Building an audience BEFORE you launch is something that I’ve done for every one of my companies and is a question that I get asked about all of the time. There’s this misconception that people think that if you can launch a product – then you’re automatically going to have success. “If you build it, they will come” is NOT
Isn’t it annoying that as soon as you finish something, people always want to know “Whats next? You could’ve just finished climbing a mountain, running your first marathon, or selling your company… and the only thing they want to know is… what’s next?!! After Clarity got acquired (Dec ’14, but only announced in Feb ’15) I was bombarded with this question everyday. For
“How do you build a product company within a service company?” …is a question that a lot of people struggle with. There are amazing examples of companies who have started off as a consulting or service company who have gone on to launch great products. Companies like:
In 2010 I was visiting a friend at Twitter and got introduced to Josh Elman who had recently been hired to help improve Twitter’s onboarding experience. What I learned that day forever changed my thoughts on how I look at building product.
When I first moved to San Francisco I spent the first year immersed in startup marketing. I believed that regardless of the company I eventually started, that as long as I understood marketing I would be widely successful. Man was I wrong.
If you haven’t heard of remarketing then you’re wasting your marketing dollars. The concept is simple, when someone visits your website or blog, you “tag them” using a simple code snippet (provided by Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, etc), then you’re able to target that person with ads from your company as they navigate around the internet or on that social
Role-playing is such a funny idea when you think of it in the context of business – who would of thought “acting out” a situation would make sense in your startup? Quick story… I was talking to a friend about an important meeting he has coming up and suggested to him that he role play with a co-worker; practice what
There’s a great quote that’s going to summarize everything that I’m about to teach you today: “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” ~ Aristotle When I was raising money for our first round of funding I got some great advice from one of our “quarterbacks”, Travis Kalanick (now CEO of Uber).
There’s a great quote from the brilliant management consultant, Peter Drucker, which really summarizes what I’d like to teach you today: “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” ~ Peter Drucker If you have 100 customers, there are probably only 10 who are actually amazing
About 10 years ago I started organizing Founder Dinners after reading a book called, Never Eat Alone written by an amazing individual, Keith Ferrazzi. This book set my life on a different path. Since then, I’ve organized over 300 meals, bringing together close to 1000 entrepreneurs and CEO’s, both at home and everywhere that I’ve traveled. The power of bringing
