A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2012

Almost no startup founder values her time properly. ” When a consultant intentionally doesn’t work for an hour — whether to be with family or to work on a new startup — they’re clearly giving up an hour of potential earnings. .” But when you’re in a startup, the math is completely different.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

Maybe it works for startups too? Oops… This reminds me of startup investment theory. Of course startups are not analogous to roulette, are they? Roulette is a random process; startups are determined by human beings and systematic processes like Lean and AdWords. ” (So it’s a CHAR(2) not an INT(2)).

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Startup Algorithm Cofounder Lean 254

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

It's nice to highlight awesome articles about startup that I didn't write! Startup Business Checklist 2010 [link]. Startup Business Checklist 2010 : Steve Smith's Blog. Below is my current checklist for startup businesses in 2010. How To Land a Killer Job At a Tech Startup Out of College - [link]. interintelli.

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Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley Startup Software 216

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) Ambitious Sailor writes: How can a former navy officer with twelve solid years of overseas defense contracting experience convince a tech startup to hire him as their business guy? Especially a hot tech startup? No one one Earth better. Administrative?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

That’s great of course, because in a new startup everyone needs to be either making stuff or selling stuff — there’s no room for managers and executives and strategists. The trouble is, this is almost certainly not the activity that would most benefit your startup. You make stuff. Here are two: 1.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 24, 2012

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) Employee-Investor writes: I’ve been invited to join as startup as employee #1. Of course the value of working at a startup isn’t just financial. questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 15, 2011

The decision of whether to form an LLC, S-Corp, or C-Corp made a significant difference in my startup’s success. I wish we had spent less time talking to prospective customers before designing interfaces and writing code. Selling the company was an easy decision, and everyone in the company was on the same page.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2019

Startup strategy is like Kung Fu. All startups are screwed up. HT Mike Maples Jr ) Corollary: A startup has to be so excellent at one or two key things, that they can screw up everything else up and not die. Fermi estimation is a good way to figure out whether a startup or product could even theoretically be viable.

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Restful Founder Revenue Acquisition 202

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Get more involved in the Bay Area startup community: Join the WebWallflower mailing list to get a calendar of upcoming startup events and exclusive discounts sent right to you every two weeks. Tweet. --> You might tacitly assume that I have no major blind spots when it comes building little tech startups. Powered by LaunchBit ).

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Metrics Startup Revenue Engineer 273

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Watch a bunch of interviews of founders of successful companies, and here’s what you don’t hear: We tried eight different marketing channels — AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, social media, events, retargeting, SEO, guest-posting, PR, and so on.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

Let’s run an example, taken from real numbers from a startup I recently spoke with. .” It’s useful because it’s easy to get to a rough answer to important questions, but also ensures you don’t erroneously ascribe too much precision to the result.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 17, 2012

” Pin It There are many people who compare building startups with having children. After all, a kid will grow up pretty much no matter what; a startup can die if the founder notices that another startup is similar, has a good designer, and just got $600k on AngelList. Perhaps they’re right. What does that mean?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 1, 2011

Want specific advice from me and co-hosts Bob Walsh ( 47hats and the Web Startup Success Guide ) and Patrick Foley ( blog ) of the infamous Startup Success Podcast ? It’s like Loveline for startups. Vetting a startup (or two): The systematic birth of @WPEngine. Ballad of The Lean Startup. Why not you?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 21, 2011

Since everyone and their dog is now an expert in Lean Startup, you need to demonstrate , not regurgitate platitudes. Want to work with me on a startup? .&# &# I listen to my customers.&# &# I’m a big fan of Eric Ries.&#. Yeah, you and 60,000 other people. I’m supposed to be impressed? Details here.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 8, 2010

I've been on both sides of the table: I've done a startup while working and I've employed people who either were or are very capable of having their own startup on the side. A startup already generates an infinite amount of work. If managed improperly, you're unnecessarily risking lawsuits and worse.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 9, 2010

This is Part 3 of the series: 5 lessons from 150 startup pitches.? Of hundreds of startup pitches at Capital Factory , almost none had unearthed 10 people willing to say, "If you build this product, I'll give you $X.". Aren't you sick of every startup blogger on Earth badgering you about this? Short-sighted, no?

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 12, 2011

There’s already a lot of great advice about hiring at little startups. ” Why startups should ALWAYS compromise when hiring by Dharmesh Shah — There are many attributes you’d like to see in a hire, but compromise is necessary; here’s how to do it. .” Or therapy. Write a crazy job description.

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Hiring Employee Ruby Java 282

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

DECEMBER 20, 2010

This story is one shared by (in my experience) the majority of successful startups — an initial idea inspired by travails from my own life, an idea which turns out to be unworkable, but which ultimately leads to truly good ideas through both incremental and discontinuous transformations. A process you can learn and get better at.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 4, 2017

“Founder trouble” is a leading cause of startup death (though data also show that companies with only one founder are more likely to fail , so the conclusion is just that startups are just always likely to fail!). Employee #2 will join a startup for the experience. Or it’s fatal because that was a co-founder.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 17, 2011

Want to work with me on a startup? Like which of 41 shades of blue you should use in your logo… What are your company-naming woes? Maybe together we can come to a conclusion; let’s discuss in the comments. Details here.

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Naming Cofounder Startup Search 247

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 12, 2010

This is part 1 of the series: 5 Lessons from 150 startup pitches. Software patents are especially useless for small, bootstrapped startups. The landscape of successful startups is littered with people lacking post-graduate education. Except in certain industries (e.g. We're better at SEO and social media. Of course they are!

Intellectual Property 319

Intellectual Property Bootstrapping Software Review Open Source 319

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

I'm a mentor and investor in CapitalFactory , a seed-stage startup mentorship program in Austin, TX. Help me spread the word about this program! Each year we pick 5 companies to participate in a 10-week summer program which includes: 20 real mentors. Help me spread the word and keep us at #3! Leave a comment.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2011

It’s “ Loveline for startups ,&# where entrepreneurs get to ask any question about their startup and have me and a rotating co-host tackle the problem and devise constructive next-actions. I finally started Smart Bear Live. Like most ventures, it didn’t work the way I’d imagined.

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Cofounder Angel Investor Hosting Software Review 226

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 4, 2011

Being the founder of Lokad.com , a B2B SaaS startup, I was eager to do the “Right Thing,&# and immediately set up a CRM for sales, a ticketing system for complaints, web forums for whatever, and a handful of email addresses such as billing@lokad.com that would flow to distinct mailboxes, nice and organized.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 13, 2011

Modern Lean Startup theory blares out from the red-tiled rooftops of Stanford: Seek the Data and Ye Shall Find! But as much as I respect and follow Lean Startup theory, objective measurements aren’t the only things that matter. I was embarrassed when referring you guys to friends.&#. But hold on. They were still customers.

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Design Lean Database Cofounder 253

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 18, 2015

All a little startup has is a decent idea and extremely greasy elbows. A company with a large, profitable, growing revenue stream betrays facts useful to a startup: There’s a huge market to be had (else it wouldn’t be large and growing). So if a startup cuts prices by 50% or 80%, the big company cannot chase.

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Technical Review Valuation Flash Revenue 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 30, 2010

Rob Walling generously allowed me to reprint this excerpt from his new book, "Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup" available in paperback and Kindle from Amazon and in PDF and ePub from StartupBook.net. Why Should My Startup Use a Virtual Assistant? It's a mix of shock and excitement. The Lesson.

Software Review 284

Software Review Startup Technical Review Hosting 284

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

On his startup’s sale to a larger company, he then laments that the “youthful energy that created so much value was siphoned off.” People love quoting (presumably made-up) stats about how most acquisitions are failures, but they forget to mention that most independent startups also fail.

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Acquisition Technical Review Stock Options Employee 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

This is part of an ongoing startup advice series where I answer (anonymized!) 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. questions from readers, like a written version of Smart Bear Live.

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Customer Software Review IP Technical Review 231

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

This is Part 5 of the 5-part series: 5 lessons from 150 startup pitches. Ask a technical founder about his startup, and he'll proudly describe his stunning software — simple, compelling, useful, fun. The obvious problem is that every new startup on Earth says exactly these things. Infection built-in, not bolt-on.

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 19, 2010

You didn't start a business so that you could learn accounting, but learn accounting you must! Here's a little help. QuickBooks lets you switch between two radically different methods of accounting with a click of a button. It's nice to have accommodating software, but which one should you pick? Never heard of either of these?

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Revenue Startup Forecast Finance 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 10, 2011

Let’s make this concrete with a brand-new, modern startup. It’s tempting to launch your startup with the widest marketing messages addressing the largest segment of the market. Want to work with me on a startup? Launching Doggie Cards. Hey, at least she’s focussed !) Details here.

Software Review 232

Software Review Technical Review .Net Design 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 17, 2017

There are weekends and vacations and sick days and such, but those don’t add up to enough concentrated time to carry off something like a startup without causing work or home to suffer. You can do a startup on the side while you have a day job, but your family will never see you. Big Things include: Job. Social Life. It happens.

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A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 11, 2010

I just reviewed several hundred startup pitches for Capital Factory. You have all sorts of shortcomings: First startup, inexperienced, ignorant about how "sales" works, buggy software, whatever. I don't care that your resume doesn't prepare you for a startup — mine didn't either! Pretending your faults don't exist.

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Elevator Pitch RSS Startup Software Review 325

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 29, 2011

The following week she sent me this email (my emphasis): Ever since accidentally stumbling upon lean startup 1+ years ago, I’ve struggled to implement the principles correctly. If you liked that, you'll probably like these too: Point/Counter-Point: Startup Genome Project Considered Harmful. What did they do before you came along?

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Lean Software Software Developers Software Development 269

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

How do the successful startups rise above all that? No brand, no features, no customers, no money, no distribution, no search engine rankings, no efficient advertising, no incredible executive team, no NPS, no strategy. Do they solve all those problems at once, or at least quickly?

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Software Review Technical Review API Algorithm 133

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 24, 2011

In the emotional turmoil of a startup it’s easy to forget that you’re supposed to be having fun now and then. Of course most startups terminate this way anyway don’t they? Want to work with me on a startup? Blowing people’s minds by doing something awesome is a blast. And that counts too. Details here.

Intellectual Property 242

Intellectual Property Open Source Bandwidth IP 242