Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
In this model, you take some fraction of the lifetime value of each customer and plow that back into paid acquisition through SEM, banner ads, PR, affiliates, etc. For eBay, this is caused by the incredible network effects of their business (so-called demand-side increasing returns and supply-side increasing returns).
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
For example, one angel investor reportedly invested in several hundred social networking ventures employing this philosophy. SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 7, 2008
Customers found it confusing and it turned out to be at odds with our fundamental value proposition (which really requires an independant IM network). Unfortunately, positioning our product as an "IM add-on" was a complete mistake. So we had to completely throw that code away, including all of its beatiful tests and specs. Talk about waste.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 5, 2008
Spray files across cheap disks on your network. SEM on five dollars a day Andrew Chen: Growing renewable audiences Marc Prensky's Weblog: Cell Phones in Class A new version of the Joel Test (draft) Smarticus — 10 things you could be doing to your c. MogileFS - "Distributed (meta) file system. Pay less for storage.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 14, 2008
This was 2004, and we had never even heard of MySpace, let alone had any understanding of social networking. It required hearing customers say it over and over again for us to take a serious look, and eventually to realize that social networking was core to our business. But the early customers all compared it to MySpace.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
If you sell an online service that solves a defined problem, you can compete in SEO or SEM. And in some markets its decisive, because of well-known network effects (as happened with Microsoft, eBay, and many others). This can even vary by category, as people apply different criteria to games vs. utilities vs. social networking apps.
Startup Lessons Learned
FEBRUARY 28, 2009
Ive told the story of how this desperation turned us on to Google AdWords in SEM on five dollars a day. We picked those numbers by counting up the numbers of friends, family, and relatives we thought we could cajole into buying our early product. Pretty soon we ran out of friends. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Expert insights. Personalized for you.
167 
Let's personalize your content