for Tracking Your Web Metrics.

Revenue 60
article thumbnail

How to Decrease the Odds That Your Startup Fails

Both Sides of the Table

The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product. They might struggle to hire a-players because, well, would you go work at Public Storage to build their software capabilities? You may have paid marketing: SEM, Social Media Ads, Banner Ads, email lists, etc. ”

Startup 150
article thumbnail

SuperMac War Story 9: Sales, Not Awards « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

And the final lesson was that we were keeping score on our packaging with the wrong metrics – it wasn’t about awards, it was about sales in the retail channel. Initially your job is to understand each of the parts of your business model before you hire someone to do it. After that you’ve become a battle-hardened realist.

Sales 120
article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

Mark Montgomery Founder Kyield Initium VC September 12, 2009 4:21 AM Mark Montgomery said. ► August (2) SXSW Case Study: SlideShare goes freemium ► July (4) Case Study: kaChing, Anatomy of a Pivot Some IPO speculation Founder personalities and the “first-class man&# th. Otherwise it's a great idea.

Lean 168
article thumbnail

Lessons Learned: Using AdWords to assess demand for your new.

Startup Lessons Learned

Dont worry about selecting particularly good keywords, if youre new to SEM. SEM only gets at one segment of users, and for a brand new product, you presumably need some skill at marketing in general and adsense in particular to get any useful info. Just put in your credit card. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click.

Demand 167