The Program

I got an email this morning from Paul Geffen, a member of our Boston Area Startup Marketing Group (which, by the way, isn’t dead….more on that very soon). He wanted to let the group know that the Founder Institute and Entrepreneurship Program is coming to Boston.

A little more info:
TheFunded Founder Institute, a four month program to help founders build the next generation of world-class technology companies, is launching a new semester in Boston from July, 2010, until October, 2010. The program is run by founders for founders, providing a structure for successful entrepreneurs to share their experiences and to provide guidance. If you have a new company or if they are thinking to start a company, we encourage you to apply to the program.

We’ve already lined up great Mentors for Boston, including;

• Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote
• Craig Kanarick, Cofounder of Razorfish
• Dharmesh Shaw, Cofounder of Hubspot
• Dan Shapiro, CEO of Ontela
• Eric Melin, CEO of Philanthropist.org
• Stephen Hau, CEO of Sharable Ink and Patientkeeper
• Doug Brenhouse, Cofounder of Metacarta
• Ryan Alfred, Cofounder of Brightscope.com
• Roger Yee, Former CEO of ShadowLogic
• Matt Johnson, CEO of OmniStrat
• And more…

The deadline for applications for the Boston course is June 23rd. Please see
http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/23/mu_php for more details and an application form.

What’s Interesting

I sent a message to all the members of the meetup group, and emailed a few questions back to Paul.
Me: How much does it cost?
Paul Geffen: The cost of the course is as follows (you can also find this info on the web site )

• First, Founders pay a $50 Application Fee to cover the costs of reviewing and testing the prospective entrepreneurs.
• Next, Founders accepted into the program contribute a $600 Course Fee to cover location fees, catering, mentor travel, and other expenses of running a 16 week program. The Course Fee is calculated by dividing costs by the expected number of accepted Founders.
• Third, if a Founder graduates from the program, they are asked to contribute warrants for 3.5% of their company priced at fair market value into a Bonus Pool that is shared between the other Founders, the Mentors, the local operators, and the Institute. 30% of the Bonus Pool returns goes right back to the Founders themselves, allowing each graduate to earn returns based on the success of their peers. Enrolled Founders can drop out at any time and avoid joining the Bonus Pool.
• Lastly, if a company is successful and receives financing from third parties, the Institute asks that the company pay a one time Tuition of $4,500, which supplies the operating capital for the Institute.

Me: How long has the Founder Institute and this course been around?
Paul Geffen: The history:
The Institute is funded by Adeo Ressi, a serial entrepreneur and Founding Member of TheFunded, Incorporated. The idea for the Institute began in January, 2009, as a way to help Founders avoid common mistakes that lead to the failure of a business. In February, Topicki was launched as an interactive curriculum builder for the sessions, and hundreds of CEOs contributed ideas on what Founders need to know. On March 3rd, the story was leaked to TechCrunch, forcing the Institute to move quickly on plans. The company was incorporated on April 16th, 2009, using the same documents offered to the public and to the participating Founders one day before accepting applications.
The Institute is currently running in ten cities.  This is the first Boston course – we have already graduated founders in the other nine cities, including:

• SF Bay Area
• Denver
• San Diego
• Singapore
• Paris
• LA
• New York
• Washington, DC

Me: Any success stories to share?
Paul Geffen: Some of our graduates are listed here: http://www.founderinstitute.com/companies

Me: When is the entry deadline?
Paul Geffen: The application deadline for Boston is June 23rd.

All right, here we go. The wireless is working, I’ve got a power strip right next to me, and I’ve consumed about a half gallon of apple juice. Life is most certainly good.

The first session I’m checking out is all about SEO, a topic that has always fascinated me. Here’s the description:

Bringing SEO In-house Without Missing A Beat

Many companies are considering bringing SEO in-house to save money, but doing so is challenging. It’s usually done with a lot of trial and error and often has a detrimental impact on the program. In this session, we’ll show you how companies are bringing their SEO programs in-house wihtout missing a beat. You’ll discover real-life examples about how companies are implementing SEO in-house across the globe.

You’ll learn:

• How to mitigate the obstacles
• What works, what doesn’t work
• When it still makes sense to use an outside agency, and how to make the most of your spend

Speakers:

Jessica Bowman- In-house SEO Advocate, founder of SEOinhouse.com
Bill Scully, Director E-Marketing, Siemens Water TEchnologies

Jessic Bowman isn’t here, so Bill Scully is jumping in to run the show. Rather than making the presentation about moving from an agency to in-house, he’s going to focus on what to do to optimize SEO in house.

In house SEO requires dedication and continuous learning, and takes up a huge percentage of a person’s time. He’s showing his Daily, Weekly and Yearly tasks:

Daily SEM tasks:

Listen to SEO and Online Marketing Podcasts- Downloading and listening to them going to and from work.
Reading SEO/SEM Newsletters and Blogs
Check Twitter Account for breaking news
Keep  a journal- Keeping a log of tests and changes
Check Analytics

Weekly SEM tasks:

Analyze web logs and reports for:

• Key campaign traffic changes
• Goal changes
• Overall Traffic Changes
• 404 errors
• Linking Generation Reports

SEO maintenance:

• Page sculpting
• Copy optimization
• Work with IT
• Link building

Monthly SEM tasks:

• Attend WebEx
• Audit site/templates
• Check all no-follows are still in place
• Make sure robots.txt file is still correct
• Check custom 404 Page is still working
• Check redirects are 301 and go to the proper pages
• Update XML site map

Yearly:

• Put together a 1 and 3 year SEO strategic Plan
• Budget
• Review staffing, service, training needs

Overall Strategy to get More Buy-in

Identify what you need to do

• Do an SEO audit
• Get a WordTracker Account
• Start a program under the radar

Roll Out Small Pilot

• Work with early adopters and meet monthly

Expand Pilot

• Success breeds success
• Go after easy wins
• Ask for bigger commitment ($)

Make Business Case

• Share Stats
• Share competitive research

Ask for buy-in

• Market your Keyword Tools
• Meet with Product/Market Mgrs
• Go after next year plans

That’s it for Bill, and now that Jessica is here, we’re going to go back to the other side of the presentation. The slides are available here.

Session Review Before It Is Over- Yup, I’m going to review this one right in the middle, as the presenter is taking time out to monkey around with the powerpoint file.

This one was okay. I think the reason I didn’t learn anything here is that:

• I’m not from a huge company looking to bring SEO in-house
• Because of that, I don’t need to learn the process of getting buy-in from different departments

So, if I were from a large company looking for advice into how to get more $$ for an in-house PPC campaign, this might be a really informative session for me. I’m definitely not knocking it; I’m just not the right audience.

The key takeaway from the session is this: SEO takes a lot of time, and you’re probably doing it wrong. That’s the message that I’m hearing here.

One bullet that makes sense: In-house resources often do not have the respect of a consultant. I completely agree with this. In my experience, an in-house person that is absolutely kicking maximum ass at driving traffic to the site is seen as an amateur doing the bare minimum. The company brings in a consultant that puts together a 15 slide PowerPoint that regurgitates Matt Cutts quotes, talks about Meta Tags and charges $5K, and they’re hailed as a genius without actually doing anything.

I’ve been there before, folks (three or 4 jobs ago), and I’m not bitter at all.

Piece of advice: Everyone that wants to get started with Keyword Suggestions, Difficulty of keywords, SEO score and grading, etc. that is in a b-to-b company that is currently using an agency should sign up for Hubspot. I strongly recommend it.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been kicking around the thought of having some kind of event series focused on startup marketing. The idea is to get a bunch of Boston-area tech entrepreneurs together to talk about the challenges they face in getting past all the noise and getting their products/services noticed. I’ve been reaching out to some folks here in the Boston startup community and have received very positive feedback….it looks like people would really like to get together to share tips and info.

So, with all that out of the way, let me introduce you to two things:

1. BostonStartupMarketing.com-  I set this up as a community site for the group. I’ll be announcing events here, and I’d love it if people in the Boston startup community want to contribute posts. If you’re interested, please register at the site and let me know. Also, if you see any posts on other blogs relevant to startup marketing or Boston-based startups, or know any blogs that would be good for the blogroll, let me know and I’ll be happy to post them. I want this site to be a resource, so if you see something useful, send it along.

2. The Boston Area Startup Marketing Group- I created a group on meetup.com for Boston area entrepreneurs and marketers, and I’ll use this group as a way to announce events. If you’re interested, please join the group, and I’ll be in touch when events are planned.

If you’re in the Boston area and want to get involved, please let me know. I’m definitely not the greatest event planner, so I’d love any help, tips, suggestions, etc.

I have a confession to make: I’m a blogtalkradio fanboy. Yep. It’s true. Since I started using it, I haven’t shut up about it. When I did a presentation at podcamp Boston last year, blogtalkradio was one of my tips on building an audience for the content you create.

With that confession out of the way, let me tell you what blogtalk radio is, and why it rules.

What Is BlogTalkRadio?

Well, here’s what they say about themselves:

BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. Our network has produced tens of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.

Here’s how I describe it: You can have your own live podcast where listeners can call in and ask questions. And when you’re done with it, you automatically get an mp3 of the recording, as well as embed code that you can add to your web site. And it’s all free.

It works like this:

1. You sign up for an account (for free), and they give you a phone number to call. That’s your host number. Whenever you schedule a show, that’s the number you call to start the show.
2. When you’re ready to start a show, you call the number and log in at the site. You have a dashboard that shows any callers. Over at blogstring, Sarah and I used to do a show on BlogTalkRadio. I’d give her the number and she’d call in. Her number would appear on the dashboard and I’d just click on it to enable her “mic”. When the show started, it sounded like we were in the same room even though we were in different states.
3. You also get a listener call in number. Throughout the show and on our blog, we’d give out the number and would encourage people to call in. Again, as soon as someone called I could see it on the dashboard.
4. You get embed code- As soon as you schedule your show, blogtalkradio gives you an embed code to add to your blog/site. That way, your blog readers can listen to you live right on your blog while you broadcast, or they can replay a show after it is over.
5. You’re listed in the blogtalkradio directory- BlogTalkRadio is not only a production and distribution service, they’re also a podcast discovery destination. While most members are there to have their own show, there are also users just looking to find something to listen to. Blogtalkradio has a categorized directory of shows as well as a “What’s On Now” section where listeners can browse through shows that are happening that moment.

The Benefits

1. Content for your site- This is a no-brainer. Having more content for your site is always a good thing, and having embedded audio is always a good thing.
2. Two-way Live Communication- Of course I’m a huge fan of blogging, but it’s really a method of staggered one-way communication. You write a blog post. Someone reads it and leaves a comment. You think about it and comment back. Though it’s definitely a conversation, it’s pretty impersonal and measured. It’s completely different when you’re talking to someone live. There’s something real about that.
3. Networking- When you’re talking about a subject you’re excited about and get to talk with people that share the same passion, it’s a great networking opportunity. And I’m not talking about a “let’s exchange business cards and pretend we care about each other” kind of networking. I’m talking about a “wow, this person really knows what they’re talking about and I’d love to talk with them more” kind of networking.
4. Multi-Channel Promotion- Rather than just having a post on your blog, when you use blogtalkradio, you have content on their site, on your blog, on iTunes, etc. Instead of trying to lure people to your site to hear what you have to say, the content is in multiple places. It’s putting content where people are instead of trying to bring people to your content. That’s a hell of a lot easier, isn’t it?
5. Thought Leadership- I know, I know. “Thought Leadership” is the buzziest of buzz words. But I think it’s obvious to say that if you are consistently and knowledgeably speaking about a topic, there’s a much better chance of being perceived as an expert.

The Risk

Okay, so if you’ve read this far, there’s a pretty good chance that you now understand the upside of using blogtalkradio. So now let me tell you about the risk.

If you use blogtalkradio just to talk about your business, you’ll be ignored. Now, if you’re a company like Microsoft or Sun, you can get away with it. But if you’re a startup without a huge fan base, you’ll probably be seen as a shill. Think about a corollary in real life: think of the last commercial you heard on the radio and imagine that instead of the show you were listening to, the show was instead just an hour long commercial. Would you listen? I’m guessing you would not.

Here’s what I’ve done with some success (at least in my mind): when I worked at matchmine, I had the pleasure of hosting a semi-weekly show called “Talking On The Internet” with Trent Adams. Trent was the founder of matchmine, an officer in the Data Portability Work Group, and pretty much the smartest guy I’ve ever known. He also has a top-notch bullshit detector, so when I convinced him to do a show with me, it was an unspoken law that we wouldn’t just be matchmine cheerleaders. Instead, we talked about broader topics that touched on some of the work we were doing at matchmine, and at the end of the show we plugged the company site and blog. You can hear the shows we did here.

The Effort

The hardest part of having a show on blogtalkradio is the planning. The best way to do it is to have a prep sheet that chunks out the segments you want to cover in 5 minute intervals. It’s amazing how quickly 30 minutes can zoom by…especially if people call in. If anyone wants an example of a prep sheet, shoot me an email and I’ll dig one up for you.

Also, after all prep is done, and before you’re about to go live with the show, it’s time to promote. We’d always do a blog post giving the time, subject, notes, phone number, etc. beforehand, and right before the show was to go live we’d post the URL and phone number on twitter. That seemed to work really well.

Despite the lengthy post here, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of blogtalkradio. Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to help out.

Today, telonu launched the public beta of their service, a community site where users can talk about their employer anonymously. The site mixes reviews and ratings of companies with networking features. From their press release:

Telonu Inc. today announced the beta launch of its free user generated content community website, www.telonu.com focused on the workplace. Users gain valuable insight to what insiders are saying about a company. In turn, they can share what’s on their mind regarding the workplace, the people they work with and other important things in their lives, such as schools, brands purchased, and even what’s hot for lunch!

The Upside

When looking for a new job, it’s hard to find out what a prospective employer is actually all about. Every company talks about their “culture”, but how can you get an objective opinion about working at a company until you actually work there? Telonu tries to tackle this problem by having employees anonymously post opinions about their employer.

Taking a look at a review of Citigroup I see this:

Go to an ivy league undergrad — work on the Street — Go back to a top tier Business School — get lured into Citi bank thinking that you will climb up the corporate ladder faster as you have a combination of people savyy and financial engineering smarts picked up at B School — and then get laid off. This is the story of hot shots at Citi and others — not to mention our friends at Bear and Lehman … this is a white color top tier recession — that we have never seen

On the other end of the spectrum there are posts like this one about myspace:

I was at a party recently in the bay Area and there were some facebook employees there. I was just amazed at the fact that they believed that Facebook was larger than MySpace. We are far better than facebook, have a lot more users and also make tons more $ — guys — get over it!

The Downside

While it’s easy to see that there could be value in a site that gives a real, insider’s look at a company, there are some drawbacks:

1. Authentication- Since the foundation of telonu is built on anonymity, there’s nothing to prevent a user from signing on to the service and pretending to be an employee of a company. For instance, if I have a competitor I don’t like, I could post a negative review and say I work at the company.

2. Spam- On the other hand, employees of companies can use telonu to talk about how great they are, using it as a spam vehicle.

3. Motivation- The one question that comes to mind is: why would someone take the time to review a company unless they’re extremely unsatisfied (as can be seen with people posting layoff notices) or are using the service as a marketing channel.

4. Anonymous Slander- Aside from rating companies, users can also rate and comment on individual employees. And since the users are anonymous and are not authenticated, anyone can say they work with anyone else and call them a big fat jerk.

Have a look at the site here and let me know what you think. Would you use telonu when researching a company? Is the system too open to manipulation?

So, here’s the situation. I was plowing through emails this morning and had an email from FastPitch Networking. Here’s what it said:

All right. No big deal, right? You get stuff like this all the time, no? But then…….

My phone rings. I answer it.

“Hi this is Bob Poole from FastPitch Networking…..”

Wait, does Bob somehow know that I’m looking at the email at that moment? That was kinda weird.

Rather than Bob actually calling me, it was a prerecorded robocall from FastPitch Networking. The call basically reiterated the same information from the email, then let me know that if I had any questions, I could find the answers on the web site.

I looked back at their site, and noticed that a phone number is required to sign up for the service, but I didn’t see anything in the privacy policy about them calling you (though it didn’t say they wouldn’t either!).

So, I was just wondering:

• Is this a successful strategy? I mean, I understand how effective a phone call to a prospect can be, but is a robocall effective?
• Has anyone else tried this technique?
• How would you feel if a service you use (twitter, facebook, etc) robocalled you to encourage you to check out new features?

I’m not annoyed or mad, nor do I necessarily think this was a bad thing. Instead, it’s just something I’ve never heard of before and I’m curious to see what others have experienced.

So, I have literally hundreds of business cards that I’ve collected from my time at matchmine. And since I’m now doing both freelance and contract work, I’m wondering what’s the best way to use my contacts. Here’s a thought I had:
Given the fact that I HATE getting spammy, list-like emails from people and companies, I don’t want to just add everyone’s name to Plaxo and enter them as contacts. I’d also love to be able to create a database of people I’ve met (you can see the inherent conflict here, right?). So, I was thinking about putting together one huge contact list with everyone on the pile of biz cards I have. Then, I’d send out one email that says the following:

Hi. I’m Nathan Burke.
You’re getting this email once and exactly once because I have your business card. As the web community evangelist for matchmine, I met you. Most likely I met you at Podcamp Boston or the Web 2.0 Expo in New York. Now that matchmine has closed its doors, I’m trying to pull together a list of people that wouldn’t mind getting emails from me periodically.

So, instead of asking you to reply and let me know if you DON’T want to be on my list, I thought I’d do it the other way. If you’re someone that wants to stay in touch with me, please reply and let me know that. Otherwise, I promise: I won’t send you email again at this address.

Like everyone else, I hate getting spammy emails, and I don’t want to be that guy. But I really do want to stay in touch with people that I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and talk to at the various events I attended over the last few years.

So, if you want to stay in touch, feel free to email me back and I’ll put you in my address book. I’m not planning on sending out a newsletter of any type or anything like that, but I definitely want permission from anyone that ends up in my contact list.

Thanks so much.
-Nathan

http://blogstring.com

http://www.nathanwburke.com

nathan.burke@gmail.com

What do you think? Is this the way to go, or will people hate the fact that I’m sending them a big bulk email regardless of the fact that I have their business card? I’d love to hear any suggestions. Thank you!

Well, you know how they tell you to write about what you’re familiar with? Here goes.

So, a couple of days ago, matchmine shut down. All 50ish of us have been working the phones, sending emails, and talking to friends trying to land our next gigs. Here are some of the tactics I’ve been using to find my next job.

1. Ning- Once the news hit, our CEO set up a matchmine network on Ning.com. The group is by invitation only, so we have a private group allowing us to post resumes, send leads to each other, and post information on search firms, headhunters, etc. Right now, this is our main forum for interaction.

2. LinkedIn- An obvious one, but so far, the best source for finding the next job. As soon as I changed my status on LinkedIn, I started getting notifications from people with opportunities. In addition, linkedin has been great for networking. By writing recommendations for former co-workers and requesting recommendations, we’re able to give potential employers a better idea of what we’re like than we could ever do on a static resume.

3. Twitter- If you’ve got a solid network on twitter, it never hurts to notify your friends that you’re looking for a new position. I wrote a blog post on the company’s closing, and linked to that on twitter. I got some great responses, and at least one solid lead.

4. Startuply- Still want to stay in the startup game? Startuply is a new job board specifically devoted to jobs at startup companies. The Boston-area list is pretty thin and far more technical than I’m looking for, but there are some decent listings there.

5. ReadWriteWeb’s JobWire- It’s brand new, but worth checking out. ReadWriteWeb is using JobThread to run their own startup-focused job board.

6. TechCrunch’s CrunchBoard- TechCrunch uses personalforce to run their tech job board.

7. Facebook- Simply saying that I was looking for a new gig led to several facebook messages from friends and colleagues, some giving decent leads.

8. Mashable’s Job Board-  Though the listings are thin, mashable’s job list has some good filtering, allowing you to search by job type, location, etc.

9. GoBigNetwork- Lists nothing but startup jobs.

10. HotStartupJobs.com- A startup focused job aggregator.

11. StartupAgents.com- A meeting place for startups and applicants to find each other. As a job seeker, you create a profile describing your startup experience, risk level, etc., and invite “agents” to connect with you.

12. Startupers.com- A no-frills job board centered around startups.

13- Your own blog- You know, like I’m doing right now.

These are just a few of the free resources available to those looking to snag a web 2.0 or startup-based gig. Please feel free to post any others you may know of.

Steve Rubel is the man. I’ve been thinking of just how exhausting it is to keep track of all the new betas, web 2.0 startups and the like, and once again, he said it best:

We’re a million monkeys running on treadmills, chasing the latest banana.

He’s exactly right. Right now the web seems absolutely chaotic with a million monkeys creating blogs, tools, and companies, and they’re all doing so at the speed of light (or at least the fastest speed possible for a monkey).

In one sense, this is great. People are excited about the possibilities new technologies are creating, and the entrepreneurial spirit is spreading like a virus. On the other hand, there are just too many services out there competing for attention. Every time one app or service stands out, new competitors pop up as the next _____ killer or _____ clone. Every myspace has a facebook. Every twitter, a pownce.

The one thing that really stands out to me is the duration of attention and the speed of change (okay, maybe that’s two things). What’s hot today will be stale next week, and a footnote next month. Things like myspace follow a curve of 1) beloved 2) something that will completely change the game 3) a target 4) passe 5) a dinosaur.

And that’s in the space of a few months.

In his article, Steve points to Brian Reich’s idea of Shiny Object Syndrome- the idea that we aren’t focused on how we’re using technology and for what purpose, but instead, we are interested in whatever is new.

He also says something that makes me smile:

The most interesting action is in sociology. In other words, how does technology change our culture and how we interact with media, the web and each other – and to what end?

Finally. Someone makes me believe that my sociology degree was worthwhile.

One final gem from Steve’s post deals with how the business monkeys are trying to leverage the new shiny objects, and how they often miss the point:

In fact, I advise marketers not to invest too much time in creating “a Facebook strategy” as much as they don’t have “an NBC strategy” or “a New York Times strategy.” Instead, I encourage them to people watch, learn and then plan based on their audience and the big picture.

Excellent post, Steve.