A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

He published revenue figures even when they were still pathetic , he pledged loudly and eagerly to give away lots of free copies to non-profits, and he revealed all his (remarkably effective) marketing strategies (updated here ) even though it meant competitors would learn them too. But one story beats a pile of AdWords A/B tests.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

How many do you suppose produce any revenue? (My How many do you suppose produce enough revenue that, after hosting and marketing expenses, they result in a profitable company where the owner doesn't need a day job? (My Here's a list of the top 100 Twitter clients, and here's some more. My guess: 80%). My guess: 5%).

Software Review 312

Software Review Part-Time VPE Houston Cofounder 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2016

past product/market fit and into tens of millions in revenue), you realize that cancellation scales with total customers whereas growth scales with sales and marketing costs, which means cancellation necessarily and always outgrows inbound activity, thus growth ceases. Once you’re scaling (i.e. Once you’re scaling (i.e.

Metrics 270

Metrics Retention Revenue Equity 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 31, 2010

The question is: How can you own your little piece of the world; Not: How can you wrest $100m of revenue from a big guy. They can't take a risk because protecting the existing revenue stream is more important than anything else, even if it means their ultimate demise. but doesn't have to be worth $1B, then the game isn't "us or them."

Software Review 243

Software Review Development Team Review Technical Review Software Developers 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 23, 2013

Marketo filed for IPO with impressive 80% year-over-year growth in 2012, with almost $60m in revenue. of revenue, force-feeding sales pipelines with an unprofitable product. SaaS companies earn their revenue over time. time to earn back the revenue to cover all your customer acquisition expenses) 75% annual retention.

Business Model 335

Business Model .Net Revenue IPO 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

SnapChat, Pinterest, WeWork, InstaCart, Square, FourSquare, and even Twitter, who has impressive revenue but has still never been profitable). Large: USAA with $24 billion in annual revenue and $3 billion in profits is the 49th most valuable company on Earth. This is growth driven by values.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Viral Metrics Salary 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2011

When should a company should focus on growth only, ignoring the business model and revenue? We transform a company’s trajectory by rephrasing a long, confusing diatribe into a three-word pitch. How to “size a market&# when there’s no good data, and some common pitfalls when you try.

Cofounder 226

Cofounder Angel Investor Hosting Software Review 226

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 28, 2014

Large company should send a few emails to the customer base, generating easy sales at no cost, and the revenues are split. The problem is that the amount of revenue is not interesting for the big company, yet it requires the big company to spend something not accounted for in the above equation: reputation.

Startup 293

Startup Hosting Distribution Revenue 293

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 21, 2013

How you price a product can have a radical impact on the revenue you make from it. My search for the perfect pricing model resulted in an additional $50,000 (a 170% increase) in revenue. If you are trying to maximize revenue from a small audience, you need to get the most possible out of each customer, even if that means losing sales.

Sales 335

Sales Revenue Design Web 335

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 7, 2014

Costs arise ahead of associated revenue, especially for SaaS companies, so you need a cash investment to fund that growth. But what if, nine months from now, revenue isn’t growing quite as quickly as you planned? But what if, nine months from now, revenue is growing more quickly than you planned?

Revenue 270

Revenue Finance Equity Engineer 270

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

When you add up all our costs in Sales and Marketing (SaaS metric: CAC), the result is very small compared to the total revenue we’ll earn from than customer over the next few years (SaaS metric: LTV). That should be OK since we’ll be profitable in the long run. Some day 1 is fine if it’s improving.

Metrics 238

Metrics Revenue Flash Later Stage 238

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 20, 2013

Meaning, the gross revenue you expect to get from a customer over its entire lifetime. You earn R revenue from them in January. Said another way, the actual distribution of revenue over infinite months would add up to the same thing as if all customers stayed 1/c months, and then all cancelled.

Retention 262

Retention Metrics Revenue Bandwidth 262

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 16, 2014

Still… Now Slack has been valued at over a billion dollars, less than a year after launch, every month adding more than a million dollars of annual recurring revenue. “It’s not fair,” we all said to ourselves. Well, at least they had to toil for four years instead of two. They’re next!

Metrics 246

Metrics Retention Early Stage Revenue 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Burgeoning Startup Founder writes: After a year of work, my startup is now doing about $6,000/mo in revenue and $3,000/mo in profit. It has to be on getting more revenue. Both short-term bursts and, more interestingly, building systematic ways of growing revenue month over month. What should I do next?

Affiliate 261

Affiliate Revenue Bootstrapping Campaign 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Sacha demonstrated the benefits of selling many copies of an eBook at a low price, while Jarrod pointed out the advantages of higher prices, bringing in more revenue with 1/6th the number of units sold. In that case, A can’t keep growing forever, so its revenue is limited, which is a bad spot. maximizing per-unit profitability).

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 13, 2011

I’ve chronicled the eye-melting design work that punished potential customers in the evolution of the Smart Bear website, and yet with all that cringe-worthyness, here is a company that doubled in revenue and profit like clockwork for half a decade — a stat any startup would be proud to match.

Design 253

Design Lean Database Cofounder 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

Even the one you turn away could become a fan. Let’s continue giving ideas and stories in the comments about saving (or not saving) problematic customers, how you identify them, and when this advice is applicable.

Technical Review 236

Technical Review Software Review Reputation Sales Cycle 236

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 21, 2017

Revenue multiples, profit multiples, premium over the previous financing — these are metrics used by sellers to help determine a minimum acceptable price. Even for startups, it takes years for a new product to become good enough to demand many millions of dollars in revenue.). Yet mobile advertising revenues were paltry.

Balance Sheet 242

Balance Sheet Vertical Acquisition Revenue 242

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

After I sold Smart Bear, that division has increased revenue and profit every year, for five years, even through the 2008/2009 economic disaster. GroupOn’s engine that turned capital into revenue growth was a form of force-feeding rather than building a product). But really, are all those acquirers so stupid? Surely not.

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 29, 2013

ignoring indirect costs) or saying they’ll “fix that later” by raising prices, finding other channels of revenue. CAC = MRR x 4 If you combine the previous two results, you see that the cost to acquire a customer should be no more than four months of revenue.

Bootstrapping 285

Bootstrapping Affiliate Cofounder Channel 285

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

The scrounging and scrabbling and begging and fighting the a s for those morsels of revenue, those crumbs of validation. The inner doubt suppressed for the morale of the team. No salaries followed by low salaries. The “eat what we kill” mentality. It’s over. We did it. American dream? And then… sadness.

Software Review 295

Software Review Startup Cofounder Search 295

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 19, 2010

Time to learn: "Cash-Basis" accounting means you only count revenue and expenses that you actually have. Accural-Basis" accounting means you count pledged revenue and expenses. Revenue-versus-expenses is important for every business at every stage of its life; no duh. Never heard of either of these?

Revenue 232

Revenue Startup Forecast Finance 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 5, 2010

Many competitors used a different technique I call "boogers," because to me it looks like someone shot snot rockets all over the screen, and also because it's fun to deride competitors, because it feels good to make fun of other people who (appear to) have more revenue than you do. But don't you agree they look like boogers?

Software Review 226

Software Review Metrics Lean Algorithm 226

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 11, 2014

If you like this, go see his Shockwave Innovations blog ) Anyone that has taken an accounting class or learned basic business financials knows the interaction between key elements of a P&L (revenue, cost, expense) and a balance sheet (assets, liabilities, equity).

Churn Rate 288

Churn Rate .Net Metrics Hosting 288

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 18, 2016

If your growth dips below the level of “rivets rattling themselves out of the plane,” revenue multiples plummet, and you’re written off by the press as a has-been ripe for disruption by startups 1/1000th your size but “growing exponentially.” — Matthew Hankins (@mc_hankins) October 12, 2015. .”

API 120

API Social Media Revenue Advertising 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 27, 2012

translated into amazing sales: in the first 48 hours, I sold the book 1,476 times, for a total of $6,663 in revenue. I submitted the eBook’s landing page to Hacker News , and it quickly shot up the rankings, amassing more than 300 votes , and even reaching second place on the front page for a while. But why exactly?

Sales 279

Sales Software Review RSS Web 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Then we optimized each of them, improving each a bit more every month, and sure enough revenue doubled every year. All of them worked a little bit, so together it was substantial — a trickle from each that added up to a river. That’s never how it works.

Marketing 301

Marketing Channel PR Social Media 301

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 23, 2010

X automatically has advantages over you (brand, customers, revenue, inside knowledge, a team, momentum), so Y had better be brain-explodingly awesome. In that case you're betting your future on the fact that Y is overwhelmingly compelling to a large market segment.

Software Review 275

Software Review Technical Review Software Advertising 275

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

I mean, it’s easy to talk to very little bands and just say I feel like the amount of revenue for you is very little. The core of the business though, the revenue model, so it’s free to join, but then there’s the optional paid membership. Gelie: That’s not the only revenue stream. Gelie: Correct.

Cofounder 199

Cofounder Technical Review Chicago Technical Cofounder 199

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

The company landed one big customer representing 80% of total revenue, but that customer canceled. When a company has revenue but is susceptible to the fatal afflictions above, I call it “brittle.” Another is to prioritize accelerating sales until that customer represents a percentage of revenue that you can stomach.

Software Review 294

Software Review Channel Revenue Non-Compete 294

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 12, 2010

billion market cap), mid-sized (NetBotz with millions in revenue and funding), and small (sub-$1m operations like us). We took a simple problem (when server rooms get hot, the gear fails) and provided a simple solution (thermometer with a web page that emails/pages you if it's too hot). There were many competitors, both huge (APC with $1.5

Technical Review 243

Technical Review Software Review Engineer Search 243

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 3, 2011

If we know a typical customer pays us $50/mo and stays with us for 30 months, that’s $1500 in “lifetime” revenue. Or: How many customers do we need to produce $10m in revenue? ME: Oh, we’d have more revenue and we could spend more on ads. NOAH: Let’s say you did that. Congratulations.

Metrics 273

Metrics Startup Revenue Engineer 273

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 24, 2011

The convenience of online shoe shopping is a game-changer — to the tune of billions of dollars of revenue — but how could they make up the costs ?

Intellectual Property 242

Intellectual Property Open Source Bandwidth IP 242

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 31, 2012

Even at $50/mo, that’s 30 x $50 = $1500/mo in direct new revenue plus side benefits in marketing and branding. The goal of investment is to turn “money today” into long-term value, meaning a growing, predictable revenue machine. But if you do have money in the bank it’s just the opposite.

Bootstrapping 230

Bootstrapping Java Revenue Hosting 230

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 29, 2013

There’s examples, but for every startup that landed 300 customers from their TechCrunch launch article there’s another which got 0; for every startup that built loyalty on Twitter there’s one with 20% month-over-month revenue growth that has yet to reserve their Twitter handle; for every startup ascribing their success to spectacular (..)

Framework 253

Framework Lean Design Revenue 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

and 5%” or “cost to acquire a customer between $50 and $500″ or “average monthly revenue per customer between $20 and $200.” So they’ll need 1666 customers to achieve their revenue target. (We ” Estimating with these extremely wide ranges can be surprisingly useful.

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 19, 2013

I accidentally went and did all that at Smart Bear, and only had millions of dollars of revenue to show for it. They told me I couldn’t sell to The Enterprise with amateur design and a small-company, human voice. Largely from The Enterprise. Does that mean “They” are wrong?

Founder 244

Founder Revenue Sales Naming 244