Gust

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Social Media is a Boon to Startups Who Do It Right

Gust

If your startup can’t be bothered with social media, or has no plan to take advantage of it, then you are definitely at risk these days. They also identify clearly the five key social media mistakes that I often see, along the following lines: 1. Not having a social media policy. Allowing your social media efforts to stagnate.

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Startups: A Verbal Wave at Social Media Means Diddly

Gust

Startups: Investors expect new marketing. If you don’t understand the broader implications of social media, content marketing, curation, engagement, and relationships, then you desperately need a great reason why not. Be sure to include credible target market focus, matching and synchronized product-market focus.

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How To Size Your Marketing Budget For Funding

Gust

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 146
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3 Essentials for Selling Your Marketing Plan to Investors

Gust

Somebody asked me in email what investors look for in the marketing portion of a business plan and/or business pitch. The market-defining story. It’s a story that makes product-market fit come alive. What works? What’s credible? What are investors looking for? . Caveat: generalizations are dangerous.

Marketing 119
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How Reed Hastings’ Facebook Status Update Landed Netflix in SEC’s Crosshairs

Gust

The move came as a shock to many in the tech business community, in which we’ve become accustomed to real-time disclosure by company executives through social media. Public companies have dealt with financial disclosure in ways that evolved over time with markets and technologies. What could be wrong with more transparency?

SEC 158
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Assume Your Market is People Like You, Then Fail

Gust

An underrated portion of every startup effort must be about communication and marketing. By habit, people market to customers like themselves, because they know what they like and need. Kelly McDonald, who runs a top ad agency, takes on this challenge in “ How to Market to People Not Like You.” Proactively deal with naysayers.

Marketing 136
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Gust Blog - Thoughts on startups by investors that fund them

Gust

And in January I saw that digital music overtook physical media for the first time in 2011, something I expected since 1998. I used to think you could use convenience and common sense to predict markets. One of my earliest excursions into market research was working for a research firm doing a 1979 forecast on ATMs.

Startup 180