This post is part of a series on my notes from Startup Day 2009, a conference for pre-entrepreneurs interested in founding or joining a tech startup in the Seattle area.

What is bootstrapping? Self-funded thru cash flow, not VC or angel backed.

Why bootstrap?

1. No money. It’s very difficult to raise funding, especially in today’s economy.
2. Retain control. Taking funding will likely give you more “bosses,” all with different agendas. Most VCs have backgrounds in things that aren’t probably relevant to your org.
3. Cash-poor leads to better decisions. Limited cash drives better decisions earlier, must cut all non-essential expenses, must generate enough cash to pay the bills. Company DNA is set very early and being cash poor creates the right type of DNA.
4. Reduce risk. No strings attached.
5. Don’t get ripped off. Most entrepreneurs don’t understand the impact of liquidation preference, etc and can easily get ripped off.

Bootstrap tips:

• Build a team with complementary skills
• Start with a one-year runway of cash
• All decisions are based on $ today
  • Not revenue focused = not customer focused
  • Technical IP, product features, team expertise are all secondary
  • Be creative
  • Don’t write a business plan. Do, don’t plan.
  • Imitate best practices of VC-funded companies
    • Maintain big aspirations
    • Distribute ownership among employees: stock option plan
    • Don’t mix personal/business

Why NOT bootstrap:

• Capital-intensive business
• You’re willing to make your business your life
• You have NO other alternatives

Wow! That’s really the only way to describe Startup Weekend Bizspark, a 54-hour startup event that was held in Redmond a few weeks ago. It was much more “work” than I expected, but I learned a lot around people/project management and demos, particularly. I would absolutely recommend Startup Weekend to anyone who is interested in tech startups and entrepreneurship.

My advice to anyone doing a Startup Weekend

1. Pick a project you can actually complete in a weekend. I saw some really great ideas that never came to fruition, because it’s only a weekend.
2. Your demo shouldn’t have slides. I saw some great projects, but some of the demos fell flat. You shouldn’t go up and talk about market size/opportunity, how much investment you need, etc. Focus on the weekend. Show people what was made and maybe what’s coming out next.
3. Have fun. Work hard, network, and make a really cool product, but make sure you have some fun, too!

Meet FriendMosaic

FriendMosaic is a site that makes awesome mosaics of your Twitter profile picture using the pictures of your friends and followers. You can then share your mosaic with friends via the built in image hosting, and purchase merchandise with your mosaic on them.

The founding team at #StartupWeekend team was @royleban, @hidatch, @scottdw2, @josephch, @zanes, @karenxcheng, and @drigotti (me). The picture above is all of us.

We got our first sales during the demo — we auctioned off the first shirt for $200 and sold another 150 shirts, one for each person in the room, making FriendMosaic one of the few profitable companies at a Startup Weekend demo!

After the weekend, @royleban and @hidatch decided to continue with the concept, and officially launched “for real” September 21st, 2009.

Thanks

A big thanks to the awesome FriendMosaic team, Clint and the rest of the Startup Weekend crew, Microsoft for being such an awesome sponsor, and the many other people behind the scenes that helped make the event a success.

Would you rather own a company with the most employees, or the best employees? The most number of products, or the best products? The most customers, or the best customers?

Best is bar none. Hard to replicate. Unique. A competitive advantage.

Most is a number. It can easily be bought [by a competitor]. Not sustainable.

This is the business high-end sports cars. Their looks, engines, chassis… everything about the car is the best. The car company may only sell a handful of cars a year. And they are fine with that.

The best fetch the highest price. It’s difficult to be the best, but even harder to continue being the best. But, the best are remembered.

Be the best. It’s worth it.

(Photo by carzphotos)

This post is part of my notes from the Online Marketing Summit I attended in June 2009 in Cleveland, OH.

Aaron Toledo, Business Online

When implementing actionable analytics, starts with goals. Business metrics and goals -> Reporting -> Analysis -> Testing, optimization, and action, then repeat. Ask yourself “why?”. Analytics is the center of data-driven decision making. Educate the “HiPPO” with transparent communication, context, goal visualization, and internal support. HiPPO = Highest Paid Persons Opinion. Properly measure through off and on-site analytics. Also measure the behavior of the user.

Understand long-tail keywords and keyword rankings.

Less competition, lower volume per word, and you can capitalize on keyword opportunities. If you’re not in the top 10, you’re not being seen. Work with averages, because SERPs fluctuate based on a number of factors such as location and time. Attend to the user via landing page testing and path / funnel analysis.

Lots of tools available in search engine webmaster centers. (Note, Bing’s webmaster center can be found here.)

This post is part of my notes from the Online Marketing Summit I attended in June 2009 in Cleveland, OH.

Aaron Kahlow, Founder & CEO, Online Marketing Summit & Institute

Entire “wave” has been pulled down and fear is affecting good business decisions. This leads to short-term thinking and high levels of accountability. Everyone is faced with the same thing and that’s where you need to start.

C.Y.A. and have stopped new initiatives. In a very “no” phase (no time, no resources, no budget, no support, etc). Good information is hard to find.

Ask yourself: “Is the Universe friendly?” If yes, then capitalize, not survive.

1. Prioritize and pick the winners
2. More percentage of budgets will come your way
3. Put yourself in a position where people come to you for answers

Overall perspective: Online retail up, overall retail down. Amazon and Google profits up, Circuit City and newspapers are closing. Behavioral change – people moving to internet for information. 100% of people prefer electronic communication over traditional.

Industry has changed and need to have some structure:

1. Foundation: Website
   63% of people who go to your website will, if they don’t find what they are looking for, will never visit your website again.Epicenter of online marketing. Brand is affected by the website. Treat website as capital expenditure and budget for effects on all marketing. MUST think about the user first.
2. Pillar 1: Search
   Most people seeking information start at search engines. SEO greatest single impact for marketing. ENORMOUS returns. Find a way to maximize your assets and get found to level you should. Don’t let technology get in way.
3. Pillar 2: Email
   Almost 100% of communication starts or ends with email – you can’t do marketing without it. Anchor for social media. Should be treated as an integrated strategy, not silo campaign.
4. Pillar 3: Analytics
   Justify incremental changes and drive exponential return through A/B and multivariate testing. It becomes the ultimate indicator for where business and clients are. Align with business goals, change nomenclature and customize reports. Instead of using “pageviews, visitors, etc” call reports “indicators” and change the nomenclature for top management.
5. Social Media Roof
   Social media enhances and isn’t (yet) a strategy by itself. Determine object; get engaged and don’t re-invent the wheel.

Go into your analytics software, whatever that may be, and view hits on your 404 page.  Segment by referrer and see what sites sites are linking to your site and throwing the 404.  Visit those pages, find where the link is pointing to, then 301 redirect that link location to the homepage (or some other page). Or, better yet, ask the site owner to change the link url.

I’m happy to announce that my thesis, “The Social Media Use of Obama and McCain” is now available online for public viewing. In the paper, I looked at how Barack Obama and John McCain used social media, the age of the users of these sites, and the age of the voters in the 2008 presidential election. The results are interesting. It’s best to download the PDF (via scribd or docstoc) for easiest reading, but I’ve also embedded it below as well. It’s important to note that this version is slightly adapted for web distribution.

Over the coming weeks I also plan to write individual blog posts on certain sections, especially the voting results. So, if you’re interested in reading that as well, I really suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.

I’d really like to thank Dave and Connie Rigotti (my parents), Professor Carol Sullinger (adviser), Dr. Thomas W. Sharkey (mentor), Dr. Ainsworth A. Bailey (inspirer), ShareThis, eMarketer, and everyone else who helped in making this paper possible.

Please share this liberally with friends — especially via Twitter and Facebook.

Today, I spoke at the third Social Media Breakfast: Toledo event. The title of my presentation was “Do’s And Don’ts Of Business Blogging” and you can view the embedded slides below or on slideshare.

Thank you for the wonderful questions and comments at the event. Also, a huge thank you to the SMB: Toledo planning committee for making it very easy for me. If you’re in the Toledo area, I really recommend making it to the next event on July 10.

The contest I’m running, where the winner will get a free pass to Affiliate Summit East is being extended through June.

How to Enter to Win

1. Follow @drigotti on Twitter
2. Tweet the following message on your Twitter account:

Enter to win a free pass to Affiliate Summit East! Follow @drigotti and RT to enter! Contest info at http://bit.ly/nZ8Tm #ASE09

So, break out those accounts and start tweeting!

In honor of National Small Business Week, I’ve come up with a list of 10 ways on how you can get involved with entrepreneurship for free. Small businesses are important because they (from SBA Advocacy):

1. Employ about half of all private sector employees.
2. Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
3. Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.
4. Create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
5. Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer
   workers).
6. Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 28.9 percent of the known
   export value in FY 2006.

So without further ado, here’s how you can get involved with entrepreneurship for free.

Start a company

• Bizdom U
  “Bizdom U provides comprehensive, real-world training, mentorship, and support for aspiring entrepreneurs who have a burning passion and determination to build their own growth-oriented, Detroit-based business.”
• Y Combinator
  “Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups. We help startups through what is for many the hardest step, from idea to company.”
• TechStars
  “TechStars is a mentorship-driven seed stage investment fund. Each year we run a summer-long program in Boulder, Colorado and Cambridge, Massachusetts. We’re very selective – each year hundreds of companies apply to the program and we only take about ten per city. These companies get up to $18,000 in seed funding, a summer of intensive top-notch mentorship, and the chance to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the summer.”
• Startup Weekend
  “Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.”

Provide content

• Startup Nation
  “StartupNation is a free service founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. We created this site to be your one-stop shop for entrepreneurial success, and we’re thrilled that StartupNation has grown to be the leading online content and community resource for entrepreneurs.”

Volunteer

• Startup Advisor
  Advisors act as mentors for new businesses. Typically, they have experience in the particular industry or with entrepreneurship, but that’s not always the case.
• Chamber of Commerce
  Many chapters of the Chamber of Commerce welcome volunteerism and, depending on your experience level, may connect you with small businesses in the area who are seeking help.
• Small Business Administration
  “The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses. Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands and Guam.”
• S.C.O.R.E
  “SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” is a nonprofit association dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)… Both working and retired executives and business owners donate time and expertise as business counselors.”
• University Programs
  Many universities now have entrepreneurship programs that look for “real-world” help, stories, and more.

(A thanks is owed to the Loud Amplifier Marketing blog for reminding me it’s National Small Business Week with their post titled “Harnessing the Web for Start Ups.”)

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