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 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. Thoughts on scientific product development Lo, my 5 subscribers, who are you?

Audience 119

Audience San Francisco Continuous Deployment Lean 119

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

Dont worry about selecting particularly good keywords, if youre new to SEM. SEM only gets at one segment of users, and for a brand new product, you presumably need some skill at marketing in general and adsense in particular to get any useful info. Just put in your credit card. I used to use $.05, A very interesting strategy.

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Up and Running

JULY 26, 2016

1x hacker in charge of product/development. 1x hipster working with both product and growth. 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. Google AdWords or SEM (expensive). Successful and failed experiments.

Revenue 60

Revenue Acquisition Channel Campaign 60

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 7, 2008

On the web, we have many of these channels: SEM, SEO, world of mouth, PR and viral. On the iPhone, it seems that two are driving most of the installs: the "newest apps" RSS feed (which may be combined with PR) and a primitive form of SEO, when people search the App Store for a specific kind of app.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Lean Retention SEM 68

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.

Distribution 74

Distribution San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 74

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 13, 2009

If the product needs to be tweaked just a little bit in order to convert users into customers, you want to figure that out before the launch. If the viral coefficient is 0.9, And if your product doesnt retain customers, whats the point of driving a bunch of them to use it? Instead, do your product launch first.

San Francisco 168

San Francisco PR Lean Early Stage 168