Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2015

We have made 5 online video investments in total – some we will talk about later this year. Content is a “hits driven business” and therefore you can only invest in platforms not media. You must invest in technology. But you don’t need to spend money on SEM. I think most arguments miss the mark.

SEM 150

SEM Content Platform Acquisition 150

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2009

Fantastic post by Christian Gammill - Startup Delta Force… From a competitive perspective (e.g. all the other folks out there that will try to enter the same market) the barriers have been dropping over the last few years.

Startup 150

Startup SEM IP SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

In essence Muhammad thinks the “growth hacking” is a charlatan term for online marketing that consists of a bunch of everyday tasks that all online businesses should be doing: SEO, SEM, Content Marketing, Social Media, Referral Marketing, etc. “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Success begets success.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

I’m super excited to announce that GRP Partners led the investment in Ethan Anderson’s new company MyTime (link has LA-based merchants but will give you a good feel for the product). In the same year they won Business Insider’s Startup competition. But Ethan had left by the time of the acquisition. Nice sweep!

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

Customer Acquisition. How many through SEM? per click on an SEM basis this is NOT your cost to acquire a customer – you need to add conversion rate. Those two things together would lower your acquisition costs nearly in half to $6.11. How many adds came through organic SEO? How many through affiliate deals? per customer!

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

What would it take in investments to acquire and retain traffic to support these businesses? After a year in the market, MakeSpace was growing rapidly and our biggest issue was CAC (customer acquisition costs) relative to payback period (when we get our marketing investment back) and relative to LTV (lifetime value).

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

Not because they didn’t want to do Pay-per-click (they are huge buyers of SEM) but because they didn’t want other people to know what they paid for clicks! IdeaLab has created 75 companies, leading to 8 IPOs, 35 or so acquisitions and more than 5 companies worth in excess of $1 billion.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350