I was meeting with someone recently who asked if I have any advice about what causes startups to succeed or fail. At first blush, it’s a funny question to ask someone who’s starting up a company; I mean, I should really be the one seeking advice. On the other hand, I have been involved in quite a number of failed startups (something like 12 at this point) and only one that has gone on to achieve any objective measure of success (i.e. Netflix), and I do certainly recognize some patterns in what I have seen take place in each. So I thought about the question for a moment and said I think there are three factors that will contribute to the failure of a startup: see more of this entry »

Since starting [meta]marketer, I’ve been naturally having a lot of conversations with people about why I’ve chosen to work with freelancers instead of building what people inevitably call “a real agency.” Most people guess it’s to reduce overhead. That’s a good guess, but it isn’t the real reason.

The real reason is a nasty little model called utilization. It’s how most agencies are managed. In other words, they measure how many billable hours each staff member is able to clock relative to the number of non-billable hours. In theory, it’s a great way to drive profitability for the agency and ensure a lean operation.

The problem with this model is probably obvious: at some point in time, some work is going to be pushed to a resource who isn’t right for the task just because he or she is sitting idle and needs work to bill. And who is likely to suffer for this? The unsuspecting client. see more of this entry »

Yes, Virginia, there is value in social media.

A remarkable amount of businesspeople still think Twitter is a waste of time and Facebook is for silly quizzes. Some still think blogging is self-indulgent.

But how do you get from “hello World” to something that actually drives your business? see more of this entry »

Many of you reading this know I’m a songwriter in my spare (ha!) time. I haven’t had any hits, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t written any.

That’s not just a rationalization; it’s a relevant insight into how viral marketing works.

Is viral marketing something you can make happen or is it something that just happens by itself when you get lucky?

Yes.

Is writing a hit song something you can manufacture or something that just happens when you magically stumble onto the right thing?

Again, yes. see more of this entry »

I have just finished writing up a long-ish post over at Corporate Idealist about how to get customer input. It’s chock-full of years of my experience in drawing feedback out of sometimes reluctant customers. If you have a moment, I’d love it if you stopped by there and left a comment with anything I might have missed!