Building A Social Site? You Can Trust Your Users Are Full Of It

Your startup began because you wanted to create the Airbnb for X or the Match.com for Y. You have visions of thousands, if not millions, of users flooding your site, all of them acting with the best intentions as they rent, share, buy, date, and network.

Well, they’re liars and full of bullshit.

Not all of them, of course. But the majority of them aren’t totally honest. There’s the online dating girl who posted a picture on her profile from fifteen years ago, the guy who lied about his income and interests, and the opportunistic teen who is selling goods on Craigslist that he just happened to have “borrowed” from a neighbors open garage. Not only are people lying about small facts, but whole identities are fictional as 83 million Facebook users and 20 million Twitter accounts are fake; the odds are good that you’ve had an interaction with a fraudulent individual or social media account in the last month alone.

The scary thing is, opportunities for such fraudsters will continue to grow, a scary proposition for your startup, whether it be a P2P, networking, dating, or any other site that connects people. When you look at it, our new fangled digital economy is built upon increasing amounts of strangers entering into trust-based transactions, and your new startup sits on top of these transactions, which you should be praying go without incident.

If you’re in the startup ecosystem, you’ve probably spent countless hours worrying about how you and your website best ensure that everything is on the up-and-up with the least amount of effort. There are definitely a variety of ways that startups have tried to keep the bullshitters off their site, each which have their own pros and cons. Some of the popular ones include:

Leverage users social media connections – These days sites are popping up overnight, allowing users to login using their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. On the face, this is great, as it saves time to get in the door and creates a minimal barrier to entry for each new user, which is one of the goals of any founder. Websites see this as a way to better know their users because at the very least it anchors them to an account that has interactions with others. If you see that Jane has her Facebook account connected to her Airbnb account, you can look for common connections, possible see more about Jane’s education, and make assumptions that Jane seems like a nice gal. You as a platform owner and as someone checking out Jane might feel great . . . that is until you remember the large amount of fake Facebook accounts and realize how low the barrier to entry for most social networks is. Now, one starts to wonder if Jane is really Jane and if she’s not, who did you just let stay in your Manhattan loft. Pro: Utilizes technology that is commonly used. Con: Fake accounts and fraudsters can easily make it onto your site.
Disclaim It – True, it can be a burden for sites, especially startups, to even think about fraudsters on their site, so many, including a lot of dating sites, will just disclaim it. They’ll say in big, bold type that they don’t conduct background checks or verify their users at all. While this is definitely easy for the site, as they can collect subscription payments as usual, it leaves the consumer, you know the one without the leverage, being stuck chatting with potential fraudsters. Pro: It is cut and dry for the website owner. Con: Users interact at their own risks.
Vet Them – Some startups will look to tackle this problem head on, spending extra time and money on creating their own vetting system. They may have users send in passport/license photos or run background checks on their users to confirm identity. These steps really begin to show that a site cares about their users, but some consumers have begun to push back as to fears that this is a bit big-brotherish. Do you want a car sharing site having your passport on file for the one time you’re going to use them? Pro: Provides verification for users, so they know who they’re dealing with. Con: The fear of too much personal information locked up with one site.

While these are just a few of the methods used to verify users and keep out the fraudsters, the bottom line is that you must take the proper steps to deliver a great experience to your users and make them comfortable with your service and others on the site. You must not overlook the elements that go into your offering, as many issues likely sprout from such decisions that affect your staffing, your liability, your site’s friction, and how much time and effort is necessary to pull it off.

Michael Bergman is the CEO and Co-Founder of REPP, a platform for identity management and self-curated background checks. His goal is to provide everyone an easy way to take control of their information and every platform a simple solution to their verification and fraud issues.

3 Ways To Improve Your Startup’s Pitch Deck

As an early-stage entrepreneur, you must constantly keep your pitch materials up to date, even if you don’t seek venture capital funding until the future. Whether investors reach out to you or vice versa, there are certain questions that are almost always asked. In my observations of the startup market — and my experience of the million-dollar seed raise my company completed last year — investors usually end up focusing on three very specific items.

To maximize your company’s chances of pitching your startup successfully and securing venture capital, here are the three questions that every pitch deck should answer:

1. Does it look like your customer base is growing?

If it does not look like your customer base is growing, you are dead in the water. That may be an obvious point, but I cannot tell you how hard it is to communicate customer traction to prospective investors. Investors, like you, have limited time. You need to graphically depict that you are growing in as few words as possible, using a solid visual representation.

We have taken a lot of different cuts at this slide, but the version below seemed to resonate best:

2. Do your customers like your product?

I’m speaking for both B2C and B2B businesses here – you need to be able to demonstrate that your product is getting “stickier” somehow, and the usage patterns of your customers are getting more favorable. In our case, we choose to depict traction in terms of number of pieces of written content our customers purchase from us each month – fortunately, that is trending upward for us:

The reason you need to demonstrate that your product is sticky is simple: acquiring new customers is MUCH more expensive than getting existing customers to pay for your product again. Not only that, but happy customers are also your best salespeople — if you are able to successfully demonstrate that your existing customer base is happy, that in and of itself is a low-cost sales channel. I cannot tell you how often we get asked for the above slide, and we try to update the data on this as frequently as possible.

3. Does it look like your business/product can actually scale?

Remember that venture investors are not interested in ordinary returns — that is why they are in venture capital and not in the S&P 500. If you are not able to demonstrate a clear path to $100M within five years, your company is not a good candidate for venture capital. We constantly get asked about scalability, and truthfully, there is no great answer for any company – all you can do is take your best shot. For us, it is a product slide that looks like this:

We figured out that the bottleneck for our customers creating content was coming up with topics fast enough. We introduced a product (“topic pitching”) that allows our writers to pitch businesses on the fly. It had a nearly 52 percent conversion rate to paid business. Our writers are essentially doing demand generation for us. That is what we want to communicate to potential venture investors, should they come knocking at the right time.

Similarly, your business likely has a “magic” lever that will allow you to reach that 100M in revenue point (a big maybe, I realize) if you keep investing in a certain product, or channel. Once you figure out what the lever is, you need to figure out a way to communicate that.

It never hurts to keep your materials up to date, and it cannot hurt to have the above slides ready at a moment’s notice — should the right investor come along.

Sunil Rajaraman is the founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. Scripted.com has a pool of 80,000 freelance writers, and ranks as one of the top five largest writer communities on the Internet. Scripted.com currently provides hundreds of businesses with thousands of blog posts, tweets, press releases and articles each month.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Does your startup have a company culture? Should It?

Does your startup have a company culture; should it?

Company culture is important; we all know that. But when should it be a focus? In the early stages of a startup? Or later on when scaling and building a team? And what is culture, really?

Tony Hsieh has proven to the world that culture can be a competitive advantage, and credits much of Zappos’ success to its culture, and its passionate people. Tony says, “Businesses often forget about the culture, and ultimately, they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.”

Culture is no doubt critical to any team’s success, no matter what the size. My concern is that I observe teams in infancy place an over emphasis on things in the name of company culture before the business fundamentals are flushed out. In the beginning, we as entrepreneurs must focus and prioritize the basics and fundamentals of creating a scalable business over trying to build a cozy culture.

Ping Pong tables, free lunch, and massages help make Google a great place to work, but these things did not make Google great in the first place. These are the perks that help keep employees happy and a great company on top, not necessarily what propels it to greatness.

Tony Hsieh teaches us in his book “Delivering Happiness” that culture is created, protected, and maintained at the point of hire. When Zappos interviews a new team member, they are first focusing on good cultural fit. A classic unorthodox example: when Zappas flies you in for an interview, they will send a car service to pick you up. The driver will naturally engage you in conversation; what you don’t know is, the driver is on the recruiting team, clandestinely interviewing you to see if you would be a good cultural fit.

With respect to culture, this is perhaps the best precaution we can make as startup entrepreneurs: to hire good fits. The first five hires will make or break a startup, as they are co-founders in their own right. In the Zappos fashion, we must diligently qualify them as a good fit. In his book, Hsieh talks about taking a candidate to happy hour; a few drinks will really tell you what a person is like. If you can break bread with the person, then why hire them? If you won’t enjoy hanging out with them socially then they won’t be a value add for culture.

Perhaps sometimes culture gets mislabeled as “perks” offered throughout an organization. In its most potent form, culture should refer to the aligning values of the organization; do you and your team members all believe in the same things? What is your team’s mantra?

The specifics of your team’s values are not as important as the fact of having the values engrained that align each member of that team. This adds purpose to the mission, and passion is a product of purpose. These are the elements by which real culture is created.

These values have to be installed at the early stages of a company, as it’s impossible to come back later and sprinkle in some culture and values into an established team.

Strong culture is created when each member of the team believes in the same things. When that is the case, trust emerges, and when you have trust you have loyalty. With these elements embedded in a team, no matter how big or small, there is no limit to what can be accomplished.

Bryan Clayton,is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Tennessee startup GreenPal

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Cash Flow Really Is King: I Learned the Hard Way

At 23 years old, I started Infographic World, a data visualization company working with brands to tell their story in a more visual and effective manner. It doesn’t matter that I’ve practically studied business since childhood or that I have an MBA—there is simply no greater teacher than failure. I’ve had to acknowledge this truth more times than I can count.

My first lesson came about 10 months into starting the company. At the time, I had virtually no systems in place to track money: how much was coming in, how much a job would cost, how much I would eventually need to pay vendors, etc.

More importantly, I never stopped to think about the payment terms I was offering my clients. In my head, I had been conducting a fair amount of business, so the money would come in whenever it came in, and I would be fine as long as there was a nice, comfortable amount of money sitting in the business bank account. To make matters worse, I always wanted to pay my vendors, so whenever I received an invoice, I would cut a check immediately, every time.

On a particularly fateful Friday, I was printing out the invoices that were in my inbox. For some reason, a lot of my jobs had come to a conclusion around the same time, which meant that there were now a lot of contractors that needed to get paid. I laid out all of the invoices on my desk, added them all up and wrote down the total number. Just before I began writing out the checks, I randomly figured that I should check my bank account balance and see what I’d be left with after paying these vendors on time, like I always did.

The next moment was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had in my life—my bank balance wasn’t enough to cover the amount I had promised my vendors. It wasn’t even close, actually.

I closed the office door and sat there at my desk with a pain in my stomach that completely overwhelmed me. For the first time in my life, I felt like a complete and utter failure. How could I have been so stupid to allow a situation to arise where I had to pay out more money than I actually had in my bank account? I didn’t want to upset my vendors; they were the lifeblood of my company in terms of producing something for my clients. In my head, my business wasn’t going to survive the next 30 days.

I decided to visit my parents’ house that weekend and speak with my father, who has always been a mentor of mine and someone in whom I confided in times of trouble. I explained my situation and we sat there for hours, discussing what caused the problem and different ways to remedy it in the future.

With a hard look, I realized that my first problem was obvious: I wasn’t enforcing any sort of payment terms with my clients, and I was paying my vendors too quickly. Essentially I was paying for jobs long before I was actually being paid for them—a model that will eventually catch up with you, as I’ve learned. I proceeded to set up new terms both for the clients and the vendors: I began to require a certain percentage of money up front from the client, and also came to an agreement with vendors to pay them in a manner that’s more realistic for me as a business owner.

In order to enforce these new policies and prevent myself from making such a great mistake again, I found that I also needed a better way to track what money was going in and out of my company. My father insisted that I set up a “reserves” bank account for my business: whenever money was received for a job, I would set aside what I knew to be the future costs of this job into this separate bank account. This way, regardless of when the job got done, the money that would be needed to eventually pay the vendor would always be there.

This truly was my great mistake, but what matters is surviving it — and learning from the experience.

Justin Beegel is the founder of Infographic World, Inc. He left the big corporate world at 23 to help companies transform the way they communicate their messages—essentially taking things people don’t want to read (long and boring PDFs, text-heavy articles and dense subject matter) and turning them into captivating visualizations that people actually want to read.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

11 Tips For Transitioning From Employee To Employer

Question: What’s your best leadership advice for going from employee to boss — of yourself, and maybe others too? (name one tip)

Get Ready for the Investment

“You’re used to managing a crushing workload, difficult clients and phone on perma-ring, but when you’re the boss, you get to handle ego and emotions too. An important lesson is that managing personalities, expectations, egos and abilities is just as important as everything else on your plate. A happy, healthy, productive team is a product of time and energy spent caring for your team on a personal level.”

– Yael Cohen | Founder, President, CEO, Fuck Cancer

Pick Up the Boss Work

“One of the most common thing that employees do when they become the boss is they still do employee tasks.That kind of work is supposed to be done by employees and you are supposed to do boss work! When we run a business, it is our job to build systems and manage people to run these systems. If you find yourself doing the work, keep asking yourself, how can I replace myself for this task?”

– Louis Lautman | Founder, Supreme Outsourcing

Remember the Other Side

“One thing I find important as a boss is to remember what it was like on the other side, as an employee. For example, I used to hate when a boss would micromanage me. I sometimes catch myself doing that with my employees, and then stop and remember how much it bothered me, and try to stop the habit myself. You want the people working for you happy and productive, so remember what made you happy.”

– Justin Beegel | Founder, Infographic World, Inc.

Seek Perspective

“Always know where your organization is in its life cycle and where you are as its leader. Your role and the company’s needs will change at the pace of growth and you need to be steering the ship through its various phases. Regular reflection, time off and insights from outside will help you to zoom out.”

– Christopher Kelly | Co-Founder, Principal, Convene

Learn to Delegate

“The hardest part of moving up the ladder is knowing what to hand off to someone else (or even to automate). Most of us assume that as the boss, we have to do everything. The reality is that we’re responsible for everything — but who actually does the work isn’t important.”

– Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Keep Up the Confidence

“Believe in yourself and your decisions and get comfortable with managing employees. Stay firm in your resolve, but not rigid and inflexible. Don’t be afraid to ask more experienced mentors for advice and to utilize the services of consulting firms. If you keep focused, stay calm, and are willing to work hard, you will find it extremely rewarding and fun!”

– Zach Cutler | Founder and CEO, Cutler Group

Maintain Transparency

“I strive to be really transparent and open with my employees. I’ve experimented with varying levels of openness, but ultimately, being more transparent and honest with everyone is the best option. If they understand me, and my drive to push them to be the absolute best they can be, we can have success both individually and as a company.”

– Justin Beck | Co-Founder and CEO, PerBlue

Create the Systems

“Focus on creating systems and getting organized. If you do not have systems in place with clear directions and checkpoints, then you’re going to struggle to manage and lead your team. Once you have systematized your business and organized your own projects and tasks, then you can lead by example.”

– Pete Kennedy | Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Main Street ROI

Start Planning Ahead

“Planning is the key to having perspective on what’s most important now and working ahead to proactively address potential challenges. If you are the boss and you don’t plan, you not only create stress for yourself, but also for your employees. Make this a daily habit so that you know how to lead best.”

– Elizabeth Saunders | Founder & CEO, Real Life E®

Discipline Makes a Difference

“When you’re an employee, you can usually rely on upper management to guide you and prod you when work needs to get done. When you’re the boss, the responsibility lies completely on you, so you need to practice discipline and focus. If you don’t, who will?”

– Steven Le Vine | CEO/President, grapevine pr

Build Your Brand

“Make sure you focus on building your professional brand. The more credibility and authority you have, the more opportunities will come your way and you will be able to lead more effectively.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Image: kwwl.com

Startup Tips: 5 Elements Of An Effective Business Meeting

Entrepreneurs spend time quizzing themselves on business particulars for their meetings with important new contacts, but often forget the human side of the interaction. However, knowing your business “ins and outs” is not enough – they must also be effectively conveyed.

Whether communicating to an important distributor or venture capitalist, entrepreneurs must be strategic about how they influence others to join their side. Meetings are not just information exchanges — they are also “relationship-building” sessions. Establishing these relationships enables your efforts to take root and make a difference for your business.

To that end, based on research and best practices, we have developed the “five C’s” of an effective meeting:

Compelling: Tell a story to help illustrate your point. Everyone responds to a story and research has shown that stories increase message retention.
Clarity: Be focused and clear. Often, entrepreneurs, especially those who are experts, want to share everything they know in the first meeting. This is not about impressing your audience with the breadth of your knowledge. Be restrained in what you share – summarize the high points. A great meeting will lead to follow-up discussions.
Consistency: Do your homework on meeting participants. Connect to their interests, including past decisions or common interests.
Conversation: Allow for dialogue. Creating an opportunity for a two-way conversation will allow for questions and clarifications, which leads to greater buy-in.
Close: End the meeting effectively by including a direct request. Never let an opportunity pass to ask for support – for dollars or for introductions.

So as you plan your meetings with new contacts, remember it is important to start small and build a solid foundation for a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Suzanne Smith, MBA is a serial social entrepreneur and bridges many disciplines, including serving on the National Board of the Social Enterprise Alliance, coaching nonprofits as Managing Director of Social Impact Architects and Co-Founder of Flywheel: Social Enterprise Hub, and educating future leaders as Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas. She holds an MBA from Duke University, where she was a CASE (Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship) Scholar and continues to serve as a Research Fellow.

Startup Tips: 5 Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Customers

You love your website like your baby. It represents your startup perfectly — except when it doesn’t.

Your website might not be delivering the message you thought it was. Here are five of the most common startup website mistakes that I see founders make when creating their own website or hiring a designer to create it for them — and what to do about each:

1. Designing for the “Cool” Factor

You want your startup to stand out from all the others out there, so you design your logo and your site with lots of flair. Figuring that a flashy design will stick in people’s minds, you forgo clarity.

While people may think your site looks good, they won’t remember what your service or product is all about. They might not even grasp your concept while they’re on your site, which will cause them to hit the back button or move on without a second thought.

Ouch. Visitors can be fickle, so make sure to focus on explaining what your startup does and how it will help make your customers’ lives better.

2. On-Page Overwhelm

In an effort to tell people all the reasons they need to sign up for your service or product, you might go overboard and cause more harm than good.

If you have more than three major pieces of information or options on a page, you’re likely overdoing it. When it comes to designing effective websites, keeping the visual options to a minimum always results in better conversions.

Instead of packing your website with the 20 different reasons to try your product, focus on the big three benefits that you can deliver. Think of what your startup helps people get more or less of, whether that’s sleep or anxiety.

3. Not Testing On All Devices

Your website looks great on your computer and maybe your phone. But have you tested it on a variety of different devices? Have you considered making it design responsive, so that it will resize based on the dimensions of the screen?

These are all great questions to consider before you hit publish on your new startup website, but it’s worth going back and checking different browsers and devices even if your site is live.

4. Forgetting to Ask for Contact Details

Most visitors who land on your website will not buy your product or service. It’s just not going to happen — but it doesn’t mean that you should let these curious folks walk away into their busy lives, never to return.

Instead, make sure you have a simple and prominent way for them to stay in the loop with your startup’s progress. Make the offer to join your email list an inviting one by focusing on what benefits they will get from hearing about your startup.

If you can’t think of anything, consider creating free content in the form of articles or videos that you think will be of interest to your ideal customers. No one can turn down a highly targeted freebie that’s designed to solve their exact problems.

5. Not Offering a Taste Before Asking for the Sale

Speaking of freebies, do you have anything on your website that people can try before they buy? Depending on your product or service, you might be able to offer a taste before asking them to commit by plunking down their credit card details.

If you offer an ongoing service, it’s a great idea to let people get used to your software or services. They’ll be hooked and won’t want to stop using it. Try offering a free trial, and be generous — if you did your job right in creating your offering, people will take you up on your paid version, too.

Think outside the box on this one, because offering a sample is one of the best ways to get people open to buying from you.

Do You Make Any of These Mistakes?

Now that you know what to watch out for when creating or updating your startup website, it’s time to be honest with yourself and assess your own site. And if you need an unbiased opinion, ask a friend or colleague — someone who isn’t as close to your “baby” as you are.

Nathalie Lussier got her Bachelors in Software Engineering then promptly turned down a “stable” job on Wall Street to start her own online business. She’s a sought after digital strategist who teaches people how to get techy with their business. Get your Free Website Checkup at http://GetTechyNow.com.

What SEO And The Matrix Have In Common

When writing for blogs and websites, you may feel like you are entering a world with a different set of rules – especially as you try to understand how to write for SEO.

Do you remember the movie The Matrix? In it, the main character Neo discovers that the world he has been living in is actually an elaborate computer program. When he is rescued and taken to the real world, Neo learns techniques that will give him an advantage whenever he re-enters the matrix.

The following will help you learn some of the rules of SEO and hopefully give you an advantage in your daily online writing. SEO is important, but it can harm you if not done correctly. Relevance is everything, and SEO is a game you need to win at.
What is SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a means of boosting your website or blog’s ranking in web searches. The higher you rank, the more likely it is that the person doing the search will actually click on your link.
Identifying your Keywords and Phrases

Perhaps the most important tools that SEO writers have are keywords and phrases. These are words or phrases that a potential searcher might key into a search engine in order to find specific information. For example, if someone was looking for information on vegetable gardening they might search: gardening, vegetable gardening or planting seeds.

You might start by writing a list of all the keywords and phrases you think would be used by the searcher and then work them into your content.
Keyword Density

Don’t let keyword density harm you! Keyword density – how often you use a keyword – will also play a huge factor in your search ranking. But be careful not to overdo this as sites with very high density are likely to be labelled as spam by search engines. Sites that use too many keywords also result in very high bounce rates. These sites are overly optimized and provide low value for the reader. Identify your goals, and if the goal is to keep readers engaged, make sure you are not optimizing purely for SEO, resulting in a quick page view and a bounce.

Content has to be interesting, engaging and relevant. That’s why Markerly weighs page views and engagement rates differently. Some pages with very high levels of page views have extremely low engagement rates – meaning that the real estate is essentially worthless. Other pages with very thoughtful, well-written content have very high levels of engagement and a lower number of page views, but for anyone looking for real impressions, this is the metric to measure.
Links

Have you noticed that more and more websites and blogs are incorporating links to other sites/pages in the body of their content? Using this technique not only makes your site more SEO friendly but if the searcher discovers that a particular blog or site isn’t exactly what he was looking for, it gives you first dibs on directing him to another of your pages (or at least a page that you endorse) rather than allowing him to search again and possibly end up on a competitor’s site.
SEO Plugins

Even the best writers can benefit from a little computer analysis. SEO Plugins are programs that analyze your writing and “do the math” to help determine how SEO friendly your particular content is. They will show you what areas are good and what you could do to beef up your SEO. There are many of these programs and several can be downloaded for free online for bloggers. Markerly optimizes SEO for bloggers with free micro-content a sharing tool that emails bloggers once a week with the most popular words and quotes that readers are copying and sharing. This helps bloggers better understand their audience to write more content that resonates with their reader’s interest levels.

Markerly also optimizes SEO for brands that use Markerly to advertise through content campaigns. Markerly monitors search queries, traffic referrals, most engaged with quotes, specific content shared to social media, copy and paste and keywords and phrases within different demographics and amplifies the reach for brands.
Stay Human

Finally, remember that after SEO has done its job, your reader will be human, meaning, they will either move on to more interesting content or stay engaged. If the writing is boring or difficult to understand your reader will move on. On the other hand, create engaging and useful content and you will keep them coming back for more.

That’s why Markerly ranks engagement over page views when monitoring content campaigns. Markerly tracks when readers are selecting text, hovering over specific content, copying content, right clicking and pinning photos, selecting text, scrolling down the page, sharing to social media, discussing on social media, clicking on links, and more. Markerly knows when content is engaging, when page views are being faked by bots, when content is overly SEO optimized (high drop off rates) and when a writer has successfully done their job.
Before you head back into the Matrix, remember one thing to win at the game: SEO is important, but more importantly, relevance is everything.

Markerly makes publishing tools that we’ve proudly been using since their alpha stage over a year ago. Right click on anything on Nibletz and watch Markerly go to work. For more info visit markerly.com

Now check out the Top 5 Reasons Startup Founders Blow Through Money!

Dan Martell: How to Build A Real Connection With Your Customer

You’ve spent 12 months building the most wicked product on the planet. Now what?

Now, you need customers, revenue, and growth. Here’s the sequence most entrepreneurs follow:

Step 1: You launch a blog
Step 2: You launch your Facebook page
Step 3: You start promoting your writing to your fan community of 50.

Then you wait. You’ve built it; why aren’t they coming?

You get pissed off. You hop in your car, go to the gym, or take a walk outside to take your mind off things. Then you see that big Coca Cola billboard with shiny, happy stock-photo people and blinding, bright colors — you can’t help but swoon. You’re craving Coca Cola’s fizzy goodness and wishing that Santa would bring you a $10 million paid advertising budget.

Hold it — the glamour of paid advertising is a total illusion

Get it together. Get back to your computer immediately and watch the first cat video that you can find. Little do you know it, but that’s your brilliant plan. It’s twice as powerful as any paid channel advertising strategy, and it’s free. Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM) is your new growth engine.

According to the McKinsey Quarterly, “word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising in categories as diverse as skincare and mobile phones.”

And thanks to digital media, it’s not about neighbor A knocking on neighbor B’s door for advice anymore. Social media, content marketing, and online commenting platforms take WOM marketing to data-driven scale.

WOM is about street smarts, not rocket science

What does it take to get you talking about something? Most likely, it’s made you laugh out loud, saved you time, and solved your most pressing problems. It’s caught you by surprise and has struck an emotional chord.

As Wharton Marketing Professor Jonah Berger puts it: “Any product can be remarkable. Any product can be emotional.”

It’s about the connection you build with your end-user psychologically, functionally, personally, and emotionally.

Take one of the most ordinary products on the market, for instance — a blender. Does the word ‘bada*s’ come to mind? Probably not. Now read the following story about a company called Blendtec.

“In my favorite video, for example, they stick an iPhone in the blender,” Berger says. “They actually drop an iPhone in. They close the top, they press the button, and you watch the iPhone get torn up by this really, really strong blender. It gets reduced to shreds. Little shards of glass and all the other things that make up an iPhone. Lots of smoke. At the end of the day, it’s basically powder. Now you’ve never seen a blender tear an iPhone. You’ve never imagined that a blender could do that to an iPhone. Yet you see it, and it’s pure remarkability.”

What happens next?

You share the video with everybody, and all of a sudden Blendtec is bada*s. You need it in your kitchen to replace the frou-frou blades in your cupboard.

The “mystery” of WOM marketing

Like any good marketing plan, it follows a standard framework. Amazing marketers take the same basic skeletons and flesh them out.

“It doesn’t take a marketing genius — though they are smart marketers — to think about this,” says Berger. “What it takes is understanding the psychology behind social transmission — what makes us talk about and share thing.”

The trick is to stop thinking of your brand-building as a stream of consciousness, creative endeavor.

Think like a system with the following steps:

1. Take Control: Controversy Gets People Talking

Want to be a powerful influencer? Then own it. To be an authority, your brand persona needs to project confidence and charisma. No matter what you do, this mission-critical component will be your wow-factor.

Don’t be afraid to polarize people. If you’re scared to put yourself out there at the risk of pissing people off, you’ll be missing out.

Controversy gets people talking, and in terms of WOM, that’s awesome.

2. Value = What Your Customers Care About

It’s simple, folks. Know what your customers care about. What keeps them up at night, what motivates them to go to work in the morning, and what holds them back. It’s your job to give them exactly what they need.

3. Quit Being Properly Polite and Be Authentic

You probably hate the fluffy ‘be yourself’ advice. Thing is, you need to hear it. It’s natural to feel self-conscious and to hide behind a ‘professional’ mask. It’s natural to want approval from others. Thing is, it’s only going to hold you back. If you’re constantly trying to please others by looking like everyone else, you’re not going to stand out.

For example, take James Altucher, a financial expert and entrepreneur who built some of his biggest businesses through blogging. As he puts it in his Twitter bio: “For some reason, I’ve turned myself inside out and all my guts have spilled onto my blog.”

Why’s he so popular? Well he writes about topics that make us human, not rich. He helps us understand why our bosses are jerks and why we should think twice before judging a genuinely good person.

Ask yourself some questions: Would you say what you’re about to say to your best friend over a beer? What makes you passionate beyond the cubicle? That is what you should bring to the table.

Here’s a fun hypothetical exercise; wear a rubber band on your wrist. When you catch yourself saying something that doesn’t represent you, or that echoes someone else, pull the rubber band and snap it onto your wrist. Not only does that condition you to be more honest, but it is a funny talking point and will make you more remarkable (re: quirky, weird).

“Oh, yeah — I’m trying to be more honest, and I caught myself trying to be someone else. That thing I just said? I didn’t really mean it.”

You know when you meet that really boring person at a networking event or party. Yeah, they’re plenty smart and articulate, but man will they put you to sleep. Don’t be that guy. When you’re authentic, you’re interesting.

Tucker Max is interesting because he’s a jerk. He stands out. You don’t need to be a jerk, but you can and should embrace your inner edge.

4. Where Technology Meets Social Psychology

WOM is not about knocking on your neighbor’s door. It’s about tapping into social psychology to connect with customers on a human-to-human level. Technology amplifies that process and helps you do it at scale.

The brilliant growth hackers at AirBnB, for instance, have built a technology model to auto-post to Craigslist.

“It’s a win-win for everyone involved — both the people renting out their places by tapping into pre-build demand, and for renters, who see much nicer listings with better photos and descriptions,” wrote Andrew Chen for his blog.

5. Be Relentlessly Emotional

Logic keeps people intelligent and informed — but emotions move them. Word of mouth marketing depends on your brand’s ability to keep people engaged, energized, and inspired. It’s about love, anger, and humanity that’s powerful and raw.

Never, at any point in the game, let the fire of your emotional hook die. Write with emotion, tweet with emotion, and no matter what the hell you do, do not hold back. You’re lightning in a bottle.

A version of this post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Dan Martell is the CEO/Founder of Clarity.fm. Co-Founder of Flowtown (Acquired ’11), Founder of Spheric Tech (Acquired ’08), Mentor @ 500Startup. Investor in many.

Founder Spotlight: Danny Boice Co-Founder Speek.com

Danny Boice is the CTO of Speek, a 500 Startups funded startup that lets users do conference calls with a simple link (speek.com/YourName) rather than using phone numbers and PINs. Danny contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, PandoDaily, Fast Company, and other publications. He attended Harvard undergrad and did advanced studies at MIT. Follow him @DannyBoice.

Who is your hero?

Lemmy from Motorhead.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

“Find what you love and let it kill you.” – Charles Bukowski

I take this quote to mean that you should find the thing that you are intensely passionate about first and foremost. Once you have found that thing then spend the rest of your life working your a*s off to be great at it.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

Only get in bed with people you really like. This applies to co-founders, partners, you name it.

When my first company was acquired I was heavily incentivized to join the management team of the company that acquired us. I really did not get along with the founders of that company and we rarely saw eye to eye. I felt marginalized and believed that my talents were under-appreciated. It was an absolutely miserable experience for me and I spent a couple years being unhappy. It’s just not worth losing years of your life.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

I put together a to-do list for the day using todoist. Then I get myself to inbox zero. I like starting the day with a conscious plan of what I want to get done and I don’t like checking email throughout the day because it is a barrier to getting things done.

What’s your best financial/cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Keep your nut low. This applies to personal life and business. The lower the expense structure the more freedom you have.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Become an expert in the Lean Startup methodology. The best management approach I have found to date is using data and science experiments to make decisions.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

Success means having the freedom to do what I want when I want to do it. Money, time, obligations, and contracts should not be a factor. I call it “airplane money.” If you can wake up in the morning, isolate the place you really want to go today and jump in a plane and go there, then you’ve achieved success.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Danny Boice spoke at this huge startup conference last year and he’s back again this year.

10 Tips For Launching Your Startup At An Industry Event

It’s pretty popular to launch startups at big events. Think Foursquare at SXSW. We even had a couple of launches at this year’s Everywhere Else: The Startup Conference.

But, it can be tricky to launch at a big event. It’s easy to get lost in the noise, and when you choose to launch that publicly, you better have your act together. Here are some more tips from the veteran entrepreneurs at the Young Entrepreneurs Council:

Give a Keynote Speech

“If you want to launch a new company at an industry event or conference, try to secure an opportunity to be a keynote speaker. If you can’t organically secure it ,consider sponsoring and purchasing the opportunity to be a keynote. As a speaker, you’ll have your target audience listening to you and buying into your brand for 30-40 minutes. There is no better way to secure a flurry of leads.”
– Raoul Davis | CEO, Ascendant Group

Learn from Disrupt

“It’s very helpful to check out the winners of TechCrunch Disrupt. Lot to learn from their presentations and products which can you help launch most effectively.”

– Ben Lang | Founder, Mapped In Israel

Don’t Do It!

“Ignore awards, getting press, and all related “recognition” that will just be distractions when launching your company. Focus on your customers and your product!”

– Todd Garland | Founder, BuySellAds

Influence the Influencers

“Find out who will be the influencers at this conference and get them on board with your new company. Try giving away your product or service to them for free to experience if you have to, so they begin talking about it. There is nothing better than word of mouth, especially when from the mouths that influence more people.”

– Louis Lautman | Founder, Supreme Outsourcing

Try Out Sponsorship

“If you really want to launch right, sponsor the event. Get your brand on everything!”

– Roger Bryan | Managing Partner, ROI Marketing Department

Integrate Your Company In

“Most people that try and launch at an event fail because all they do is display a logo, hand out flyers or take an exhibitor booth. Find a unique way your company can be a part of the event and integrate your product into it, so that more people use it and get to experience it.”

– Aron Schoenfeld | Founder & CEO, Do It In Person LLC

Start Before the Conference

“Once the conference is in full swing, it can be hard to meet with the right people. A small amount of time invested in reaching out to key personalities before the event can yield tremendous results. Review speakers, conference organizers, sponsors and other key attendees, and introduce yourself and your product. You’ll have pre-launch momentum to leverage when going into the conference.”

– Christopher Kelly | Co-Founder, Principal, Convene

Get Outside the Board Room

“Business is done after the day’s events, so throw a crazy party! Get your face and handshake in front of everyone, and then create a forum where you can continue interacting after the formal events are over. They’ll remember your name.”

– Jordan Guernsey | CEO, Molding Box

Make Your Presence Known

“Don’t half-ass the event. Get there early and network to build buzz. Do something creative with your booth or product so everyone knows you’re there. Don’t leave until the end, when you’re sure you’ve done everything to let people know about your product or service.”

– John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Get Mentioned Onstage

“Do your research in advance and know who the speakers are. Before the event, find ways to introduce your company and product via social, introductions, etc. Once there, have your team talking to presenters and panelist so what you’re working on is top of mind. Seeding the conversation prior to them hitting the stage improves your chances of getting mentioned by influencers, and peeking the audience’s interest.”

– Lauren Perkins | Founder and CEO, Perks Consulting

How We Built A Successful Startup Across 10 Cities

At the turn of the millennium, the technology world was a far different place compared to today. Social networking didn’t exist, streaming video was a pipe dream, and collaboration took place during late nights at the office or on napkins at bars. Building a startup from the ground up is a difficult venture at any time, but today’s collaborative tools have opened the door to working together from pretty much anywhere in the world.

That’s how we had to build flik, our social media app. My wife Tracy and I co-founded flik together, and during the early days, we received plenty of advice regarding the right way to approach a startup. A lot of it came with wisdom applicable to any ground-up project, such as building a house: have a solid foundation, plan ahead, use the right materials, and so on.

The problem was that my wife and co-founder Tracy and I lived a bit of gypsy lifestyle. Since we got married six years ago, we’ve moved 30 times, from city to city, region to region, and sometimes country to country. How can you build a startup when you don’t even have a house to call home?

That’s where collaboration tools come in. Of course, technology is only as good as the people that use it, and our most valuable lesson over the years came from finding the right balance between technology and practicality. flik’s first eight people collaborated across six different cities, and while we faced some early communication hurdles, it was only a matter of time before we overcame the challenges of remote business.

All startups have countless moving parts and ours is no exception: advisors, attorneys, operations, marketing and PR. By organizing our communication needs while using both cloud and local tools, we’re able to transform moving parts into a well-oiled machine,

It took a little bit of trial and error, but with our communication challenges in the proverbial rearview mirror, we can focus on the task of making flik as successful as possible. Today, flik professionals are a team in the truest sense, except our diverse locations are now an advantage. With our focus on strong communication, we have one big advantage over our competition — not only do we collaborate with the efficiency of a local team, we also have the broader reach and exposure that comes exclusively with our collective locations. It’s simply the best of all worlds, and a situation that couldn’t have been possible without the right technology and the right people.

Chris Hayes is the co-founder and CTO of flik, a social mobile app where users share products and places they love through short videos. Chris holds a BS in computer science & economics from Northwestern University, was a national chess champion at the age of 12, and is a submarine-pitching professional baseball player.

Check out nibletz’ interview with Flik here.

5 Things To Avoid When Raising Money For Your Startup

Of course, there are a lot of things you need to do when you’re trying to raise money for your startup. But there are also a lot of things you want to avoid. If you’ve landed a meeting with a potential investor, you don’t want to blow it. Avoid the following 5 “don’ts” and you’ll be on the right path to making a favorable impression:

1. Don’t raise more money than you will need. You may be tempted to think more is better when it comes to raising capital, but actually this is not true. Of course you’ll want to build in a little cushion, since nothing ever goes exactly according to plan in startup land, but don’t be tempted to create a huge cushion. We’ve seen time and time again that capital efficiency (that is, raising what you need and no more) is a more telling indicator than capital access of your startup’s success. In other words, it’s what you do with your money — not how much you get — that determines your success.

While the amount of capital you’ll need is dependent on the specifics of your company (e.g. your company type/stage), capital efficiency will stand you in good stead regardless. With less capital it’s harder to scale, and that’s a good thing. Scaling too soon forces you to grow and make decisions before your company is ready. Expectations are lower with less capital. Your milestones will be more manageable.

Also, larger amounts of capital lead to unnecessary dilution at a lower valuation. Conversely, smaller amounts of capital allow you to preserve more ownership—and can lead to higher valuation in future rounds.

2. Don’t talk to investors who don’t traditionally invest in your space or stage of development. If an investor has no history of investing in your space or working with companies at your stage of development, don’t go there. If they’re not familiar with your space, there’s just too big of a learning curve. You’ll be working overtime trying to sell them on the value of your offering.

Likewise, there are two major downsides to working with a potential investor who doesn’t have experience with companies in your development stage. First of all, without a relative benchmark, they may have expectations which are unrealistic for your startup. The may want to see you hit milestones which your company is just not ready to hit, or may push you to scale before you’re ready. Secondly, investors offer more than just money. They offer support, wisdom, and connections. So you want to find an investor who will be a valuable member of your growing startup eco-system, starting from wherever you are.

3. Don’t talk to investors who have invested in a company that is a competitor in your same space. This may seem to contradict my previous statement, but it’s just finessing the point. While you don’t want to work with investors who aren’t active in your same space, there’s no sense in talking with an investor who has recently invested in one of your competitors. Many investors will avoid funding competitors, but you can’t depend on this. An investor’s resources run only so deep. You don’t need a built-in conflict of interest getting in the way of your growth.

4. Don’t fail to do your due diligence on an investor prior to meeting them. Underscoring my previous points, you’ll need to do enough research to know what space and company stages the investor has experience with and what specific companies the investor has funded (keeping an eye out for your competitors). Look out for investor activity: has the investor recently made any investments? You also want to know the person behind the investment: who are they? If you can speak with other entrepreneurs they have backed, that can be a helpful way to learn more about investors personally and figure out if they are someone you can work with. If you don’t know this ahead of time, you are just wasting your time and theirs.

5. Don’t wing an investor meeting. If you’re meeting with an investor, it’s never just a casual chat. You are there to pitch. Have your pitch deck ready and be prepared to present it. See my previous post on Pitching Made Perfect for details on exactly what should be included in your pitch deck. Be ready to answer questions—and if you can’t answer a question on the spot, make sure you follow up.

If you can steer clear of these 5 “don’ts,” you’ll be demonstrating to potential investors an understanding of, and a respect for, the funding process. Observe the protocol and you and your company will be in good position to earn reciprocal respect from potential investors.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

David Ehrenberg is the founder and CEO of Early Growth Financial Services, a financial services firm providing a complete suite of financial services to companies at every stage of the development process. He’s a financial expert and startup mentor, whose passion is helping businesses focus on what they do best. Follow David @EarlyGrowthFS.

How To Start That Online Startup You’ve Been Thinking About

Is this the year you will finally launch that brilliant new business idea?

It’s a good time to start — never before has it been easier or cheaper to build your own Web-based business. Technology has come a long way in the last few years in making tools for building sites more accessible to everyone (not just technologists).

Here are some easy ways to get a head start:

Map your “lean canvas,” not your business plan. Business plans are so last century. Don’t waste time writing multi-paged business plans that are just layer upon layer of hypotheses based on market research. Experienced entrepreneurs know the secret to success lies in execution rather than extensive planning. So instead, invest your initial planning in a Lean Canvas: a succinct approach to proving hypotheses about your business.
Pick a great domain name. The domain name of your site should be memorable and preferably have a dot-com. That means there are likely slim pickings, so you may have to pick the name of your site based on what domain is available. LeanDomainSearch is the perfect tool to figure this out. Just enter a word you like and their search engine will comb the Web for available dot-com combinations.
Find a developer to build your website. A great website takes a great developer who will help you build exactly what you want. Although you could outsource your site, in my experience, it’s better to hire someone you trust and can collaborate with directly — particularly if you’re building an e-commerce site. If you don’t have a referral or a developer in mind, check out matchist – a service we built specifically to bring together entrepreneurs and top U.S.-based freelance developers. The site helps you understand what technologies and skills are needed to build exactly what you’re looking for so you can find the right developer to make that dream a reality.
Put up a landing page ASAP. While your site is getting built, start building buzz (and collecting data) by putting up a landing page. New sites like LaunchRock make this super easy. You can start gathering email addresses for people interested in learning about when your site launches right away for a head start on marketing.
Start testing — and keep learning! Get up to date on Lean Startup Methodology, an approach to building a business (pioneered by Eric Ries) that involves making and testing hypotheses to figure out exactly what combination of product and marketing will make your business successful. And read blogs like KISSMetrics, Startup Lessons Learned, and Practice Trumps Theory to learn how other online businesses are paving the way quickly and cheaply.

Don’t spend yet another year dreaming of starting a business — instead, take these steps to get started as early as possible. The quicker you start learning, testing and collecting data, the quicker you will build that successful venture you’ve been dreaming of.

Tim Jahn is the co-founder of matchist, a curated service for freelance developers to connect with quality clients and projects. He’s also the co-founder of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, an events and media company that helps entrepreneurs move their businesses forward. As an active member of the Chicago tech community, Tim has made his mark interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs from all over the world.