Weekly Roundup July 20, 2013: P. Graham, B. Horowitz, Marketing ROI, HR Trick, CEO Leadership, Branding, and More
Tweet about us. Startup Management (SUM) is the single best destination where Tech startups and grownups keep learning on the job and on the blogs. While I have your mindshare, let’s get SUM market share. SUM includes Articles that users submit + Original stuff we write, + Posts from the Top 100 Tech Bloggers. And there’s the Library (50 categories), a Wiki of terms, and links to curated Videos and Books. I curate the best, and sometimes write the rest.This Week-end Roundup is a manual selection from the hundreds of weekly articles we curate. Previous issues are available from the archive. Latest from SUM I’m saying Don’t Confuse Growth with Success, and Don’t Delay the Revenue Model, which is a Part II to Mark Suster’s Why You Need to Ring the Freaking Cash Register. I end with 9 signs that startups may be delaying their revenues. And a flurry of global startup activity prompted me to emphasize that Global Startups Should Build a Bridge to the US Market. Paul Graham & Ben Horowitz Paul and Ben have mastered the art of headlines. “Do Things that Don’t Scale” and “Capital Market Climate Change” are two Must Reads from this week because you need to keep up with their thinking, even if you don’t agree with all of it.
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Weekly Roundup July 20, 2013: P. Graham, B. Horowitz, Marketing ROI, HR Trick, CEO Leadership, Branding, and More
Tweet about us. Startup Management (SUM) is the single best destination where Tech startups and grownups keep learning on the job and on the blogs. While I have your mindshare, let’s get SUM market share. SUM includes Articles that users submit + Original stuff we write, + Posts from the Top 100 Tech Bloggers. And there’s the Library (50 categories), a Wiki of terms, and links to curated Videos and Books. I curate the best, and sometimes write the rest.This Week-end Roundup is a manual selection from the hundreds of weekly articles we curate. Previous issues are available from the archive. Latest from SUM I’m saying Don’t Confuse Growth with Success, and Don’t Delay the Revenue Model, which is a Part II to Mark Suster’s Why You Need to Ring the Freaking Cash Register. I end with 9 signs that startups may be delaying their revenues. And a flurry of global startup activity prompted me to emphasize that Global Startups Should Build a Bridge to the US Market. Paul Graham & Ben Horowitz Paul and Ben have mastered the art of headlines. “Do Things that Don’t Scale” and “Capital Market Climate Change” are two Must Reads from this week because you need to keep up with their thinking, even if you don’t agree with all of it.
is fully packed with tactical and practical tips for acquiring and connecting with customers. Don’t read this post. Study it, and pick the best ideas that apply for you.
Customer Activations
Landing pages expert service Unbounce challenges conventional wisdom and “best practices” about landing page optimization. “Conversion rate optimization really isn’t about optimizing web pages – it’s about optimizing decisions – and the page itself is a means to an end but not an end in itself.” If you’re into A/B landing page optimizations, they have
,- “Strong leadership is speaking the language of your people”, and “Don’t be afraid to tap into feelings”. It’s a must read for any founder who is self-aware of their transition to CEO. People being your #1 asset, this article will also help during your 1:1’s with employees. And while you’re at it, you may as well understand the importance of communication and “Structured Leadership” in her May article,
Knowing how and when to scale is very important, because “if you scale too early, it will cost you dearly and if you scale too late you may miss the opportunity to lead.” Michael Skok has an incredibly insightful checklist of 12 things that can “help take the guesswork out of whether you are ready to scale or not”, in
. You may not agree with all their conclusions, but it’s worth a read.
Human Resources
Doug Merrill, ex-CIO & VP of engineering at Google makes the case for hiring an internal recruiter based on the ROI. The math is simple: at $25K per recruit, you’re better off hiring a full-time recruiter after 3-4 hires.
is a quick read, but the title is misleading, because having an internal recruiter is an old practice that most medium size companies have, and that doesn’t just let you compete against Google. It just makes financial sense.
to entrepreneurs on how to manage a good personal relationship with your spouse, while running a startup or being in a startup where the demands are strenuous. Happy spouse…happy house.
CEO
Jason Fried prefers to build a slow (and profitable) company, and he likes the business model of his cleaning lady. You can’t ignore this
will resonate with B2B/SaaS startups, because he warns that “Most companies don’t have analytics systems refined and ambitious enough to estimate the magnitude of an increase in a customer’s lifetime value, so they ignore it altogether.” Have the right metrics in place so you don’t end-up “eating your own customers, a little at a time.” His message applies after you start to maximize revenue potential on a customer basis, but in the meantime, I would go for revenue growth and ignore single customer analytics until you have a large footprint inside their business.
Advocacy & Branding
No surprises, but a Marketo Study reminds us that the
, which is a must-read if you want to understand the linkage between branding and advocacy. I liked this quote: “Move beyond the blunt metric of ‘sentiment’ to tracking advocacy levels”.
is a single destination for the best content on management, strategy, organizational and marketing topics, including business models, revenue models and go-to-market approaches for startups and grownups. We mix curated, aggregated and original content, a tagged library of knowledge, a wiki, and links to videos and books, allowing you to quickly find what you need to know on-demand, on-the-job, and on the blogs. That SUMs it up! Don’t forget to
is fully packed with tactical and practical tips for acquiring and connecting with customers. Don’t read this post. Study it, and pick the best ideas that apply for you.
Customer Activations
Landing pages expert service Unbounce challenges conventional wisdom and “best practices” about landing page optimization. “Conversion rate optimization really isn’t about optimizing web pages – it’s about optimizing decisions – and the page itself is a means to an end but not an end in itself.” If you’re into A/B landing page optimizations, they have
,- “Strong leadership is speaking the language of your people”, and “Don’t be afraid to tap into feelings”. It’s a must read for any founder who is self-aware of their transition to CEO. People being your #1 asset, this article will also help during your 1:1’s with employees. And while you’re at it, you may as well understand the importance of communication and “Structured Leadership” in her May article,
Knowing how and when to scale is very important, because “if you scale too early, it will cost you dearly and if you scale too late you may miss the opportunity to lead.” Michael Skok has an incredibly insightful checklist of 12 things that can “help take the guesswork out of whether you are ready to scale or not”, in
. You may not agree with all their conclusions, but it’s worth a read.
Human Resources
Doug Merrill, ex-CIO & VP of engineering at Google makes the case for hiring an internal recruiter based on the ROI. The math is simple: at $25K per recruit, you’re better off hiring a full-time recruiter after 3-4 hires.
is a quick read, but the title is misleading, because having an internal recruiter is an old practice that most medium size companies have, and that doesn’t just let you compete against Google. It just makes financial sense.
to entrepreneurs on how to manage a good personal relationship with your spouse, while running a startup or being in a startup where the demands are strenuous. Happy spouse…happy house.
CEO
Jason Fried prefers to build a slow (and profitable) company, and he likes the business model of his cleaning lady. You can’t ignore this
will resonate with B2B/SaaS startups, because he warns that “Most companies don’t have analytics systems refined and ambitious enough to estimate the magnitude of an increase in a customer’s lifetime value, so they ignore it altogether.” Have the right metrics in place so you don’t end-up “eating your own customers, a little at a time.” His message applies after you start to maximize revenue potential on a customer basis, but in the meantime, I would go for revenue growth and ignore single customer analytics until you have a large footprint inside their business.
Advocacy & Branding
No surprises, but a Marketo Study reminds us that the
, which is a must-read if you want to understand the linkage between branding and advocacy. I liked this quote: “Move beyond the blunt metric of ‘sentiment’ to tracking advocacy levels”.
is a single destination for the best content on management, strategy, organizational and marketing topics, including business models, revenue models and go-to-market approaches for startups and grownups. We mix curated, aggregated and original content, a tagged library of knowledge, a wiki, and links to videos and books, allowing you to quickly find what you need to know on-demand, on-the-job, and on the blogs. That SUMs it up! Don’t forget to
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