Taking a long trip is like marketing. The same is true for marketing. Once you pick a marketing direction, all of your marketing programs need to be aligned to move the company in that direction, which will determine what type of customers you'll pick up along that route. The importantce of choosing the right strategic marketing direction To You need to pick a direction, which will determine what to pack -- shorts and sandals for summer, or coats and gloves for winter -- and who you will meet along the way.   The To

so compelling (other than the fact that the CEO Sean Rad is a great young technology leader and his advisers – Brian Norgard , Dan Gould and Evan Rifkin - are some of the guys I respect most in the LA tech market.) If we continue our success we will have strong competition.  That’s a good thing – it means there’s a Advertising has driven the majority of Internet innovation My firm GRP Partners recently funded a young LA based company named Ad.Ly that is an “in-stream advertising” company currently focused on monetizing Twitter. 

When I was running startups I felt like a horse with blinders on because I was super focused on the content management market and ignored many other markets. They outline the problems that exist in markets, their approach to the solutions, they update me on competitors and they show me their economic models.  We If I’m interested I get to spend more time with them, if I’m not I don’t One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?” 8221;  I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now.  Since

Competitiveness - One attribute that I believe most VCs look for in entrepreneurs is competitiveness.  I If you stumble on to a really good idea believe me it will get competitive really quickly.  It It amazes me how quickly a modest success story gets replicated and any initial product / market advantages get narrowed.  You This is part of my series on  what makes an entrepreneur successful .  I originally posted it on  VentureHacks , one of my favorite websites for entrepreneurs.

At the margin you can make yourself better at sales, product design, marketing, leadership, capital raising, etc. When I look at the attributes that I feel are most important in a startup CEO: tenacity, street smarts, the mental flexibility to pivot, resiliency, leadership / inspiration, work ethic, attention to detail, competitiveness, decisiveness and integrity – I think these all fall into the 80% nature territory.  Or Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Start-up Nature vs. Nurture.  You’ve

Most often at the earliest point in the life of a startup, the dominant need is certainly to produce product to get something in the market, get funding, etc. What makes the most sense for us? Given likely market changes, how will we design and build so that the systems can respond to marketplace changes? How do we need to structure the systems to get ahead and stay ahead of the competition? What are the biggest areas of technical risk? I’ve been having discussions with several people recently about the role of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) in very early stage companies.

According to Qualcomm, its new business plan competition--the Qualcomm Ventures QPrize competition--is aimed at promoting innovation in the wireless industry. The company will award one semi-finalists $100,000 each in each of its four markets--North America, Europe, China, and India. Qualcomm said that the deadline for the business plan competition in July 31st. San Diego-based Qualcomm disclosed today that it has launched a new, entrepreneurship prize which will provide $550,000 in seed funding to entrepreneurs in North America, Europe, China, and India. From

Here is a quick post on the marketing of politics (I really wish I had more time to dig into this one, but too much good stuff on my plate). The article, The Application of MECCAS to Advertising Strategy Development for the 1984 Reagan-Bush Presidential Campaign , uncovers how powerful market research techniques can be for political strategists (brought to you by the folks at POPULUS Inc ). I used this paper as the foundation of Given everything that is going on with our country, our economy and the political race, I thought a few people might find one of my favorite articles interesting (particularly those of you who like maps, models and data).

Read it to get some insight into the marketing of politics.  My vote for all 2008 marketing awards goes to Obama’s team. Here is a quick post on the marketing of politics (I really wish I had more time to dig into this one, but too much good stuff on my plate). The article, The Application of MECCAS to Advertising Strategy Development for the 1984 Reagan-Bush UPDATE #2:  Well, I am excited to see Social|Median was acquired yesterday.  I used them as a proof point of the power of context for social media startups. 

Think it’s purely evil to fend off competition?  The Tags: Social Media Tech Market Analysi I lived in the UK for nearly a decade.  I I loved my experience there and wish I got back more often now.  As As a political junkie one of my favorite things to do was to watch  Question Time .   If