A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. This is a great presentation and one that I'm going to point out to startup / early stage company CEOs. Normally, when I am talking to the founder of any startup trying to figure out what they need to do, one of the things I always try to do is understand their business at its core. In fact, this often becomes the mantra that we live by. Define what you need from a metrics In many cases, I can break it down into: Customer Acquisition Cost – how will you reach prospects, how will you convert them and how much will it cost to convert them Customer Lifetime Value – how much will you make off of each converted customer This very simple model works for a surprising number of business models.

This is part of my ongoing series Startup Advice .  I In these many exchanges similar questions crop up. Either you’re not a good leader and he shouldn’t be investing at all, or he has no clue what it takes to build a startup.” I learned a lot about how to set goals, manage projects, deal with competing personalities and, importantly, manage “up.” Beware of VC Seagulls, who shit on you and then fly away (or worse yet leave you with Red Herrings) I write this post as a warning to pick your VC’s carefully.  I

I just had an all-too common conversation with the founder of a startup who had spent more than a year working with a software development company who had produced a mess. The mess really comes from a developer who was willing to get started on a product that was not fully thought out. I always take a very different approach in early conversations. If I’m being asked to do startup software development, Some founders are taken aback. They are calling me to go build what they tell me to build.

UPDATE:  I’m setting up a new project on analytics.  One of the things I am passionate about is analytics and metrics. It was this experience that gave me the appreciation for the importance of metrics and the greater importance of making meaning of the data for decision making. While at one of my recent startups I developed a framework for startup growth metrics If you are interested in collaborating ping me on twitter @gammill.  It promises to be fun and interesting. **************­**************­**************­**************­***********

I talk to a lot of founders of startups. My initial conversations normally focus on the core of the business, important Startup Metrics , probably marketing strategy (ex. SEO for Startups and Negative Customer Acquisition Costs ) and, of course, the product itself. And it’s fairly rare that I add to that list. For most Normally the product is defined as a web site. Most founders are fairly passionate about the features and functions of the web site, iPhone application, Facebook application, or whatever web application represents the product.

He talks about something that I end up discussing a lot with startups. and so on. Then he provides his high-level requirements for v1.0: Must be super easy to install and start using Must convey the core user experience in a way that is simple and fun, preferably with a single “cool” feature Must give the user a sense of what else is possible with future versions Must be self-updating–for the next version! Must not cause users any undue headaches Must be the absolute minimum feature set to accomplish the above This is a great list.

This month’s “Startups Uncensored” will be on “Getting Your Internet Company Bought”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation revealing the metrics and measurements for Mergers and Acquisitions in the online space with one of the best experts in the field. We are joined this month by Shawn Colo , the Co-Founder and Head of M&A at Demand Media . TO SIGN UP FOR THIS EVENT, CLICK HERE Shawn created the original concept for Demand Media and executed the simultaneous acquisitions of eNom, eHow and several domain-name portfolios which launched the company.

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. It was a great conversation and I thought it would be a good idea to do some visible networking with Aaron to get to know him better. Tell me a bit about your background. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 2003 with Honors in Economics. While at UC Santa Barbara, I then went to Pepperdine University School of Law and graduated in 2006 with a Certificate from the Geoffrey H.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics (www.image-metrics.com) recently landed a $6.5M, Series B funding round for the firm's facial animation products. Mike Starkenburg: The company was founded in 2000, and was started in Manchester, UK, by a handful of computer vision specialists. How did a company started in the UK end up here? Mike We spoke with CEO Mike Starkenburg -- a former venture capitalist at the Sprout Group and longtime reader of our newsletter -- about the firm and its technology and how it's revolutionizing facial animation in both computer games and the movies. Tell

For example, if you click on Startup , you find: => The most recent posts, announcements and web pages on the top of the page that relate to Startups. => The best (according to social signals across the network) content below that such as: Acting CTO Role in a Start-up The DNA of an A++ Team Startup Delta Force… => The keywords on the left are ordered according to their relationship to the current term. So you can see that Entrepreneur (60) LinkedIn (15) Metrics (16) SEO (15) Company (141) are all considered highly relevant