1. Participating in the world I work in and ideas that interest me.
2. To become a better writer. Obviously, I have a ways to go here.
3. To share information that helps others.
Archive for March, 2008
I met with a very interesting company yesterday that is reaching nearly 41 million visitors per month. We talked a lot about monetization strategy. At the end, the CEO mentioned that one of his very well known investors is encouraging growth over monetization. I thought about this a bunch last night. How should YieldBuild balance growth objectives with revenue objectives? My instincts tend to focus on how to figure out a scalable revenue model that will support growth. At our stage, we are still perfecting the product, but I spend 25-35% of my time working on revenue generating stuff (strategy, partnerships etc).
My best conclusion at this point is growth is one half of the equation. You have to understand who your customers are, why you are growing, and what you need to build to grow more. Focusing on growth gives you simply focus. Focus to build a great service that people want and use. Once it’s large enough, then figure out the second part. Many people have said this before. The interesting thing is I’ve only heard this from venture backed companies where people are shooting for huge outcomes. Which leads me to my second thought. When revenue and growth come together early in a companies life, is there a dramatic impact on growth that stunts the ultimate size and opportunity of the business? Or, maybe the question should be does becoming a good small business make it more difficult to become a good large business?
This week I was on a panel at the Snap conference about raising money. When I’m at these events I always try and give real data. I think sharing real examples also helps makes your advice more credible with the audience. Sometimes, after events, the audience will have other questions. After the Snap conference I got two more questions.
1. How do you deal with a VC that disagrees with the product strategy (Thinks your building the wrong thing) - can you give them their money back? This is a tough question. Ultimately, I think you are much better off if you are on the same page with your investors and I’d make every attempt to get on it. If not, you’ll probably find yourself with a lot of hart burn. On giving the money back. It may be possible. I’d discuss it if you think that’s the only way to move forward. Sometimes getting all options on the table can be good for you and them.
2. How do you fine an attorney to introduce you to VCs? Finding an attorney is easy. You can simply call SVB and ask them for a few that help startups. We use Orrick - not inexpensive, but excellent.
I read about an interesting sponsorship on Mashable with Sun. Sun is the sponsor and Mashable will write about startups. I bet Mashable is earning a decent CPM and Sun is reaching a lot of entreprenuers and tech minded folks that read Mashable. Nice!
Then I thought a bit more about Sun and for that matter Microsoft. Is marketing technology hardware/software products to startups a good idea? It’s awful hard to compete with commodity hardware and free software.
I’m looking for providers of PPC feeds. Like Yahoo, Search123, and Shopping.com. If you know any, leave them in the comments. Thanks!
Elegant UI is one of the hardest things to achieve in development. I was trying to think of products where I think they have fantastic UI. The IPhone comes to mind, and so does LinkedIn. I think the LinkedIn guys do a tremendous job on their design. Maybe not in the IPhone class, but I can’t think of anyone online that does better. Can you?
There has been lots of talk about what it takes to create a great company. Some say save money. I agree with that. Others say to hire great. Yep. Makes sense. Another says none of that matters. What you need is a great product or service. A great product or service will cover up a lot of mistakes. I think this is true. But, if you don’t hit a home run with your first product, I think your chances of success will increase on future iterations if you have the team and frugal culture to sustain a down period.
How many companies make a great product with their first release?
I’m watching a bit of the results coming in from Ohio and Texas and I’m thinking that Obama will most likely get the nomination. But the closeness of the race has really pushed me to do some homework on the candidates to understand the differences in their views and why I should vote for one of them. I will add, I think this is one of the nice problems of having to great candidates to choose from.
We are giving away a pretty big Hubbing setup with our 30 day HubLove contest. One of my favorite thing about the contest is the clues and the killer blogs that have hosted them for us.
- Andy Beard
- Hobotopia
- Literary Illusions
- Phat Mommy
- After the Bubbly
- Neatorama
- More Merchant
- Successful Blog
- Unique Blog Designs
- Marisa’s Dandelion Patch
- Mashable.com
- JohnChow.com
I bet there will probably be a twist or two before the contest is up. And. Man, are the clues getting tough!
