Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2019

Planning is not just an early-stage activity, but must be an ongoing activity, based on current accurate information as well as educated guesses on future changes. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Word-of-mouth and viral are not long-term solutions.

Intellectual Property 231

Intellectual Property Leadership Viral Early Stage 231

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

In some ways it is similar to early stage incubators such as Y Combinator, although FI is even earlier stage, focusing on developing the founders themselves as entrepreneurs as opposed to actual companies. You mention social / viral aspects at both Google Photos and United Online. and also to local advertisements.

Management 150

Management Product Entrepreneur Silicon Valley 150

VC Cafe

JULY 15, 2021

According to Statista, revenue generated from apps (paid downloads and in-app advertising) will reach $935 billion by 2023, and that doesn’t doesn’t include the many trillions of dollars transacted via apps in the last decade alone (think Amazon, Uber, games, etc). Almost overnight, a huge new industry was created around mobile.

Mobile 190

Mobile Social Media Distribution PR 190

mashable.com

OCTOBER 16, 2010

All of this is according to Paul Graham, co-founder of the early-stage investment fund Ycombinator. We are coaching VCs and Angel Investors everyday who call us wanting to understand our Early Stage LPO versus late stage IPO approach to business. Companies like GrowPublic, Inc.

Angel Investor 84

Angel Investor Venture Capital Social Media Technical Review 84

mashable.com

OCTOBER 16, 2010

All of this is according to Paul Graham, co-founder of the early-stage investment fund Ycombinator. We are coaching VCs and Angel Investors everyday who call us wanting to understand our Early Stage LPO versus late stage IPO approach to business. Companies like GrowPublic, Inc.

Angel Investor 83

Angel Investor Venture Capital Social Media Technical Review 83

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

The market size for online advertising, e-commerce, and web premium services are 1/10th to 1/3rd the size they are today. We were post product and had viral growth, albeit at very small scale and still had to evangelize the concept of a vital coefficient w/ most investors. And a third firm “pressure tested” (i.e.

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2017

Planning is not just an early-stage activity, but must be an ongoing activity, based on current accurate information as well as educated guesses on future changes. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Word-of-mouth and viral are not long-term solutions.

Intellectual Property 160

Intellectual Property Leadership Viral Early Stage 160

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2013

Planning is not just an early-stage activity, but must be an ongoing activity, based on current accurate information as well as educated guesses on future changes. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Word-of-mouth and viral are not long-term solutions.

Intellectual Property 265

Intellectual Property Founder Startup Leadership 265

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 16, 2012

Planning is not just an early-stage activity, but must be an ongoing activity, based on current accurate information as well as educated guesses on future changes. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Marketing and advertising are business realties. Word-of-mouth and viral are not long-term solutions.

Intellectual Property 276

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Leadership Viral 276

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Business Model Affects Metrics and Exit Criteria Web-based Business Model Exit Criteria In a web-business model you’re looking for traffic, users, conversion, virality, etc – not revenue. This a hard concept and even harder to implement. Keep teaching!

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219

The Next Web

JANUARY 26, 2014

Rely on cheaper forms of marketing : Blogging, email, viral tactics etc. You are getting your users to advertise your service for you to their friends. PayPal famously offered a $20 2-way reward in their early stages of growth. Most startups however, don’t have the kind of money required to do that. Why does it work?

Thailand 167

Thailand Social Network PPC Singapore 167

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

This world of local meets retail meets digital advertising portends to technology disruption and with it VC opportunities. The desktop web introduced banner ads that offered “brand advertising” opportunities akin to television. Businesses are also one-click from advertising through Google and now Facebook.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

However, for the past couple years, the metrics of “success” with early-stage digital media startups (especially consumer-facing ones) have clearly focused on distribution, as opposed to monetization. Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media.

Distribution 103

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 103

Genuine VC

APRIL 30, 2008

However, for the past couple years, the metrics of “success” with early-stage digital media startups (especially consumer-facing ones) have clearly focused on distribution, as opposed to monetization. Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media.

Distribution 100

Distribution Widget Viral Social Media 100

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

But with so many investors still licking their wounds from the dot-com bust, many focused on proven business models, such as advertising or e-commerce. We are the leader in the professional domain with viral growth. Here, we argue that we have a viral product that creates a network that possesses network effects.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

Ben's Blog

MAY 15, 2020

Finally, we’ll zoom out and assess the big picture: how various categories of company may be impacted long-term, how this crisis compares to 2008 (and what that means for early-stage founders), and the industries and business models that are now prime for growth.

Founder 36

Founder Conversion Technical Review Cash Position 36

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

TV and Magazine Advertising. Also, sometimes speed of growth is important and a company has a successful channel that doesn’t bring revenue into the company fast enough (for example, advertising in a quarterly magazine). Look at referrals, which is often a company’s best channel early on. Google AdWords. Trade Shows.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Channel B2B Early Stage 28

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

TV and Magazine Advertising. Also, sometimes speed of growth is important and a company has a successful channel that doesn’t bring revenue into the company fast enough (for example, advertising in a quarterly magazine). Look at referrals, which is often a company’s best channel early on. Google AdWords. Trade Shows.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Channel B2B Early Stage 28

Duct Tape Marketing

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

TV and Magazine Advertising. Also, sometimes speed of growth is important and a company has a successful channel that doesn’t bring revenue into the company fast enough (for example, advertising in a quarterly magazine). Look at referrals, which is often a company’s best channel early on. Google AdWords. Trade Shows.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Channel B2B Early Stage 28

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

This is for the early-stage companies — the entrepreneurs with great ideas and tireless work ethics who feel like they’ve emailed half of the country’s news outlets with nothing but the rare “thanks, but not interested” reply to show for it. Reporters aren’t here to advertise for you. The irony hurts. Pitch late. You did it!

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

There are a number of other variables here like virality (the chances of a user referring another user), but I don’t want to overcomplicate things. It’s no joke that your users are your best advertisers. See Also: The Top 10 Tools for Tracking Your Web Metrics. Successful and failed experiments. Masterful onboarding (cheap).

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

The Next Web

AUGUST 19, 2013

Being an engineer, I built myself a kind of algorithm that helps determine an early-­stage startup’s sales channels, and that’s what I’m sharing with you today. This channel is also quite fast because it’s easy to test ­­ just make sure you have someone who has experience dealing with online advertising platforms.

Belarus 137

Belarus Viral Channel Startup 137

Steve Blank

APRIL 20, 2021

It bears repeating: an early-stage startup must focus on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product. There are two viable growth engines for tech companies: Viral, or “inherently viral” growth: Customers either intentionally or unintentionally recruit new customers by using your product.

Product 436

Product Viral Channel San Francisco 436

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

Even relatively early stage boards should be thinking about diversity, because they face particular challenges on this issue. And even if you can’t achieve board diversity during the early stages, you should be planning how to achieve it with your independent board members. This is why it applies to this company.

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36

Scalable Startup

MARCH 20, 2011

Viral growth. Old school internal growth strategies are still vital to the plan: marketing, advertising, marcom, sales, work ethic, camaraderie, common vision, right attitudes, belief in the leader. Can’t be stopped (for now). External growth is more exciting, also more difficult and more expensive, but can be quite rewarding.

Viral 26

Viral Social Media Matching Channel 26

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

For example, if you’re an early-stage SaaS provider that is shifting from a horizontal solution to a vertical focus, your mission, culture, and competencies can stay the same and the pivot transition will probably go smoothly. It’s easier (but still hard) when you’re running a small, early-stage organization.

Startup 36

Startup Silicon Valley Business Model Mobile 36

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 19, 2021

Signing an office lease might not seem like a board-level decision, but with early-stage startups, that lease might very well be a financial liability that significantly exceeds the company’s total cash in the bank. You should be doing television advertising.” Reid, the game is engagement and advertising.

Startup 36

Startup Cofounder Advertising Hiring 36

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

He says, “Spending a few thousand on a domain could make a big difference long term, and give you the credibility and advantage over the competition, especially in the very beginning and early stages of the business.”. has some great growth hacking strategies on their site; use these to give you that early boost.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Occam's Razor

MAY 2, 2017

With advertising revenue in a tailspin, it is more important than ever. I have a massive bias against the current click-bait, let’s go viral , “hot story of the moment” traffic. More here: Facebook Advertising / Marketing: Best Metrics, ROI, Business Value. It is not hard to pick New Subscriptions. There you are.

Metrics 141

Metrics Acquisition eCommerce Analytics 141

crowdSPRING Blog

NOVEMBER 2, 2012

Lessons from a top Angel Investor: Fabrice Grinda talks about his 100 early-stage investments – [link]. 7 Social Media Mistakes that Can Keep Your Content from Going Viral - [link]. Why Ad Holding Companies Should Act More Like VCs | Advertising Age - [link]. Advertising Age - [link]. – [link].

Social Media 93

Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 25, 2020

Some marketing techniques that fall under digital marketing include: Search engine marketing (search engine optimization, and pay-per-click digital advertising). Viral marketing. The early stages of a business are critical and difficult. So, most early-stage companies are very cautious about their spending.

Marketing 158

Marketing Early Stage Startup PPC 158

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Friday, March 13, 2009 Dont launch Heres a common question I get from startups, especially in the early stages: when should we launch? This is the usual reason given for a marketing launch, but for most early stage startups, its a failure. If the viral coefficient is 0.9,

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

No doubt early-stage companies can be started on a shoestring by low-paid entrepreneurs, but when financing a scalable, sustainable product, a free application server won’t make much of a difference. In fact, it’s barely even the beginning for most companies in their seed stage financings. All Rights Reserved. startupcto

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

In other words, angel investors and early stage venture capital (VC) firms will have different expectations than late stage VC firms. For example, angel funding is more prevalent in the United States than in Europe. Also make sure to research which type of investors fit your business. All Rights Reserved. startupcto

France 77

France Marketing Social Media Startup 77

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 21, 2013

If you're working on the Sticky Engine of Growth , you're focused on very different metrics from those that you care about in the Viral Engine of Growth. In the early days of a SaaS business, churn really doesn’t matter that much. Similarly, a two-sided marketplace cares about different things from a traditional e-commerce product.

Analytics 167

Analytics Lean Metrics Churn Rate 167

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I always try hard to make this blog a place where you can learn lessons rather than an advertisement for portfolio companies. Our firm invested at a very early stage in retail brands including CostCo, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ulta, Starbucks and many more. I will describe this in a moment. They loved his vision, too.

Term Sheet 303

Term Sheet Mobile Cofounder Early Stage 303

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 24, 2011

Do you feel like the more users you have it helps accelerate, is there some kind of, maybe not necessarily viral, but that people just tell their friends at all. One of the things we find, because we certainly threw out what can we do to make this more viral or to work more in a social way so that we can try to get more people on the system?

Cofounder 208

Cofounder Technical Review Software Review Differentiation 208