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By definition, you read blogs. But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about.
What do Google Analytics and print newspapers have in common? I’ve been using Chartbeat for over a month now to track performance of my blog and I find myself looking at Google Analytics much less these days. In fact, I’m surprised by how antiquated Google Analytics feels. Basically, it rocks! Let’s see.
I recently wrote a piece for Mashable on how to create a company blog. Since it’s already written (and since I promised not to republish on my blog other than a summary) if you’re interested please have a read over there. Summary notes and then I’ll extend: Should you blog? What should you blog about?
When I first started writing this blog several years ago I had less followers than you have right now. But the realist in me knew I couldn’t write daily nor could I convince you to think to check out my blog with regularity. Often you ask somebody, “Did you see that article on Google buying so and so?”
If you get a moment, as a favor to John for having produced such wonderful notes I’d be grateful if you would check out his most excellent startup blog The X Factor. I appreciate the write-up and your continued support of this blog. Why AltaVista Failed To Become as Successful as Google. Thank you, John.
On my most important ones I spend as much time figuring out what to cut out as I do putting into the writing of it. Many people write email without a “call to action” or reason they’re writing the email. Write to one person at a time. This is critical and was the reason I sat down to write this post.
Would Google have become today’s juggernaut without Yahoo! What if Google had paid attention to Dodgeball – would there be no FourSquare today? I was thinking about all of this as I looked at the logs from my WordPress blog this evening. I started blogging 2 years ago. I started by writing 3-4 times / week.
Obviously you should have somebody that helps you research journalists, gets you meetings, pitches stories, helps prep you for interviews & helps make sure your writing is cogent. And you need somebody who is committed to keeping up your presence in blogs, social media and other online forums. In a startup this is a mistake.
I first learned the ropes around SEO (search engine optimization) and how for years this has been a cat-and-mouse game where people game the system (Google) through link exchanges, offshore SEO “agencies,&# widgets, algorithmically optimized content and the like that degrades the quality of search results. Not the expected reaction.
I wanted to also post the series here to have it as a resource on my blog for future entrepreneurs who stop by. This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about. You no longer work for Google, Oracle, Salesforce.com or McKinsey where everybody calls you back. What attributes am I looking for during the process?
We talked about a lot of great stuff in the video including how to do sales calls and a how a new “culture of writing&# is emerging as a critical skill set in business today. We also talked about why Jon decided to leave Google to become an EIR at a VC firm (Polaris) – minute 33. Good comment community = viral blog.
I don’t know Ezra yet but since he’s taking the time to blog (which I hugesly respect) and share thoughts I thought I’d take him up on his challenge and also spill the beans on my secrets. On blogging I blog because I love it. I just write. My other secret on blogging? Keep on writing.
So I thought I’d write a post about how I drive my personal creativity. (A It’s why I always work hard to find images for my blog posts & why all of my keynote presentations are visual rather than bullet points with words. When I write a blog post I often see the words before I write them.
I can attest from experience that publishing a regular blog to properly showcase your offering, even before you have it, is a most cost effective approach in time and money. For blogging to work, you need to do it consistently and frequently, at least once a week, or the value evaporates. Populate your team. Cultivate early customers.
He had followed me on Twitter and sent me a nice message about my blog. So when I saw the merely mortal Tristan with a normal sized Twitter following I clicked through to his link, saw his blog, saw that he was a second year at Stanford and just thought, “hey, he seems like an interesting guy. Brad googled him on his Iphone.
Value of Blogging I started the presentation talking about the value of blogging. Tom Peters No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important in my life than blogging. But from a value perspective, it really comes down to the numbers I showed for my eLearning Technology blog. This is that post.
I CERTAINLY opened myself up to attack by writing my original blog post about job hoppers with some incendiary language and tone. But the comments on my own blog were so much more balanced with people taking both sides of the debate. For anyone who attacked me on my blog but used their actual names I left their comments.
Tracy is knowledgeable enough to talk tech and swap design & product stories with other founders, but she realized early that networking amongst this group and reading and writing in their journals would not bring her more customers. So Tracy began keeping a blog about … (what else?)
Blogging is one of the best ways to do this and build a brand, even before you have a product or service. Thus I recommend that every entrepreneur start blogging in parallel with solution development for the following benefits: Get customer idea feedback before you commit resources. Develop an efficient and effective writing style.
I can attest from experience that publishing a regular blog to properly showcase your offering, even before you have it, is a most cost effective approach in time and money. So finding time is hard, and good writing is simply not what most people do. Your Google ranking will go up dramatically. Find potential partners.
Turns out everybody likes to produce content and take part in the “conversation.&# Massive uptake of user-generated content including blogs (e.g. People rightly recognize that comments on blogs are just a form of a stream and thus the growth of open commenting platforms like Disqus and IntenseDebate. Then came blogs.
I have found that publishing a regular blog can give you an edge in making all this happen. One of these is blogging, to let people know about your brand, provide links to supportive articles, and generate back-links to your content from other sites. Your blog followers will be your best customers.
I recently read a book I’d highly recommend to every reader of this blog called “ Yes, 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive &# by Robert B. Angels are writing smaller checks so they typically don’t want the overhead of complex analysis in order to make their decision. You should, too.
Just get your numbers into a Google sheet so you can work with them easily. Then use what you’ve learned in this blog post to decide if the numbers validate your business model, or if you need to rethink your approach. Please write us at blog@techempower.com ! Finally, review the numbers with your partners.
In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. Finally, a lot of people asking me about typos on my blog. It sucked. It still does.
Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice.
I began publishing my blog in 2008. I was hesitant to use my own name, as I did not want my blog to be perceived as a self-promotional vanity project. In addition, my role as Partner at Rincon Venture Partners provided me with a business reason to invest additional time and effort into my humble blog. I was not disappointed.
This is part of my ongoing series “ Start-up Lessons. &# If you want to subscribe to my RSS feed please click here or to get my blog by email click here. I’m reluctant to put it into writing because people get so passionate about this issue and many disagree. Yesterday I wrote a blog posting on founder vesting (see here ).
” I have been weighing in slowly on the topic over the past few weeks on Twitter but have avoided writing a blog post about it until now. I first discovered him or her as a commenter on Fred Wilson’s blog. There are many things I am – but different than what I say on this blog is not one of them!
Twitter, by contrast, started as an open platform where people let anybody see what they were writing. People write their thoughts knowing that anybody else can see them. Take action – Obviously when Michael Arrington is writing something scathing about your product you want to pay attention and take action.
SEO / SEM are promotional techniques for marketing through the Google distribution channel, which have yielded huge benefits to many companies – Yelp being a prime example. When I first started blogging Digg was still at its peak. Simply write a great book? Rebelling is simply a form of snobbery.
So what are Rob’s secret hacks that he didn’t spill in his blog post? . Key point – if your emails are as long as my blog posts you’re forked. He did it yesterday, “Mark, I’m going to write a blog post following on from your VC’s aren’t dumb. Email updates frequently.
Put simply – if you invested early in Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. For starters some funds are small and thus while they put $750k into your company to own 10% of your company they might not be able to write another $2 million if you then raise a $20 million round (10%). ” Some do, some don’t.
If you enjoy this blog I think you’ll enjoy watching the first 14 minutes of this video (just click on the image of me below). I give a sneak peek at a blog post I’m writing on the topic next week. Google’s investment in Zynga. Finally we covered this weeks deals. Beyond The Rack.
Tonight I was reading a good blog post ( here ) from Sean Powers with Alistair Croll on preparing yourself for the TC50 “bump” – the rise in traffic that a company gets from presenting at TechCrunch 50. They get paid to say, “Company X is the new FriendFeed&# just 2 days after Google acquires FriendFeed. Get over it.
Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. That student is Erin McCann who formerly worked in sales at Google, so she has some ground to stand on in her assertions.
I can attest from experience that publishing a regular blog to properly showcase your brand value, even before you have it, is a most cost effective approach in time and money. For blogging to work, you need to do it consistently and frequently, at least once a week, or the value evaporates. Populate your team.
I’ve been meaning to write this post since September of last year when Brad Feld first wrote about the The Founders Visa Movement. I commented briefly on his blog and made a mental note to write a blog post. At the time he granted me permission to write about his story. Felipe grew up in Brazil.
A few weeks ago I was reading a blog post by MG Siegler that really struck a chord. I then asked for editing rights to his Google Doc and I rewrote a version of it. Of course I can’t write every press release for the company nor would I want to. I then walked him through the logic of why I changed what I did.
In their case, people write their scripts on a web site, and when they're done, they can submit them to contests with a single click. If you're doing freelance writing, have a story you're trying to sell, there's a whole process of finding out where you're doing well, not doing well, and what responses you have received.
If you worked for firms like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman Sachs, Google and the like you’re probably more likely to rise to the top of the stack. Plus, show my you can write! I’m already 2 weeks late in writing this blog post as my partners keep reminding me. Are we elitist? What is the timeframe?
There are other great VC’s in SoCal and there is always the allure of the NorCal guys flying down and talking about how they invested in Google, Facebook, Yahoo! Write things down. It’s one of my favorite blog posts. We helped the write out their requirements for a system. I will embrace my losses.
Why Every Entrepreneur Should Write and 9 Tips To Get Started - OnStartups , September 27, 2010 "The best part of blogging is the people you will meet"- Hugh MacLeod repeating wisdom from Loic Lemeur to me at the Big Pink at 2 am in South Beach after the Future of Web Apps 2008. Why You Should Write. Kanye West.
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