Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2014

I actually really enjoyed many of the points Muhammad made about marketing in general and I found myself nodding through the entirety of the article except for it’s core premise. It’s about looking out for and catching the next major marketing wave before others have grokked it. I laughed as I did at much of his rant.

Technical Review 384

Technical Review SEM SEO Marketing 384

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 6, 2016

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing. Social-media advertising.

Customer 60

Customer Custom Marketing Social Media 60

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). Search engine marketing is simply buying advertising for your business from Google or another search engine company. Popular keywords have higher costs.

SEM 90

SEM Marketing Startup Search Engine Optimization 90

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2010

Many of the investors and entrepreneurs I know still don’t realize that they need to use and understand the Internet, even if their business is not e-commerce. Believe me, the business implications are already critical to your success or failure as an entrepreneur: Blog. Search engine marketing (SEM). Viral marketing.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging 89

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 4, 2015

Social media is so pervasive in today’s world that every entrepreneur believes instinctively that they know how to use it for their startup. Social media is now one of the key marketing tools, but not the only one, so the challenge is to manage the resource tradeoffs effectively by constantly assessing payback versus cost.

Social Media 108

Social Media Media Startup Tips 108

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 13, 2012

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a few years ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Develop viral content. Seed viral activity.

Marketing 95

Marketing Startup SEM Blogging 95

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). And we wanted a head of global marketing. ” So Ethan went to work as a product manager at Google Video.

CTO Coach 359

CTO Coach Google CTO Hire Yammer 359

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 21, 2011

Every time I challenge a business plan with little or no budget for marketing, I get the answer that they will be using “viral” marketing, which costs nothing. First of all, Seth Godin pointed out a couple of years ago that viral marketing does not equal word-of-mouth. Develop viral content. Seed viral activity.

Marketing 90

Marketing Startup SEM Blogging 90

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. This combination will almost certainly get your plan tossed by potential investors, who understand all too well the need and cost for marketing in today’s environment.

Marketing 94

Marketing Startup Social Media SEM 94

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. Sales and marketing costs. Manufacturing cost and lead times.

Entrepreneur 94

Entrepreneur Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM 94

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. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing. Social-media advertising.

Social Media 55

Social Media SEM Startup Advertising 55

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. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing. Social-media advertising.

Startup 99

Startup Social Media SEM Advertising 99

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. So I spend an inordinate amount of time with entrepreneurs focused on payback. End of story.

Metrics 150

Metrics Startup SaaS Course 150

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 13, 2009

Surely a savvy, modern-day entrepreneur can utilize online tools to leverage young peoples’ collective energy and fervor. . Other entry-level experiences for budding entrepreneurs included selling items marketed in comic book ads. If you haven’t already subscribed yet, subscribe now for. free weekly Infochachkie articles!

Web 2.0 222

Web 2.0 Web Sales Outsource Development 222

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

In our industry we applaud the efforts for entrepreneurs to have tried and we know that today’s failure can bring the experience for tomorrow’s success. Market Size. It’s ok to target a small market and you can probably build a niche business that is extremely valuable to you as an individual.

Startup 150

Startup Marketing Study SEO 150

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2011

Many of the businesses and entrepreneurs I know still don’t realize that they need to use and understand the Internet, even if their interest is not e-commerce. If you have heard the lingo, but most of these are not in your startup business plan, you are already in jeopardy as an entrepreneur: Blogging. Social media marketing.

SEM 95

SEM Search Engine Optimization Blogging PPC 95

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 24, 2013

For about 50 years, (…cough M) Ad Men, or marketing and sales individuals, have been the kings of organizational hierarchy … and then came the Internet of things and engineers took over the throne. If you build it, they may not come : So, you’ve launched your product, and people use it and seem to like it.

Hulu 111

Hulu Startup Social Media Organization 111

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. Sales and marketing costs. Manufacturing cost and lead times.

Startup 102

Startup Search Engine Optimization SEM Social Network 102

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

One of the investment themes I’ve been focused on in the past 3 years has been Performance-Based Marketing. When I started investing the US advertising market was $300 billion with only 10% of it ($30 billion) of it being online and measurable. I believe that many social networks confused this idea. Early evidence is good.

Advertising 284

Advertising Invest RSS CPC 284

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 2, 2009

This entry focuses on how you can minimize your cost per customer acquired by systematically establishing the infrastructure necessary to track the results obtained from a variety of online and offline marketing vehicles. Ultimately, your overall customer acquisition costs should calculated as an average of a variety of marketing channels.

Customer 164

Customer Custom Advertising SEM 164

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. How many through SEM? If you have multiple versions of your product, how many are web vs. mobile? Only one guy in the room knew – their tech lead.

Metrics 346

Metrics Startup SEO Customer 346

Tech Zulu Event

SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

We are TechZulu after all, so you know we could not do this post without some helpful event recommendations for startups and entrepreneurs. The Startup/Entrepreneur Guide to Social Media Week. Tuesday - Sept 21st - 5:30PM - OC Tech Coast Angels Entrepreneur Mixer. It’s nothing short of a new frontier in digital marketing.

Social Media 65

Social Media Media Tech Coast Angels Orange County 65

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. Sales and marketing costs. Manufacturing cost and lead times.

Startup 50

Startup High Tech Search Engine Optimization SEM 50

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2011

To be a great entrepreneur you really do need talent. You need to be great at something: technology back-end, front-end design, usability, sales, marketing, quantitative analysis, leadership –> whatever. So they set out a grass route’s effort to go directly to the market. And they have done hundreds of them.

Entrepreneur 398

Entrepreneur Startup Writing Blogging 398

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Bill Fried: I'm a serial entrepreneur. I was in advertising and marketing, working in Newport Beach on the Mazda account. Billy Fried: We first tested it in California, which was our launch market a year and a half ago. The idea was to have tent poles up in the most important leisure markets. It's down in Laguna Beach.

Activity 164

Activity Startup Sites Web 164

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2011

He was a life-long entrepreneur and the first business he created out of college (actually, he founded it while he was at Caltech) was a company that manufactured high quality audio speakers. 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 21, 2011

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. Self-employed services specialists are just as important, and are a growing part of this new “ age of the entrepreneur ” that I discussed last week. Many of these new entrepreneurs were regular employees a few years ago, focused on a skill specialty.

Entrepreneur 89

Entrepreneur Services Product Search Engine Optimization 89

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

You don’t need to invent an innovative product to be a real entrepreneur. Many of these new entrepreneurs were regular employees a few years ago, focused on a skill specialty. They are not the generalists required for new product startups. Here are a few examples: Marketing specialists. Marty Zwilling.

Entrepreneur 106

Entrepreneur Services Search Engine Optimization Startup 106

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding.

Venture Capital 285

Venture Capital Startup Advertising Redpoint 285

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Entrepreneurs who run startups have to be generalists to survive. Yet I’m seeing another critical group of entrepreneurs, self-employed specialists, who are a growing part of this new “ entrepreneurial revolution ” that I discussed a couple of weeks ago. Many of these new entrepreneurs were regular employees a few years ago.

Entrepreneur 48

Entrepreneur Search Engine Optimization Startup SEM 48