Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Another great lesson from the KISSmetrics blog and GrowthHackerTV: http://bit.ly/19Qm8xT “5. Deep growth can’t be hacked You can do things to drive traffic. You can do things to retain users. You can do things to hack growth at a surface level, but deep growth cannot be manipulated. Great products – the ones that are woven … Continue reading “Deep growth can’t be hacked”
The recent post on the KISSmetrics blog, “13 Critically Important Lessons from over 50 Growth Hackers” is incredibly informative: http://bit.ly/19Qm8xT What I love about this post is that it focuses on helping readers avoid common mistakes and misunderstandings about marketing. It’s so good, I’m going to break out a couple of the principles listed and … Continue reading “Leaky buckets don’t need more water.”
I had breakfast with a young entrepreneur who was upset that he hadn’t won a hackathon, despite finishing an original, working product with a high degree of difficulty. I asked him to describe what his team had built. “We built an app that lets you annotate equations. Clicking on any of the factors in the … Continue reading How To Win A Hackathon (or an Oscar)
I am a product guy, dating back to my days as a design student at Stanford. I’ve been a fan of Clay Christensen ever since “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” and even interviewed him for the student newspaper when I was a Harvard Business School student. Which is why I’m shocked that I hadn’t heard of Clay’s … Continue reading What job are people hiring your product to do?
With the rise of social media, the humble headline has become a big business. In the fraction of a second that a consumer sees a headline, that person makes the decision whether or not to click. Entire fortunes have been built on that fraction of a second. Entire companies like Buzzfeed and Upworthy have been … Continue reading What Are The 3 Scientific Rules For Writing Viral Headlines?
Since I started advising Cube26, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to gesture-based controls. The most hyped company in the space has been Leap Motion, which raised over $44 million to bring its 3-D motion control technology to the market. Quite a number of investors to whom I introduced Cube26 begged off, citing the … Continue reading To Succeed In The Market, Be Specific
Anyone who has been following applied psychology in the past decade has heard of loss aversion–specifically, people react more strongly to the loss of $100 than the gain of $100. This asymmetry is best expressed in the old startup adage (which predates loss aversion research), “Sell painkillers, not vitamins.” In my own professional career, I … Continue reading Fear of Failure > Promise of Success
Nir Eyal is one of the top minds in applying psychology to the startup world. His posts are a must-read, and he’s also a nice guy. My only complaint is that I foolishly went barefoot running with him and developed a foot problem that kept me on a cane for months (I had a problem … Continue reading The Right and Wrong Ways To Use Scarcity in Marketing
This week, I was with Jeff Tannenbaum at Manu Kumar’s recent K9 Ventures shindig. Manu is an awesome investor, brilliant guy, and all-around nice person. Hard to say why he invited Jeff and I to his party, but hey, when do I say no to free food? During the event, Manu had his entrepreneurs (and … Continue reading How to hold better startup demo days
I recently ran across the Wheel of Persuasion: http://www.wheelofpersuasion.com/ It’s a catalog of online persuasion techniques, perfect for persuasion junkies like me and Ramit Sethi (which is where I suspect I found the link). But it’s also a great example of how putting in the work can establish your status as an expert. It’s marketing … Continue reading Want to be an expert? Create a resource people rely on.