How To Get Our Attention, A Case Study Many a post has come before this one on the special adventure that is pitching TechCrunch. And while most of our writers have their own preferences (Please don’t call my cell before 7 a.m. PDT unless you’re Google, and you’re buying Twitter. The following email thankfully fit into the former category. On Jul 29, 2010, at 11:00 PM, Mark Nielsen wrote:TechCruch Team,Another late night, we’re tired, hopped up on caffeine, malnourished and could probably use a shower…but man do we love this startup S#! Step 1. You know, just like with almost everything else in life, once you’ve got the “be interesting” thing down, that’s pretty much it. Yes, sometimes there’s a fine line between “being creative” and “being a stalker” but the truth is that if you’ve done more than just copy and paste a press release, you’ve already surpassed about 70% of our inbox. We’re looking for stories, so have one. Extra credit: Make sure to read this post. Garage photo, courtesy Mark Nielsen and Patrick Carmitchel.
How Big is the Internet? #Internet #Statistics #Trends Big, large, grand, huge – Words fail to adequately capture the size of the Internet. Let’s give it a try with numbers. Space is another mind-bogglingly large subject. Let’s see if numbers help. There are about 300 billion stars in our Galaxy and approximately 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. These numbers push the mind’s limits and rattle the senses. There are roughly 3.1 billion users and almost a billion websites. Click the animation to open the full version (via PennyStocksLab). This graphic does a good job of illustrating how quickly we create data and the sheer size of internet usage. PennyStocks Lab shows how much data has been created, with the counters starting at the time of loading the page. Data scientists and IT professionals alike understand that there is a tsunami of data heading our way. Additionally, the ability of algorithms to consider various types of meaning is quite significant. On the other hand, not all use of technology is useful and intelligent.
How I Pitched @TechCrunch And 13 Ways To Get Press When You Launch Your Startup I outlined 16 must have customer acquisitions techniques for startups in a post last month. One of the most important techniques comes in the form of Public Relations and I think it’s important enough to warrant its own article. PR is how you launch companies, build buzz, and get valuable attention that ranks well above the noise of buying advertising. For example Apple only aired the 1984 ad once, but received over five million dollars of free publicity due to everyone talking + airing the ad again on the news. Like anything worth striving for in life, getting attention from the press is hard, but if you attack it with the right approach, it becomes fairly easy to do. We’re launching a new version of Padpressed later this week and I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learned over the years. A lot of entrepreneurs ask me how I got on TechCrunch with PadPressed, so I included the exact email I used to pitch and get on TechCrunch at the end of the article with some notes. Tell a Story
The Big Box Of #Crowdfunding Tools - @reubenpressman #startups #growthhacking Why collect the wisdom of the crowd when you can collect their money instead? Crowdfunding is a method of fundraising which relies on the collective donations of a large number of individuals. It is typically carried out through an online platform, the most popular of which are GoFundMe, Kickstarter, and IndieGogo. Using these platforms, startups, and existing businesses can create crowdfunding campaigns for their projects. Each campaign has a fundraising goal and a limited amount of time in which to reach it. Thousands of artists, engineers, and social activists worldwide have successfully funded their ventures through crowdfunding campaigns, but that doesn’t mean crowdfunding is easy. Basecamp You can always go at it alone, but if you plan on running a crowdfunding campaign with a team, it would be wise to communicate through a project management application such as Basecamp. Remember, the average length of a fully-funded crowdfunding campaign is 47 days long. Google Drive and Dropbox
What are some blogs and sites, a new startup should send press releases to Best #search engines @KngineSearch @stephen_wolfram @yegg @disconnectme @answerthepublic This is an in-depth overview of the best alternative search engines on the market. With a focus on privacy, intelligence, and creativity. Twenty-five years ago, three computer science students at Montreal’s McGill University created Archie, the world’s first internet search engine. Archie, god bless it, couldn’t do much more than index FTP archives, but it set the stage for everything to come, and the search engine landscape has since changed considerably. The early nineties saw platforms like Lycos, AltaVista, and Excite enter the fray. Over time, the needs and expectations of the average internet user evolved and became more sophisticated. While Google, Baidu (China), and Yahoo! Many of these smaller search engines maintain just as much search power as the big three while offering newly coveted features. DuckDuckGo While it might not garner as much attention as the Googles and Bings of the world, DuckDuckGo is the big name in private search engine technology. DuckDuckGo ! ! Wolfram Alpha
Must Read Quora Threads for Startups For entrepreneurs, Quora has become the new Hacker News: the go-to-place to glean great, rich information related to startups – culture, technology, product, design, history, financing, etc. It’s all there and much of it is outstanding. My goal is help build a list of must read Quora threads for entrepreneurs and startups. This is by no means a comprehensive list – so I encourage you to share threads that are important / helpful to you and I will supplement the list. Building a Great Team - What would the ideal web technology start-up team be composed of? - How does one hire really good product managers? - What are the best ways for gauging or assessing product “spidey sense” during an interview? - What is the best way to evaluate a potential startup to work at (full-time)? Financing - Are there examples of good start up term sheets? - What are the top 5-7 questions a start-up CEO should ask of an angel investor early on, to determine if they and you (& your project) are a potential fit?
RT @RichardABLS "8 Marketing Tactics (And Apps) That Turn Shoppers Into Buyers: As an online store owner, you're always looking for more traffic and sales. With so many ways of achieving these goals it can sometimes be difficult to determine the best place to start. Previously, we shared 13 actionable marketing tactics with you and today we have eight more. In this post, we will showcase a variety of tactics that you can implement immediately, along with an app for each one. Let's find out how to increase traffic and sales. 1. When it comes to driving conversions, one channel continues to outperform all others: email. 80% of people say they receive marketing messages alongside their personal emails on a daily basis.70% of people make use of coupons or discounts they learn about from email.60% of people say that receiving special offers is the top reason they subscribe to an email list from a business. If you haven't taken the time to develop a email marketing campaign, you're almost certainly leaving money on the table. 2. App: Pop-Up Window 3. App: Persistent Cart
How not to get on covered on TechCrunch I launched my startup officially last week (Eureka Science News - - intelligent news aggregator, fully automated, similar to techmeme and Google News, but with full content on the site - check out the /about page if you want to know more). I got amazingly positive feedback from it; got covered on the front page of Drupal with a full write-uo on how I built the site, in details( Drupal is the open-source CMS I built my site with, so it was my way of giving back to the community. After that, I figured 'hey! Maybe I actually have a chance with TechCrunch!'. In my mind TC covers only very high profile, tech-related startups, so at first I didn't think that they would be interested by a science news site started part-time by a PhD student in retrovirology ;) So I submitted my story via the form on their contact page. This time they answered promptly; I was very excited!
RT @brianclark "How Much Does it Cost to Build a #Website ? It’s a sticky question with no easy answer. It’s also a question we get before we even know much about a project. Technology Translated is brought to you by the Rainmaker Platform, the complete website solution for content marketers and online entrepreneurs. Find out more and take a free 14-day test drive at rainmaker.fm/platform. Our goal today is to arm you with the information you need to get the right answer for your needs and to find the right person to help you. Rebecca Gill is the founder and CEO of Web Savvy Marketing. Rebecca’s transparency and candid approach to creating lasting relationships provides a tremendous amount of insight that will give you a significant advantage when building your next website. If you want to get a high-quality website, at the right price, and build a relationship with the right agency, don’t miss this episode. In this 30-minute episode Rebecca and I walk you through: How do we answer the question “How much does it cost to build a website?”
Startup Traction: How do social sites (e.g., Hunch, Foursquare, Reddit, Digg) go from 1 to 100k users