Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. These are things that if you get right, you can optimize your way into a big, sustainable audience.

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Here, the key metrics are Acquisition and Referral, combined into the now-famous viral coefficient. If the coefficient is > 1.0 , you generally have a viral hit on your hands.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008

In this post I hope to talk about how to do it well, in terms appropriate for both audiences. If its part of a viral loop, its probably trying to get them to invite more friends (on average). First of all, why split-test? In my experience, the majority of changes we made to products have no effect at all on customer behavior.

San Francisco 166

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Continuous Deployment 166

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008

On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. Those companies who have learned to build apps that optimize the viral loop dominate in every category where they compete. If you sell an online service that solves a defined problem, you can compete in SEO or SEM. There are other models, in other distribution channels.

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Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

Thats because a marketing launch is a one-time event, and rarely translates into renewable audiences. If the viral coefficient is 0.9, Start with a five-dollar-a-day SEM campaign. the most sensible SEM advice Ive read - discussed in the context of a real situation. Pay attention to your fundamental driver of growth.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008

Revenue is always my preferred measure, but you can use anything that is important to your business: retention, activation, viral invites, or even customer satisfaction in the form of something like net promoter score. If an optimization has an effect at the micro level that doesnt translate into the macro level - who cares?

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment DC 68