Our new volunteer board pulled off a great panel full of juicy tidbits of knowledge from start to finish. With goals in place, your metrics have so much more meaning and the time you spend analyzing data will drive more informed decisions geared at improving your conversion rates. Google has a “Conversion University” with a TON of great training materials to get you up and running. Repost of SMCLA's Going Goo Goo Over Google Analytics Below is a highlight video of the evening.  To

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.

[Update] I’m revisiting this post given the current state of the start-up environment. Brooks and I have evolved our strategy a few times since we started working together on The Graph - all while maintain our big vision.  The key is to not get to hung up on the product that will solve the problem you set out to solve.  In today’s world, it is more critical than ever to understand where your industry/category stands. When the VCs and young devs where creating web apps at an unbelievable clip proliferation was the name of the game.