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Jas P

Stop Trying to Protect Your Business Ideas - NYTimes.com - 0 views

boss.blogs.nytimes.com/...to-protect-your-business-ideas

startup idea validation

shared by Jas P on 22 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Your Idea Already Exists: There are very few truly new ideas. Most ideas are an improvement or a different take on an existing idea. Regardless of how much is new, the chances are that if you have thought of it, others have as well.
  • Being New Can Be a Problem: If you have a truly new idea, you are in many ways at a disadvantage. Being first to market means you have to educate consumers, and that can be expensive.
  • The Value Is Not in the Idea: The competitive landscape is very different than it was 30 years ago, back when ideas had some merit on their own. Now, there are so many businesses out there, and so much information, that an idea by itself is worth zero.
Jas P

How To Turn Your Customers Into Marketers - 0 views

blog.kissmetrics.com/turn-customers-into-marketers

conversion customer development viral growth hacking

shared by Jas P on 29 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • So instead of launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign to bring in people, my gym implemented a growth hack. They turned customers into marketers by incentivizing them to bring in a friend. Then the friend possibly could become a member. The math works out for them as well. Let’s break it down: T-shirts ($3 each) x 2 = $6 Complimentary lunch = $0 A total of 100 members bring in a friend. The total cost of the promotion — $600. The result is that 3% of the 100 members convert their friends to members at $55 per month for each membership. The total ROI in the first month — $165/$600.
  • The promotional cost for each customer is very cheap. The t-shirt probably cost a few dollars, and the complimentary lunch probably was a gift certificate to a local restaurant that cost the gym $0.
  • Everything we’ll be discussing has one thing in common — incentives. Economists almost universally agree that people respond to them. Businesses should give their current and prospective customers an incentive to act on their offer. It has to benefit both parties or it won’t be nearly as effective. Not all the incentives are monetary, as we’ll see.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Refer a Friend One of the most common ways businesses spread their product and increase their viral coefficient (how many customers your current customers bring in) is through the use of referrals.
  • Contests Contests help users get energetic about your brand and the thought of winning something. If you’re creative enough with your contest design, it can also get you some PR. Dropbox has gained significant PR by having their annual “Dropquest” contest. Just Google Dropquest and you’ll see all the articles written about it. As a simple contest idea, a business can encourage users to tweet a pre-set message. This message can be about a recent feature. At random, the business can pick a person who tweeted out the message. Be creative and offer a big-time prize. You may get some PR and customers to boot. Avoid giving out a prize that’s unrelated to your business. Instead of giving them a car or a television, give them an upgrade.
  • If I give this card to a friend, they receive a 25% discount. By spreading these products, I’m helping my friends by giving them a discount.
  • If you run a SaaS company, put a Like or Tweet button next to new feature announcements. You might be able to take advantage of user excitement and get them to share it with friends and followers. If your business has a blog, attach the Like and Tweet buttons next to every post. All of these social media buttons help get your product in front of more eyeballs and more prospective customers.
  • If you’re a Netflix customer, you’ve probably noticed their promotional ads that come with the envelope the DVD’s are sent in. Many of them encourage you to give Netflix to a friend as a gift. According to Netflix, 75% of their customers come from these recommendations.
  • Your customers likely know a lot of people who are like them. This is especially true if you’re a SaaS company.
  • a customer could give a friend a trial of your product. So the friend receives the trial, and the customer gets some sort of discount or offer.
Jas P

How to be Successful Pitching Writers Without Really Trying - 0 views

www.onboardly.com/...-writers-without-really-trying

pr

shared by Jas P on 22 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • While it’s important to dig up any relevant dirt that is needed to identify them as the right person for the job, it isn’t necessary to reveal to them that you know they’ve written twelve stories in the past year on e-commerce. They already know. They wrote them.
  • Don’t focus on the bells and whistles of your product – concentrate on how your product or service will benefit their readers.
  • If you are planning to pitch media leading up to a launch or company milestone, always have the necessary resources available should journalists ask for it. This includes an up-to-date media release and a media kit with appropriate assets such as founder bios and photos, one pager/fact sheet and product images/logos. Be available for interviews and answer all email inquiries in a timely manner.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Email them simply to introduce yourself and ask for nothing in return. We think that this step is one of the most important as it allows you to build a relationship with the writer without asking for anything in retur
  • . It may not be enough to get the story covered but it will ensure your email gets noticed.
  • Ask yourself – how would most companies pitch this writer? Whatever answer you decide, do the opposite. Writers are pitched a hundred times a day and typically the pitch is always the same. What is your hook and why are you different won’t always cut it.
  • Get straight to the point and tell them why your startup is unique, why customers will buy your product and how your product is disrupting current trends
Jas P

Michael Trafton - How to build company culture in three easy steps | Business of Software - 0 views

businessofsoftware.org/...ny-culture-in-three-easy-steps

hr startup culture

shared by Jas P on 22 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Jas P on 22 Oct 12
     
    Summary of a Business of Software 2012 talk. Worth reading.
Jas P

Javascript · Twitter Bootstrap - 0 views

vlamanna.github.com/BootstrapFormHelpers

bootstrap

shared by Jas P on 21 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Jas P on 21 Oct 12
     
    Additional helper functions written in Javascript for Bootstrap based forms.
Jas P

Installing GitLab on CentOS 6.2 (Part 1) - Gist - 0 views

gist.github.com/1601228

source code

shared by Jas P on 21 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Jas P on 21 Oct 12
     
    Handy GIST for installing gitlab on CentOS 6.2
Jas P

Tutorial: setting up Gitlab on Debian 6 - Phusion Corporate Blog - 0 views

blog.phusion.nl/...-setting-up-gitlab-on-debian-6

source code

shared by Jas P on 21 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Jas P on 21 Oct 12
     
    Helpful tutorial on how to setup gitlab on a linux box.
Jas P

Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices | Smashing Magazine - 0 views

www.smashingmagazine.com/...ns-examples-and-best-practices

call to action conversion

shared by Jas P on 14 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Size of call to action button versus less important call to actions A web page may have multiple calls for action. To indicate the relative importance of a call to action with respect to other actions, you can vary their sizes. Here is an example of this concept on the paramore|redd 3 website where the call to action button that asks the user to sign up for their newsletter is significantly larger than the continue reading call to action, indicating that on this web page, they would rather you take the action of subscribing versus reading the blog posts.
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