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.

Blogging is an important way to build an audience and also drive SEO traffic.  It’s Define your customers, partners and other relevant people to your organization (e.g. 8221;  I don’t think that most startup blogs should be about how to build a startup.  That’s That’s I guess let’s file this under sales & marketing advice . I

As noted in Pour and Stir Part I , the key to the successful execution of this strategy is managing the following equation:      The cost to acquire a customer < lifetime value of a customer This entry focuses on how you can minimize your cost per customer acquired by systematically establishing the infrastructure necessary to track the results obtained from a variety of online and offline marketing vehicles.  “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.” John Wanamaker

He’s done several startups and is a board member of the Technology Council of Southern California (which is where I met him originally). A great opportunity for more visible networking . I roughly know about MakeItWork, but tell me a bit about where you spend your time day-to-day. A typical day starts with email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Yammer checks/updates. day might include a discussion with a finance partner, I’ve recently had a chance to reconnect with Eric David Greenspan ( LinkedIn , Twitter ) He’s the CEO of Make It Work a high quality, personal, high touch technology service provider for homes and small businesses.

To me, strategy is the art/science of analysis, decision-making and leadership.  Now that I’ve been through several startup cycles I’m of the opinion that strategy - meaning the decisions that are considered, how they are analyzed and how they are implemented - is a huge success/failure driver . The first thing I’ve been thinking about I call the Startup Delta Force .  I’ve been mulling over a new series* of posts that I’ve been wanting to create for sometime.  Lately I find myself now very crisply focusing on the issue of STRATEGY. 

Fantastic post by Christian Gammill - Startup Delta Force… From a competitive perspective (e.g. all the other folks out there that will try to enter the same market) the barriers have been dropping over the last few years. Customer Acquisition – social media, SEO, SEM, etc Economies of Scale – not as big a barrier in web world Investment – little to none required to get started Pricing – free or freemium makes trial simple Distribution – syndication and APIs make partnering easier IP – in general the battle has been over users and less on IP many more (please

UPDATE:  I’m setting up a new project on analytics.  One of those models was a cool Structural Equation Model used to show how customer experience led to increased revenues. While at one of my recent startups I developed a framework for startup growth metrics (focused primarily on user metrics). It is 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.

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

Tony at SoCalCTO has an interesting post regarding SEOs for startups: [link] There, he explores the value of Search Engine Optimization for startups, and the difference between on-page and off-page SEO. But what form of marketing is SEO? There are three basic styles of marketing: 1) You make and sell widgets (which you call "Smidget Widgets") and post all over the place that you make and sell widgets, hoping that people who want widgets will see your message and be persuaded to buy your widgets over your competitor's. I call this the "blue