Sorry about the title of this article. I don’t usually talk about myself in
the third-person but in this case I made an exception. If I had made the title
of this article “I Am Speaking…” as the article made the rounds on Twitter,
Facebook and elsewhere, nobody would know who the hell I was talking about.
This way, at least 10 people will recognize the name.
In any case, on with the article.
I accept a limited number of speaking engagements a year. The reason is very
simple — it takes a lot out of me (I’m not a professional speaker and no matter
how much I do it, I find that the days and weeks leading up to a speaking gig,
I get monumentally stressed out). Last year, I got invited to speak at the
“Business of Software” conference (which just happened to be in Boston). I had
a great time. It’s on the list of top 10 conferences I’ve ever been
too. Well organized, great speakers, great content and most importantly — great
attendees.
That’s why I’m thrilled I’m going to get to speak again at the Business of Software Conference
this year. The conference is in San Francisco (right in the heart of the city,
at the Westin on Market street). And, although Neil Davison (organizer of the
conference and an exceptional software entrepreneur) was likely caught in a weak
moment when he added me to the list. Despite Neil’s lack of judgment inviting
me (again!), I think you should attend the Business of Software conference
anyways.
Here’s why:
1. Even though I’m speaking, I represent a small fraction of the total
agenda. And, even though I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full
of rocking chairs last year, I managed to string together some words into
sentences and say some semi-useful things. If you’re a glutton for punishment,
you can watch the video
of my session from last year. I promise that this year, I’ll do my best to
make my presentation better.
2. Geoffrey Moore will be keynoting the conference. Many of us in
the software business learned much of what we know about technology marketing
and strategy from Geoffrey’s landmark book “Crossing
The Chasm”. If you haven’t read it yet, you need to stop what you’re doing
right now and go get it.
3. Paul Graham, hackepreneur
extraordinaire will be at the conference. Paul’s officially on my list of most
brilliant people I’ve met. He really groks the whole startup thing (which he
should, given his experience with Y
Combinator). He’s insightful and articulate. If you’re even
thinking about starting a software company some day, you need to learn
from him. Good stuff.
3. I can’t remember how long I’ve been reading Rands in Repose. What I can remember
is when my wife Kirsten (who is an artist and
does not geek-out for a living) approached me one day and said “Have you ever
heard of this Rands In Repose guy? He wrote this Nerd
Handbook thing. He’s soooo right.” And, she was right. It’s
scary accurate. But, I digress. One thing I didn’t know is that the ingenious
mind behind the blog is Michael Lopp. I’m really looking forward to meeting
Michael and seeing what he’s like in real life.
4. I’ve never actually met Ryan Carson
in person, but I’ve followed him online for a while. He’s the real deal when it
comes to being an internet entrepreneur. He hosts some fabulous events too. If
I had to risk my emotional well being by speaking at one additional conference
next year, the “Future Of Web Apps” would be high on my list.
5. One of the skills I do not have is design. I can use things. I
can tell (for the most part) good design from bad design, but I can’t actually
produce it. This is despite exposing myself to a bunch of reading (and
listening) on the topic. There are some things that are perhaps just not meant
to be (for me, there are lots of things not meant to be, but such is
life). However, you should not give up too easily. If you’re looking to create
more usable products that make people happy, Don Norman is your guy. He wrote
“Design
Of Everyday Things”. I rest my case.
6. I have at least three of Kathy Sierra’s books sitting in my house right
now. This does not include those that I gave away to friends and family along
the way. She’s the master-mind behind the “Head
First” series of books. She’s exceptionally good at injection passion into
a product. We all need more of that.
7. Paul Kenny is not going to like reading this, but when I saw him on the
agenda last year I found myself asking two questions: “Who is this guy?” and
“Why the heck would I want to suffer through a presentation about
sales?” I hate selling stuff. But, Paul’s presentation was absolutely
phenomenal. He’s a real pro. He gets the whole “resistance to sales” thing and
makes cogent points. He’s definitely worth listening to. Even if you don’t
like sales. In fact, especially if you don’t like sales. And, if
you’ve got the whole sales thing figure out, he’s worth watching simply because
he’s a great presenter.
8. Joel Spolsky needs no introduction. His presentation last year was
off-beat and funny. Look forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve
this year.
This is just a partial list of some of the speakers that will be there.
Check out the full
list of speakers.
Ok, so you might be thinking, that’s all great and all, but $1,995 (wow!
That’s like $2,000!) is way too much to spend on a conference. And it’s fair of
you to think that. I got the memo about the whole economic downturn thing too.
I have two things I’d like to counter with:
1. Right now, early registration for Business of Software is $1,695 (expires
July 31st) . But, this expires on July 31st.
2. This is unlike most of the conferences we normally go to. Sure, you
could find some conference that’s “cheaper” and spend $1,000. But, it’s not the
same. At BoS you won’t have to endure semi-veiled sales pitches every other
session or panels where a group of semi-random people got thrown together
because their suggested topics had some of the same words in them.
And, to be clear, I don’t get paid anything for convincing you to go. My
only motivation is that I want as many smart software people there as possible,
so I can sponge as much information off of them as possible. I’m selfish that
way.
What do you think? If you were able to attend last year’s conference, please
share your (candid) thoughts and help out others that are considering going this
year make their decision.
Hope to see you there!
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Now that 3 years have passed since I got my graduate degree (and the founding of my current startup), I think I can
make fun of it a bit. [Note: Only
a moderate amount of harm was inflicted on MBAs — and investment bankers, in the
making of this article].
10 Things Most MBA Schools Won’t Teach You About
Startups
1. No amount of strategic planning will ever substitute for managing your
cash flow. Financial statements are great. The most important one is your bank
account statement.
2. There are always more things to do than there is time to do them.
Startups are a continuous exercise in deciding what not to do. You can
sometimes win by just not doing things faster than your competition.
3. Sleep is that time you’re working on startup problems with your eyes
closed.
4. It helps not to call people “human resources”. They’re people. And, as
it turns out, people like to be treated like people. Go figure.
5. No amount of academic theories on efficient pricing will prepare you
completely for what people will actually do. Finding the “optimal”
price is really hard. In the meantime, remember that a sub-optimal price is a
lot better than no price at all.
6. Price discrimination (in an economic sense) is a wonderful thing. Except
that it often ignores the real costs in terms of organizational complexity.
Every time you add a new product or product option a small part of your company
dies.
7. There are an infinite number of ways to spend money on marketing. You
have no idea what’s actually going to work. The idea is to experiment broadly
and learn lessons cheaply. On a related note, no amount of MBA marketing
classes will prepare you for the day that you have to produce leads in order to
close sales. As it turns out, marketing is about more than product feature
matrices and the right shade of blue for your logo.
8. To recruit the best people, fair compensation and equity are 
only a
start. Company culture and a demonstrated passion for your vision is hugely
important. (Oh, and your vision should be on the larger path to truth, justice
and overall goodness). Your vision should not involve harming kittens. They’re
adorable. [insert gratuitious kitten photo here]
9. There’s a lot of value to being likable. Good things happen
when people like you. When people like you, bad things have less of a chance of
being fatal. I advise being likable. That’s why I advise against being an
investment banker after getting an MBA. (I also advise against being an
investment banker before getting an MBA).
10. Advanced game theory is exceptionally useful. Basic game theory is
dangerous — because it assumes that you’re dealing with a bunch of rational
“players”. It’s like trying to design a real car that’s going to be driven on a
theoretically frictionless surface, with no air resistance and no idiots on the
road.
What are your top startup lessons learned that even the top MBA schools don't teach?
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My startup, HubSpot, has done a fair
amount of recruiting/hiring over the past year (the team has grown by over 100%,
despite the down-turn in the economy). Along the way, I’ve found some
“patterns” to the recruiting that we do and the kind of people that end up
joining us.
I’m going to stay away from the overly obvious stuff (mostly because I have
no idea what the obvious stuff actually is). I’m also going to assume that
you’re already smart and passionate and all the other trimmings of a star
candidate.
Tips For Landing That Startup Dream Job
1. Match the culture: Remember that advice about dressing
one level above the job you’re hiring into? Or the “it’s better to be
over-dressed” advice? Forget that. Dress so that you’ll fit in. Dress as if
you’re already on the team. Any startup you’d want to work for is not
going to hold it against you for not dressing up. They wouldn’t expect you to
wear something to an interview that they wouldn’t wear themselves into work.
2. Convey A Passion For Startups: If you’ve worked for
startups before — talk about them. Talk about what it was like.
Especially talk about the painful parts. They want to know that you
know what it’s like to be on a startup team. We want to know that you’ve got
that weird genetic flaw that causes you to want to take on that special kind of
pain that only entrepreneurial people understand. If you haven’t worked for a
startup before, come up with some really convincing reasons as to why
you want to start now. And it can’t just be because you got laid off from some
Fortune 500 company last week. Remember that startups are not in
the business of creating jobs, they’re in the business of creating value.
Help them understand how you’re going to be able to help them
create value that nobody else can.
3. Read, Read, Read: Many startups today have a pretty wide
footprint on the web. Does the CEO tweet? Does the CTO write a blog? Read
them. You don’t have to be able to write a graduate thesis on their work, but
you should be a wee bit familiar with their thoughts and leanings. Oh, and
most startups will have you meet the founder/CEO/CTO before you are
made an offer and they’re all human. They write for a reason — one of which is
to be read; and maybe even understood.
4. Join The Conversation: Find out where the startup team
is hanging out and chatting on the web. For HubSpot, for example, we have a
relatively active group of people on Twitter. (Just do a Twitter search on
“HubSpot” and you’ll see what I mean). Get to know some of the faces/names
and find out the tone of the conversations happening around the startup you’re
looking to join.
5. Connect Online: Chances are, whoever you talk to on the
startup team is going to do a quick scan for you online (LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, blogosphere, etc.). Why not be more proactive, learn about them and
connect with them online first? Another advantage to this approach? You could
ask (without being too pushy or aggressive) some of the “insiders” you connect
to what it’s like to work there. The idea is to convey that you care, you’re
doing your homework and are savvy enough to make sure you want to work
there first. Startup recruiting is a two-way street (the company should bring a
lot to you, just like you’re going to be bringing a lot to them).
6. Emphasize That You “Get Stuff Done”: The single most
important attribute that many startups look for in recruits is that they get
stuff done. You can be the most brilliant engineer/marketer/whatever on the
planet, but if you don’t have a tendency to get a lot of stuff done,
you’re not an attractive recruit. The reason is obvious and simple — but I’ll
tell you anyways. Startups are a grand exercise in resource-deprivation.
There’s always too much work and not enough people. If the startup team hires
you, they want to know that you’re going to put a dent in their
workload — not just come up with great ideas for other people to work
on.
What do you think? If you’ve got your own startup, what would sway you? If
you’ve interviewed at startups, what’s worked and what hasn’t? Would love to
hear your thoughts in the comments.
By the way, if you’re a fan of this blog, please join us on Facebook. The LinkedIn group has 75,000+ members,
but the Facebook community is falling behind. Hope to see you there.
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As a tribute to the very funny VC
Non-Admissions and the follow-up Founder
Non-Admissions, I offer to you my own take on this — from an angel investor
perspective. Sorry that mine aren’t in a cool presentation form with pictures
and such. I don’t have that kind of talent. 
10 Things An Angel Investor Will Never Say
1. I really want to support entrepreneurs — but just those that are going to
make me money.
2. I dread having to explain your business idea to my spouse (who can veto
any deal).
3. I don’t really have enough stake in your company to spam my network on
your behalf.
4. I was lying when I said that some of my best friends were VCs. Even VCs
aren’t best friends with VCs.
5. I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about 50% of the time. What’s
a socially-semantic mobile platform for non-virtual currency mean? (Oh, it’s an
iPhone/Facebook payment app).
6. The other 50% of the time, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Anti-dilution provisions in a termsheet are not about beer.
7. How the public market did last week does impact my decision
making.
8. I like to invest in cool startups because it helps make up for high
school.
9. I don’t understand what half the things in the funding agreement mean
either, but I’m betting that most of them are to protect me, not you.
10. I really didn’t put the check in the mail the day I said I did. I was
golfing that day. I sucked.
11. I’m in it to mostly have fun. If I wanted to do unpleasant work, I’d
have my own startup.
—-
Feel free to add your best ones in the comments section, or if you prefer, you can tweet me @dharmesh.
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For those curious about the title, it’s a reference to “downward facing dog”
(one of the most widely reognized yoga poses). 
Is your startup practicing inward facing dog? That is, are you overly
focused on things going inside the company with too little attention on
what might be going on outside the company?
Signs That Your Startup Is Practicing Inward Facing Dog
1. More than a few days go by and you haven’t talked to a customer other
than to provide support or try to sell them something.
2. When people bring up things like “Did you hear about X (a direct
competitor) doing Y?” most of the time, you hadn’t heard the news and some of
the times, you didn’t even know who X was. Note: I don’t advocate being
obsessed about your competition — and I particularly don’t advise
following them (i.e. X did Y, so I have to do Y…). But, I think
there’s a lot that can be learned simply by observing your
competitors.
3. You haven’t located 5 people in your industry whose blogs you think are
worth reading regularly. I don’t care what industry you’re in, there are
bloggers out there writing things you should be reading. Even if you disagree
with them. Even if you think your industry is “broken” and you’re out to
transform it. In fact, especially if you think your industry is
broken. Read, read, read.
4. You haven’t been to an industry conference in a couple of years (or
ever). Yes, budgets are tight, and most of the content from these things makes
it onto the web anyways, but it’s not about the content. Yes, it’s unlikely
you’re going to get a lot of customer leads. But, it’s not about those those
things. It’s about learning. It’s about the real-time, in-person
conversations. (This coming from an introvert — who hates real-time
conversations).
5. You’re not watching the news about VC financings, acquisitions and IPOs
in your market (or adjacent markets). Even if you don’t plan on raising
funding. Even if your startup is going to crush everyone else, getting a sense
of how the money is flowing in your industry is important to know. What kinds
of companies are getting funded? Who is funding them? What other deals have
they done? Who is getting bought? You don’t need to get obsessed with this,
but just a quick scan once a week is well worth it.
6. You don’t meet with other startup founders that are at your stage — or
beyond. Though we founders like to believe that our situations are unique and
nobody else can possibly have the same kinds of challenges and problems
we do — it’s just not true. There are many, many patterns that continually
reoccur in startups. Even weird things that you think are too arcane to be
common.
What other signs do you think there are that a startup is too inward
focused? What do you do to make sure you stay in touch with what’s going on
outside your four walls?
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The attention economy has been all the rage for startups for a while.
Here’s the general line of reasoning with the attention economy:
1. Grab user’s attention.
2. Sell that attention to others.
Like many abstractions, this one is a tad over-simplified, but not so much as
to not be useful. A bunch of modern-day startups fall into the above pattern.
Get a mass of users to your shiny-new website then monetize that attention
through things like advertising (basically reselling that attention).
Why do so many web startups take this approach? I think it’s for two primary
reasons: 1) it’s easier and 2) it’s more fun. To understand
this better, let’s contrast the attention economy to that other
economy: the wallet economy. In the wallet economy, instead
of competing for a share of people’s attention, you’re competing for a share of
their wallet. 
The wallet economy presents one big problem for many entrepreneurs (including
me): It involes this unpleasant activity known as selling something.
If you’re a software entrepreneur, I’m going to bet that if you had to pick
amongst things like writing code, selling stuff and cleaning the office —
selling would likely be at the bottom of your list. So, entrepreneurs will
prefer doing (almost) anything other than selling. Enter AdSense,
stage left. “I’ll just put AdSense on my site”. If the entrepreneur is not
completely delusional, she’ll add statements like: “Yes, it’s only pennies, but
you have to start somewhere, and we’ll grow the traffic over time.”
What’s really nice about the whole attention economy is that you can become a
revenue-generating company today (revenue-generating is becoming
fashionable again). And, because there are advertising networks out there like
AdSense, you’re not dependent on all that selling muckiness. You get to avoid
that whole “convincing customers to pay business”.
But, I have a few issuese with the attention economy, from a software
perspective (I’ve written about this before, but I’m going to be a bit crisper
this time):
1. Attention Is A Scarce Resource: Attention is a bit
limited and fragmented. I’d ague that it’s getting increasingly harder to get
people’s attention. The level of attention I can devote to stuff has stayed
pretty much the same throughout the years. I might make more money now than I
did 10 years ago, but the level of attention I can spend hasn’t gone up much —
certainly not proportionally to income.
2. Battle of User and Advertiser: There’s a conflict
between getting monetizable attention and solving the user’s problem. Let me
explain: Back in the good old days of software, users had a problem, you wrote
software that solved that problem, and they paid you for it. Nice and simple.
All your incentives were to solve the problem as well as you could for as many
people as possible. Now, contrast this with a web application that is
monetizing attention. Now, not only do you need to make the user happy (so
they’ll visit in the first place), you have to make the advertiser happy as well
(because they’re buying that user’s attention). In fact, to make any
real money you have to get better and better at interrupting the user
well enough so that they pay attention to the ads. Basically,
you have to balance the needs of your users and the needs of your advertisers.
That’s hard.
3. Advertisers Make Lousy Customers: Even with all the
fancy content-matching algorithms that pair up a given ad to a given context, I
still don’t like advertising. I really don’t. I can see why it’s
important in a lot of industries — but I don’t know that software is one of
them. Given the choice between solving a user’s problem (which I understand,
and hopefully care about) and an advertiser’s problem — I’d choose solving the
user’s problem. There’s more creativity involved. It’s more focused. I can
control it better. There’s only so much multi-variant testing you can do to get
that CTR from 1.2% to 1.4%.
I’ve never had a business that focused on the attention economy (however, I
have built tools like twitter grader
that generate lots of traffic), so I may be missing something here. On the
other hand, I have built startups that focus on the wallet economy, and
I must say, my simple-minded nature likes the notion of solving problems and
getting people to pay me to do so. Call me old-fashioned.
What do you think? Have you succeeded with the attention economy (succeeded,
as in, you have a decent chance of making in your lifetime?) Has the
monetization model changed at all that would make the attention economy more
viable? Would love to read your thoughts in the comments.
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There’s a non-zero chance that you’re reading this because you were
thinking: “What the heck is he talking about? Shouldn't startups be hiring the best people possible? What's this about comprimising?”
And, if you were thinking that, you’d be right. Startups should
hire the best people possible. But, if you re-read the title, you’ll notice
that I’m saying you should always compromise. Why? Because there’s no
such thing as the absolutely perfect hire along every possible dimension. If
you recruit people that you think were a “no-compromise” hire, you’re deluding
yourself with unrealistic expectations. Nobody’s perfect (and if they are, you
probably couldn’t recruit or afford them anyways).
Everyone you bring on is a compromise. The trick is to compromise on
the right things.
Let me explain. Here are several different attributes or “dimensions of
awesomeness” you might seek for your startup recruit:
1. Passion: Are they fired-up?
2. Experience: Have they done this particular job
before? Did they succeed at it?
3. Intelligence: Are they smart?
4. Academics: Do they have the right degree? From the
right place?
5. Hunger: Are they motivated? Are they ambitious?
6. Risk-Tolerance: Can they share the risk? Or, are they
looking to make fair market value?
7. Scrappiness: Can they get by with little? Are they
resourceful?
8. Loyalty: Can you get them to commit to your cause?
Will they be fiercely loyal?
Those are just a few I thought of off the top of my head. It’s by no means a
complete list. I intentionally left out things like “integrity”, because it’s
hard to argue in favor of compromising on integrity. That’s just plain
stupid.
But just about all of the attributes listed above could be compromised a
little in exchange for something else. For example, if you were
somehow able to grade a recruit along all these dimensions, you might find that
someone scores “average” in the academics dimension — but is off-the-charts
smart (happens all the time). So, you might decide that it’s OK for them not to
have an ivy league degree. Or, someone might be so smart, passionate and
entrepreneurial — but lacking in experience. Perhaps that’s OK too. Or, maybe
you really do have to have the absolutely perfect person along every
possible dimension, but they’re so good, you’re just not sure you’re going to be
able to keep them engaged. Perhaps you’ll have to compromise on the loyalty
front.
The point is, like with just about everything related to startups (and lots
of things in life), there are tradeoffs. You need to figure out which
dimensions are absolutely critical (where you will not give), and which ones
you’re willing to compromise a little on. There’s no right answer — it depends
on your business, your culture, your values and your instincts.
What do you think? Which attributes of people do you value the
most? What would you be willing to compromise on, if you could get almost
everything else? What things do you hold inviolate — that you would never
compromise on? Please leave a comment.
Or, if you'd prefer, you can take the conversation to twitter. You can find me @dharmesh on twitter.
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I’m speaking at the Inbound
Marketing Summit later this month in San Francisco. There are some really
great speakers lined up (David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, Paul
Gillin and others). If you’re looking to learn more about inbound marketing and
how to get found in Google, social media and blogs, this should be a great event. If
you decide to attend, use the code HUB200 for a special $200 discount. Drop me
a note if you’re going to be there, would love to meet-up.
My session’s going to be called “Startup Marketing: Tips From The
Trenches”. As I get my thoughts together for this, I started making a list of
all of the things I’d advise a new startup to do to get things kicked
off with a limited budget. As it turns out, there are a lot of tactical steps
that individually don’t do much, but in aggregate start laying the foundation
for much bigger things. So, I thought I’d share some of these things with you.
This list is not intended to be a comprehensive “here are all the things you should
do”, but more of a “if I were starting a company today, here’s what I would
do in the first 10 days…” It’s written in a short, punchy style. I’ll likely revise it in the
future as I add more things, but I wanted to get “Version 1.0” out there for you
and see what you think.
Tactical Tips for Startup Marketing
1. Pick a name that works. Needs to be simple, memorable and unambiguous.
The “.com” domain should be available without playing tricks with the name (like
dropping vowels or adding dashes). Also, just because there’s no website on a
domain doesn’t mean it’s “available”. Available means something you can
register immediately, or that has a price that you’re willing to pay attached to
it. Don’t wander down the rabbit hole of finding the perfect name if you have
no indication that it’s for sale. This will waste a bunch of your time.
2. Put a simple website up. Doesn’t have to be fancy. The goal is to put
enough content on the site to start the Google sandbox clock. Don’t worry about
the site not saying much (nobody’s going to be looking at it anyways). Make
sure to use a decent content management system (CMS) and not Dreamweaver or
(shudder) FrontPage. Just because you can hand-craft HTML doesn’t mean you
should for your startup website. The structure and features of a CMS are going
to be important someday. Trust me.
3. Get some links into the new startup website. If you have a personal
website, link to it from there. If you have friends/associates/family with
websites, cash in some favor chips and get them to link to it. The goal is to
get the Google crawler to start indexing your site. You only need one decent
link to get things going. To check whether your site is being indexed by
Google, do a search like site:yoursite.com (not perfect, but good enough).
4. Setup a twitter account. Name of the account should match your
company/domain name. Link to your twitter account from your main site and to
your main site from your twitter account. (Note: If you have a natural
skepticism of the value of twitter, you are welcome to this skepticism. But, go
ahead and grab your twitter account anyways. You can resume your skepticism
after you do that).
5. Add e-mail subscription. Let people sign-up to get an email when you’re ready to show them the
product. A simple email signup form is sufficient.
6. Get a nice logo. Run a quick contest on CrowdSpring or 99Designs and you’ll wind up with something
decent enough. Make sure you get the vector file (Illustrator or EPS file) as
part of the final deliverable. If you've got design skills yourself, or know somebody really good that can do it, even better.
7. Setup a Facebook business page (known as a “fan” page) for your
startup. You’re not going to get many fans in the early days. That’s OK. Just
get something out there. Add a simple description of your startup, link back to
your main website. The usual stuff.
8. Create a clean Facebook URL. Facebook doesn’t allow simple/vanity URLs (unless you're big and established). So, to make things easier on
yourself (and your users), setup a sub-domain and redirect it to your Facebook
page. For example, here’s what I did: facebook.hubspot.com (notice that when
you visit this link, it takes you automatically to the ugly Facebook URL).
Setting up this sub-domain is free and usually pretty easy (it’s done through
whoever your registrar is for your domain).
9. Kick off a blog. You can use one of the free hosting tools (like
WordPress.com), but don’t use their domain name. Put your blog on
blog.yourcompany.com — or if you’re proficient and can install WP locally, make
it yourcompany.com/blog. Do NOT make it yourcompany.wordpress.com. The reason
is that you want to control all the SEO authority for your blog and channel it
towards your main website. And, chances are, WordPress.com doesn’t need your
help on the SEO front.
10. Write a blog article that describes how you got to this point. What
problem you’re hoping to solve. Why you picked this problem. It
should feel a little uncomfortable revealing what you’re revealing. If
you have tendencies towards being in “Stealth Mode”, read “Stealth
Mode, Schmealth Mode”. With inbound marketing, you’re going to need to get
used to revealing things that might be uncomfortable. Get over it.
11. Setup Google Alerts for at least
the following: Your company name, link:yourdomain.com and “industry term”. Try
to find a good balance for your industry term so you don’t get flooded with
alerts that you simply will start ignoring. This may take some iteration and
refining. (Oh, and use the “As It Happens” option in Google Alerts so you’re
not waiting around for new alerts to show up).
12. Find three closest competitors. Pretend like someone
is paying you $10,000 for locating each competitor. Really try hard.
Barely managed to find three? Take a lot of effort? Great. Now find 3 more.
Of these 6, pick the two that you think are the most marketing savvy. They
should have a Website Grade > 90, a
blog with some readers, a website that you can envision people using, a twitter
account that they actually post to, etc. These are the competitors that you’re
going to start “tracking”. Add their names and websites to your Google
Alerts.
13. Update your LinkedIn profile (you do have a LinkedIn profile, right)?
Mention your new startup, and add a link to your startup website to one of the
three slots for this purpose. Make sure you specify the anchor text. Don’t go
with the default of “My Website”. The anchor text should be your startup name and
maybe a couple of words of what it does. You can look at my profile to get a sense: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dharmesh (note: I don't accept LinkedIn invites from people I don't know. If you're looking to get to know me, follow me on twitter @dharmesh).
14. Get business cards printed. Don’t go overboard, but don’t use a “free”
option (because it’s not really free, it’s just subsidized). I don’t believe
much in business cards, but you need them to simply avoid the 30 seconds of
discussion as to why you don’t have a card when people ask you for one at
conferences and meetings and such. They’re worth the price to avoid that
uncomfortableness.
15. Use the Twitter Grader
search feature to find high-impact twitter users in your industry. Start
following them. You want to start forging relationships. Start building your
twitter network. Resist the temptation to mass-follow a bunch of random people
or play other games just to get your follower count up. That’s not going to
matter. Get some high quality relationships going. If you’re really serious,
start using an app like TweetDeck so you can more easily monitor the needed
conversations.
16. Create a StumbleUpon account.
Specify your areas of interest (part of registration). Spend 10 minutes a day
(no more!) stumbling and voting things up/down. Start befriending those that
are submitting sites that are relevant and interesting for your startup. Don’t
submit your own stuff — just start contributing.
17. Subscribe to the LinkedIn Answers category that best fits your area of
interest. Answer one question a day that you feel like you’ve got some
expertise in. Don’t self-promote. You’re seeking to build credibility and
trust — not sell anything.
18. Find the bloggers that are writing about your topic area. Subscribe to
their feed, and read their stuff regularly. Leave valuable comments and
participate in the conversation. (Do not spam them or write “fluff” comments.
If you don’t have something useful to add to the conversation, don’t
comment).
19. Start building some contacts on Facebook. Organize
your users into groups (one for your business and another for friends/family).
This will come in handy later. Don’t spam people and ask them to visit your
website. At this point, your website is still probably not worth visiting.
20. Grade your website on Website
Grader. Fix the basic things. You should be able to get a 50+ just by
doing the simple things it suggests. [Disclaimer: I wrote Website Grader].
21. Get Some Analytics: Install some web analytics software and start watching your traffic. Where is it coming from? How is it growing? What keywors are people using to find you? What content are they looking at? It's ok to get a bit maniacal and obssessed about it at first. Many of us do that (and some of us never get over it).
Stay tuned for a revised edition in a few weeks as I think about this more
(and watch my actual behavior). Also, if you’re interested in startups, you can
follow me on twitter @dharmesh.
What have I missed? What ideas do you have on tactical things for startup marketing? What do you do?
Also, to find more conversation about startups, request access to the OnStartups LinkedIn Group (60,000+ members). Just mention that you read the blog, and I'll approve you quickly.
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