Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 4, 2011

I was recently talking with a startup company who wanted me to try their product. I’m a big believer in product stability & performance before adding too many features. I’m a big believer in product stability & performance before adding too many features. Customer Acquisition. How many through SEM?

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2009

Team – higher requirements for caliber of team members Product – focus on truly differentiated and not me-too Market – is it really big enough to provide investor returns** Traction – need more users, partners, patents, etc Timing – are you building for yesterday or 2 yrs from now?

Startup 150

Startup SEM IP SEO 150

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). ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video. So I asked Ethan to build his product first and then we would fund.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire GRP Partners 359

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 17, 2018

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. For new product startups, search engine marketing (SEM) is still one of the most cost-effective and scalable lead-generation approaches. Display advertising. Email marketing. Trade shows.

Social Media 55

Social Media SEM Startup Advertising 55

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 3, 2010

Probably every one of you who has a business and a website have been approached through email or personal contact, and asked to spend money on Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Their computers then cleverly merge your ads with search results only when users search words imply an interest in your products.

SEM 90

SEM Marketing Search Engine Optimization Startup 90

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

Perhaps the most misused terms I see these days from entrepreneurs involve CAC (customer acquisition costs) and LTV (life time value) and a lack of understanding these critical components is driving many companies to premature failure. Customer acquisition cost. This is how much you spend to get a new customer. End of story.

Metrics 150

Metrics Startup SaaS Course 150

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 25, 2014

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. For new product startups, search engine marketing (SEM) is still one of the most cost-effective and scalable lead-generation approaches. Display advertising. Email marketing. Trade shows.

Startup 99

Startup Social Media SEM Advertising 99

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 14, 2010

They are tasked with “getting deals done&# so they race around talking to tons of potential partners inking anything from channel sale deals , product integration, international distribution agreements, co-marketing arrangements, M&A discussions, etc. Similar with product features. Let me give you an example.

Startup 323

Startup Press Development Team Review SEM 323

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2014

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. When questioned, founders usually mention word-of-mouth, viral marketing, and a top quality product. Use social media and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to start.

Marketing 102

Marketing Funding Social Media SEM 102

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 17, 2013

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. When questioned, founders usually mention word-of-mouth, viral marketing, and a top quality product. Use social media and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to start.

Marketing 106

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 106

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Because market is such a broad topic, I’m restricting these lessons to PR marketing (as opposed SEO, SEM, product marketing, etc.). My general rule is that it’s good to be stealth in the early days while you’re building your product and testing your market. It’s a buggy product but pretty damn cool.

Marketing 380

Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 24, 2013

According to Patrick Vlaskovits another proselytizer of the term, “Growth hacking comes after the early stage chaos and post-product-market-fit.”. If you build it, they may not come : So, you’ve launched your product, and people use it and seem to like it. It’s the whole conversion flow.

Hulu 111

Hulu Startup Social Media Organization 111

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

So when Sam Rosen came to me with the idea of disrupting storage with a product that is priced cheaper than existing incumbents and he could build a product that is a better service I was intrigued. The metrics were good but we wondered how much better they would be when we expanded our product.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

For businesses, these are now prime sources of business networking, customer service, and client leads. Search engine marketing (SEM). No SEM plan means you are missing a huge marketing opportunity. Wikipedia started this, but it is also used for technical support, software, and product reviews.

SEM 95

SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging Startup 95

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2010

It’s not uncommon for me to see a startup business plan “mission” to be the “premier brand” for their product, yet their marketing budget in the financials is trivial. When questioned, founders usually mention word-of-mouth, viral marketing, and a top quality product. Use social media and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to start.

Marketing 94

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 94

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 18, 2012

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Remember when you had to build a $1M factory to roll-out a new product?

Startup 102

Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM Social Network 102

socalTECH

MAY 5, 2009

The second, is we provide fulfillment services, such as product shipments. Third, is we provide customer care and phone support for orders; the fourth is the software technology, the platform that powers everything. There's now a warehouse in Canada, because half of their customer base is Canadian.

Venture Capital 113

Venture Capital SEM Commerce Email 113

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2009

Customer Service – As newspaper boys were the face of their employers, savvy carriers learned to establish healthy customer relationships to facilitate timely collections and generous tips. Search Engine Management (SEM) – Search marketing can be performed by anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Google AdWords.

Web 2.0 222

Web 2.0 Web Sales Outsource Development 222

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2010

They became popular for socializing, but now are prime sources of business networking, customer service, and client leads. Search engine marketing (SEM). No SEM plan means you are missing a huge marketing opportunity. Wikipedia started this, but it is also used for technical support, software, and product reviews.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging 89

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Remember when you had to build a $1M factory to roll-out a new product?

Entrepreneur 94

Entrepreneur Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM 94

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

By now we all know that the largest part of the online spend has been SEM (search engine marketing) where people buy CPC (cost per click) links to display alongside the “organic&# search results in the search engine. The configuration of the team was: 1 CEO, 1 Product Lead and a tech team of 6 people.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

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! He wanted to build direct customer relationships to get product feedback but only 2% of customers would ever return their registration cards.

Competition 350

Competition Idealab Product CitySearch 350

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2010

I come from a high-tech software background, and only a few years ago, it would cost at least a million dollars ($1M) for a team of professionals to produce any commercial software product. Do basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) yourself. Remember when you had to build a $1M factory to roll-out a new product?

Startup 50

Startup High Tech Search Engine Optimization SEM 50

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 23, 2013

Their computers then cleverly merge your ads with search results when users search words imply an interest in your products. It pays only if a customer clicks through AND takes a further action (conversion), such as buying a product or filling out a web form. This is NOT the same as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Paid Search 90

Paid Search PPC Organization SEO 90

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

We bat about 800 in terms of people buying off on the idea, who understand the bigger reach we have on the Internet, and the more SEO/SEM we do, which delivers business to them that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. The automated part, is a customer fills out a form and buys the product through their shopping cart.

Activity 164

Activity Startup Sites Web 164

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2013

What you really want to know is which campaigns drove “bottom of funnel activities” such as: Purchases, newsletter signups, subscribers, comments and so forth in the same way you’d be tracking this on Google Analytics for your SEO / SEM campaigns, direct referrals, etc. The other major pilot customer was.

Marketing 307

Marketing Technical Review Startup Tool 307

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. They are not the generalists required for new product startups. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur Services Product Search Engine Optimization 89

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

You have to build a product that people really love. Let me say this – whether you believe in marketing at startups or not, I think we’d all agree that you can’t have a great marketing program around a mediocre product. You need to start with an amazing product and no amazing product is built without talent.

Entrepreneur 398

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Blogging 398

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. They are not the generalists required for new product startups. As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur Services Search Engine Optimization Startup 106

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

As your business starts up, you need marketing programs, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a modern “pull” strategy based on social networks, and lead generation. Tomorrow, a similar change is likely to happen to sales personnel, customer service, even manufacturing and construction jobs.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Startup SEM 48