A post by Fred Wilson pointed me to Dave McClure's Startup Metrics presentation. 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. In fact, this often becomes the mantra that we live by. 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.

One of the things I am passionate about is analytics and metrics. One of those models was a cool Structural Equation Model used to show how customer experience led to increased revenues. 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. UPDATE:  I’m setting up a new project on analytics.  If you are interested in collaborating ping me on twitter @gammill. 

Enjoy. Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition | For Entrepreneurs , February 2, 2010 Looks at the critical equation around customer acquisition cost vs. customer lifetime value similar to what I discussed in Startup Metrics but in more depth. Of course, one of the best ideas around this is to have Negative Customer Acquisition Costs . Here are some recent great posts that I’ve come across that generally fall in the intersection of startups and CTOs. Great stuff.

So why ask all these questions if I might lose a potential client? If I don’t ask the questions and do a little bit of homework, then likely we will end up with a mess. So what are the questions I’m likely going to ask? Tell me a bit about yourself and why you are doing this. Who are the customers? Please be able to provide me with a few specific examples of different types of customers, what they need, what the system will do for them. Tell me about the business. 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.

Last Friday, the LA CTO Forum hosted a discussion on the various metrics used to measure ourselves and our companies. found a bunch of old examples, sanitized them, and was struck by how much metrics evolve over the lifecycle of a company. was inspired enough to put together a diagram that describes how the metrics for a product or startup company evolve over time. I was asked to participate, and eagerly dug into my archives.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics , a developer of facial animation technology, disclosed this morning that it has created a new "rigging" service for the video game and film markets. Image Metrics develops software used for facial animation image capture; the firm's technology was used for the upcoming God of War III video game for the Sony PlayStation 3. Image Metrics is venture backed by Saffron According to the firm, the new service will allow video game makers to use its technology and team to create "highly emotive" facial animation. Pricing on the new service was not

One of the things I am passionate about is analytics and metrics. One of those models was a cool Structural Equation Model used to show how customer experience led to increased revenues. 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. I’m most interested in gathering a breadth and leveraging them to drive solid decision making. While at IBM I worked closely with a group of exceptionally talented researchers (marketing and technology) to develop a host

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. was introduced to Image Metrics a year before I joined, and was helping them along. Editor's note: you can see Image Metrics "Emily" demo on their web site ). 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 Tell us about your

The goal of marketers is usually to increase revenue, so we create metrics that help us do that. Metrics are those numbers that "per" -- like "cost per lead" and "page views per day." Marketing Metrics Are Everywhere There There are metrics everywhere in We strive for increasing our clickthrough rate on e-mails, newsletters, banner ads, paid search ads, and wherever we can measure clicks. We look for ways to increase the "open rate" for everything from e-mails and envelopes to prospects' minds. Why?

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. I talk to a lot of founders of startups. Normally the product is defined as a web site.