The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters | pmarca-archive This post is all about the only thing that matters for a new startup. But first, some theory: If you look at a broad cross-section of startups — say, 30 or 40 or more; enough to screen out the pure flukes and look for patterns — two obvious facts will jump out at you. First obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of success — some of those startups are insanely successful, some highly successful, many somewhat successful, and quite a few of course outright fail. Second obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of caliber and quality for the three core elements of each startup – team, product, and market. At any given startup, the team will range from outstanding to remarkably flawed; the product will range from a masterpiece of engineering to barely functional; and the market will range from booming to comatose. And so you start to wonder — what correlates the most to success – team,product, or market? Let’s start by defining terms. So: Why? Andy puts it this way:
SME marketing channel preferences | B2B market research agency By Andrew Dalglish - SMEs. There are close to two million, they generate half of the UK’s GDP and employ 60 per cent of the private sector workforce. SMEs are a potentially significant opportunity for many B2B marketers then, but how best to open a conversation? This was puzzling me so I asked 450 buyers of B2B services within SMEs to imagine a prospective supplier wanted to engage with them. Their answers provide clear guidance on where best to target marketing resources. An overview The fourteen channels explored fall into four categories based on their effectiveness. Prioritise – channels with the highest impactDeploy selectively – channels without mass appeal but effective amongst manyThink carefully – channels disliked by the majority but appealing to a minorityHandle with care – channels that may alienate as many dislike And there are six specific learnings – outlined below – which will help ensure marcoms have the best chances of breaking through. Adopt a segmented approach
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers: Ben Horowitz: 9780062273208: Amazon.com: Books The 9 Most Common Start-up Mistakes Making mistakes is a great way to learn. Making mistakes is also not particularly fun. It's a lot more fun to avoid them entirely. Here are some of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs—and businesspeople in general—tend to make: 1. Most successful people are solid planners and excellent adapters. 2. Just be you. 3. Great, but execution is everything. Check out everything on the business menu, but only select a few items at a time. 4. An estimate is theoretical. 5. 6. Apply sensitivities and create plans in case your estimates are wrong. 7. Sometimes it's not the business or the market. 8. Business is serious enough. 9. What matters most is what matters most to you.
A Recipe for Growth: Adding Layers to the Cake | Jeff Jordan Businesses don’t grow themselves. One of the most important jobs of a CEO is to aggressively define and pursue a growth agenda for his or her business. Why is this important? Growth typically improves a company’s competitive position and provides increased scale and leverage, and investors clearly value growth. The pursuit of growth continues to be important regardless of the lifecycle of the company. Obviously it’s critical early in a company’s life… or it won’t be a company for long. The first real operating job I had was managing eBay’s U.S. business in mid-2000, which included the ebay.com website. It was clear we needed to quickly define a growth agenda that had the scale to fight gravity’s impact. Marketing had some leverage, but it was limited. eBay was already one of the biggest marketers on the Internet and efforts to optimize spend were already underway. Buy-it-now was surprisingly controversial to many in both the eBay community and in eBay headquarters.
5 Easy Ways to Kick-start Your Business Planning - Business Plan Strategy Don't know where to start with your plan? Here are some tips to get you going--today. Have you been putting off the business planning? You know who you are. Do a SWOT Analysis SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The author is an Entrepreneur contributor. The Venture Capital Power Law - Analyzing the Largest 100 U.S. VC-Backed Tech Exits Of the 100 largest VC-backed tech exits since 2009, Sequoia Capital invested in a remarkable 22 of them. Benchmark Capital invested in the highest percentage at the early stage. Venture capital returns are often said to follow a power law. Simplistically, the best investment returns more money than the rest of the investments combined. We analyzed the largest 100 U.S.-based tech M&A or IPO exits since 2009 to see whether the power law actually holds and who the most frequent investors in those companies are. The data below. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. The chart below highlights the distribution of top U.S. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. Sequoia Capital’s exit of WhatsApp was just 1 of 7 exits out of the 100 that counted just a single institutional investor. Top 100 VC-Backed U.S. Of course, simply “getting in” on a big exit does not guarantee strong investment returns as the nature of VC is such that those investors who jumped in earliest are most richly rewarded. Methodology/Notes
What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy? The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers. Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. The objectives that a good brand will achieve include: Delivers the message clearlyConfirms your credibilityConnects your target prospects emotionallyMotivates the buyerConcretes User Loyalty To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day.
New Grads: Midstage Startups Are Your Best First Job in Tech If you’re graduating this spring and starting a career in tech, I’ve got one piece of advice: go work at a midstage startup (I’ll define that as B/C rounds of financing – eg Twilio, Stripe, Airbnb, Warby). Here’s why: 1. Your Work Will Matter: Past the point of product market fit, but before large company ossification. At a brand new startup you spend all your time trying to get the world to care about your product and fighting a lack of infrastructure. 2. 3. 4. 5. Now you might think it’s strange that a VC who runs a seed stage fund is telling new grads to join larger startups. Like this: Like Loading...
Branding in the Digital Age - What Does That Mean? If this title makes you feel like you’ve just won a game of Jargon Bingo, you are not alone. Us Web types are quick to latch on to names for things – Web 2.0 (and 3.0), LAS, “The Online Conversation” – and it’s easy to talk about a concept without really thinking about what it means. Most people, by now, understand that a brand is a sum of perceptions; what do you, your staff, your business partners and your customers think about you and what collective meaning is then ascribed. So, when you apply this to the digital or information age, what exactly are we talking about? Matt Riley, Idea Bounty guy and Senior brand planner at Quirk. I sought out the perspectives of people smarter than me – Mr. Matt’s view is that ‘the digital age’ just refers to the presence of digital tools that have made it easier for people to engage with your message. “Branding is about creating a persona and positioning it in a way that allows people to engage with it and fulfill a goal that you have.” Also Check Out:
The New York Times will never die For the past fifteen years, the news industry has been struggling. Newspapers are dying, unable to jump on the digital train. Some are getting taken over by tech moguls for pennies. New media outlets emerge, grab tons of traffic from incumbents, which sometimes consider pure players with some disdain. In the middle of it stands the New York Times Company, one of the major global brands in the news industry. The recent years of the company have raised interest among media analysts as the company made major moves to stay on top. Stable economics and good signs In spite of a great increase in overall media consumption in the US, both in volume per user and number of users addressed, the revenues of the New York Times Company don’t look stellar. 10-year stock performance is very poor but the evolution in the past two years is better than the S&P 500 which has been doing great lately (see below). Focus on products, markets and product/market fit Looking forward
How to Define Your Brand This is the first step in the process of developing your brand strategy. By defining who your brand is you create the foundation for all other components to build on. Your brand definition will serve as your measuring stick in evaluating any and all marketing materials and strategies. You will begin this process by answering the questions below. Difficulty: Average Time Required: 2 hours Here's How: What products and/or services do you offer? Tips: Post Questions, Comments, and Answers to these Question in the Marketing Forum.Focus on your target audience when answering each question. What You Need Brand Journal or NotebookPen or PencilUninterrupted Time