Founder Institute and Entrepreneurship Program Boston- Deadline 6/23/10

by Nathan W. Burke on June 7, 2010

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.

I really like the idea, and the stable of startup CEOs and founders is pretty insane. I’d apply in a second, but since I’m not a co-founder and can’t commit a percentage of the company into a pool, I won’t be able to do this. But, I took a look at the application, and it’s really interesting.

Two things on the application:

  • A LinkedIn profile is mandatory, and must be 85% complete with at least 1 recommendation and at least 10 connections
  • There’s an optional field asking you to introduce yourself, your passion and your idea in a 120 second YouTube clip

Very cool.

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A Tale Of Two Emails: Which Will Win?

by Nathan W. Burke on June 3, 2010

Last night we released the newest version of Aprigo NINJA, and I’m about to send out an email to our entire user base announcing what’s new. Since we’ve just started using Lyris and Salesforce.com together to both send and track the messages we send, I’m now sending two separate messages.

Which do you think will perform best?

Contender 1:

Subject: When they ask about access to sensitive data, just hand them this.

Reporting On Data Access? No Problem

One thing we’ve heard from our customers from the beginning is some form of: “whenever someone asks me to show them who has access to our data, I cringe. It’s a huge hassle.”

Imagine being asked to produce:

  • A detailed report of all the users and groups that have access to the “Finance” folder
  • A report showing which folders are accessible to everyone
  • A report that looks at specific users and groups and which data they can access

Until now, that would be an incredibly manual, time-consuming headache.

But yesterday’s release of Aprigo NINJA made reporting a breeze. Have a look at the reporting options in the new release on our blog.

Prove You’re A Data Security NINJA, Win An iPad

Think you’ve got your data on lockdown? Prove it, and you could in an iPad in the Aprigo Data Security Ninja Challenge.

Contender 2:

Subject: CFOs are the enemy of Role-Based Access Control

The Aprigo NINJA DashboardOr so I was told by an IT manager that works with us as a design partner. This is why we’re excited about the new Aprigo NINJA release from yesterday that adds the following capabilities:

If you have your CFO under control and you’re a data security NINJA – you may be eligible for a Free iPad

Well, which do you think will work best? I’ll post the results next week.

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Getting Sneaky With Subject Lines- Is There Such Thing As Bad Attention?

by Nathan W. Burke on April 20, 2010

Sometimes you get an email with a subject line that makes you open it immediately. For good or for bad, you take notice and take action.

There’s No Such Thing As Bad Attention

Okay, you’re right. That’s not the right wording of the famous saying (“There’s no such thing as bad press“), but is it true? In a world full of noise, is any attention good attention?

Let’s use a more concrete example that applies to the startup marketer.

Fact One: Very few people have heard of your company
Fact Two: You have a database of people that have signed up for your product or service, have indicated interest in what you have to say, etc.
Fact Three: With people inundated by emails, it is increasingly difficult to get someone’s attention with nothing but an email subject line

Given these three facts, you can see why spammers will do anything they can to get you to open an email. They really have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Just a few minutes ago I got an email from staples that looked like this:The subject line: Thanks for your purchase! Open for more great products.

What? I didn’t just buy something from Staples! I’d better open this up and see what the hell is going on….

Ahhhh. I get it. I bought something in the store, not online. Clever.

Is Opening The Email The Ultimate Goal?

Like anything else in marketing, let’s ask the question: What is the goal of this campaign?

If the goal is simply to get someone to open the email, Staples did a great job here. If, however, the goal is to get them to click over to the site or to buy more pens, I’m going to guess this isn’t the campaign they’re looking for.

Or if the goal is simply to remind people that Staples exists without getting them to unsubscribe…..(and write blog posts about them)…….

Some Common Tricks You Can Try

Staples has an advantage in that they only send this email out to reward card users that have just purchased something, but there are a couple of common tricks you can try in your email subject lines:

  • Re: Getting started with [Product Name]– This is an old one but a clever one. Makes you think someone is actually replying to what you wrote, giving it that personal feeling.
  • Fwd: New Office Rules– Not quite as strong as the Re: email, but this makes you think that a close acquaintance sent this your way. The new office rules gives it a nice touch as well.
  • Question For An Article: This one works every time, as it makes you think someone sees you as an expert and wants your opinion. Use this with caution, however, as opening this way and following up with a product plug makes you look like a dick.
  • Are You Going On Thursday?: Coming from a personal address, this can confuse someone into thinking a friend or acquaintance is inviting you to something or seeing if you’ll be at an event.

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Facebook Ads For Startup Lead Generation

by Nathan W. Burke on March 8, 2010

It’s been a while since my last post here, as I’ve been spending more time walking the walk than talking the talk. That, and I’ve been trying to figure out the line between revealing too much and not adding enough value. I think I’ve found that line (hopefully those aren’t famous last words!), and I’m back to blogging.

My Purpose In Life (At Work, At Least)

I’ll always remember my answer when asked “What’s the goal of marketing at a startup?” when interviewing for my current gig. The answer: “Drive sales.”

Before moving on from a declarative statement like that, I should add a small caveat. There are some startups that simply don’t have anything to sell. So let me change my answer to “Drive the pre-defined success event”. It really doesn’t have the same ring as “drive sales”, but you get the picture. If the goal is to get people to sign up, that’s the success event. Moving right along.

Using Facebook Ads To Generate Leads

Back in January, we released the first paid version of our software. Prior to that, we had a free version, and most of my lead generation activities for the free app were, well, free. I did a lot of outreach, listings, etc., but didn’t really spend much money. With the release of the paid product, I was able to do a little bit of PPC spending.

Sure, I’ve done a lot of AdWords campaigns, but they just don’t work. The price per click is very high, the conversion rate is low, and those that actually signed up for a free trial of our product were few and very far between.

Enter facebook.

My preconception: Since facebook is primarily a place where people update their friends and play games, it would NOT be a good lead generation avenue.

Looking Back: Boy, was I wrong.

I’m obviously not going to share the raw numbers with you, but I can tell you this: facebook is by orders of magnitude the best lead generation channel we have. Here’s what’s so great about facebook ads:

1. Targeting is awesome.

With facebook, the targeting is HUGE. You can target geographically, by age, by gender, and by “Likes” (called Keywords here). The keyword field lets you target interests, by scanning what users have indicated within their profile.
2. Ads are cheap- Right now I’m looking at around $0.70 per click, which is FAR less than AdWords and the leads are highly targeted.

3. Ads are fun- Since this is facebook and you’re trying to compete for a visitor’s attention, you really need to come up with some interesting, fun ads. Here are a few that have worked well for me.

4.Time To Campaign Is Fast- It literally takes minutes to get a campaign up and running. Where AdWords can take days to give you a single impression, facebook ads go up in minutes, and you start getting impressions immediately.

All right, that’s all for now.

In the coming posts, I’ll be talking about things like:

  • Using one-day only facebook ads
  • Micro-targeting using facebook ads
  • The lifecycle of a single ad on facebook (hint, it’s short)
  • Running a branding campaign using facebook (succeeding without ever getting a click)

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As A Startup, Should You Copy Your Competitors?

by Nathan W. Burke on January 22, 2010

As a startup, does it make sense to study and incorporate what your competition has done, or should you try to chart your own path? It’s one of those sticky subjects I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately.

Taking Advantage Of What Others Have Already Done

On the “pro” side of the argument are the following points:

  • “If X doesn’t put their pricing on their web site, we shouldn’t either. They must have done that for a reason.”
  • “Company X spent thousands designing their landing pages, and they make a lot of money. Therefore, we should make ours look just like theirs.”
  • “A company similar to ours got 60% of their leads from TechTarget. We should be able to do the same.”

It’s a pretty convincing idea: Another company has done ___________ and they are successful, so if we do _________ we will be too. Perhaps the most seductive rationale for copying the competition is precedence. If you incorporate something you’ve copied from your competition and it fails, it’s easy to say “that doesn’t make sense…..it worked for X, so it should work for us.” That’s  pretty convenient copout.

The Problem With Competitive Mimicry

Now that’s a pretty good one, isn’t it? Competitive mimicry? Whatever you want to call it, there are a few problems with doing what the others have done:

  • At best, you’ll only do as well as your competitors
  • Unless you know your competitor personally, you don’t know how well they’re doing
  • You miss out on a chance to do something new

The second bullet is important. Let’s use the example of a landing page. Simply ripping off the layout and design of a competitor’s landing page because you know them to be successful could be a very bad idea. Maybe they have terrible conversion rates on their PPC pages, but do a great job at cold calling. You might end up copying something that isn’t working for them at all.

The third bullet is something to think about. Looking at almost every B2B web site, you’ll find that a user has to fill in a form to get any information whatsoever. Want to read a whitepaper? Well, you’ll have to tell us your name, email and phone number for the privilege.

So, if you’re a “copy the competition” type, you’ll probably do the same and put up a wall between a visitor and a whitepaper. Everyone else does it. But maybe you’re missing an opportunity. Maybe visitors hate the mandatory forms with the intensity of a thousand suns. Maybe simply allowing visitors to get the information they want would make them like you more than your lame competitors. Maybe you could even build a campaign around the fact that your company believes visitors shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get information about a product.

Maybe. But that would take more effort than doing what the other guys have done.

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Startups.com – The StackOverflow For Entrepreneurs

by Nathan W. Burke on November 12, 2009

It’s lame to call something the x for y, but I can’t help it in this case. Startups.com reminds me of StackOverflow.com and ServerFault.com, both sites that allow IT Pros to ask questions, submit answers, and generally help each other out.

Like those sites, startups.com encourages entrepreneurs to ask questions about anything related to starting, running, operating and marketing a startup. The home page:

Startups.com is a new service by Startups.com Network, Inc, the company behind KillerStartups.com, a site that reviews startups.

Some people are criticizing Startups.com for using the same software/approach as Answers.OnStartups.com, but I think they’re missing the real benefit here. Having a resource for entrepreneurs to discuss issues, share tips, and generally help each other is really a great thing, and I think there’s room for more than one site.

As someone working at a startup in marketing, I’m really enjoying the quality of the questions and discussions in the marketing category, and I’ve already started adding my 2 cents in discussions.

So, if you’re an entrepreneur I’d suggest adding startups.com to your list of resources.

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12 Google Wave Invites- But Wait, There’s A Catch

by Nathan W. Burke on October 29, 2009

I was one of the lucky ones that received an early invite to Google Wave, and my first few invites went VERY quickly. I’m happy to invite anyone that wants to try it, but this time I’m adding just one condition.

Help me promote Aprigo NINJA.

The first 12 people that give me good ideas on how to promote NINJA will get an invite.

Here’s the deal: Aprigo NINJA is a free SaaS IT Management application that we released into private beta in late September. The app helps IT professionals in mid-size companies better manage their massive file growth. So I’m looking for fresh ideas on how to promote NINJA to exactly the right people it will help out. I mean, it’s free, so there’s not a lot of risk there.

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

  • Sponsored a contest on StorageMonkeys
  • Got coverage in a few industry blogs like PCMag.com
  • Added NINJA to free download sites like Tucows.com
  • Ran our own Sysadmin Appreciation Day contest

And of course, we’ve promoted on twitter, facebook, our blog, etc.

So aside from these, I’d love to hear your ideas on how to promote Aprigo NINJA to IT Pros in mid-size companies. Thanks!

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Should Startups Hire PR Firms? Journalists at WebInno Say “No.”

by Nathan W. Burke on September 30, 2009

Last night I attended the Boston Web Innovators meeting and loved the breakout panel “An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Bootstrapping PR” with Mike Troiano, Bob Brown, Scott Kirsner, Peter Kafka and Wade Roush. The one takeaway from the journalists on the panel: Journalists don’t like PR people.

Okay, I admit, that’s probably not fair. It’s not that they don’t like PR people, it’s that they don’t think that entrepreneurs should necessarily hire PR firms to get coverage from journalists. This created a little bit of controversy at a meeting where there were lots of PR folks in attendance, and there are several blog posts today defending PR for startups (A great wrapup of the event can be found on Mike Troiano’s blog here).

In This Corner: PR

It’s understandable that the PR pros in the room were upset that a panel of Boston’s most respected tech journalists told a room full of prospective clients that one of PRs biggest selling points (media coverage) is a sham. In fact, there were several times when a panelist would point out that PR people that promise coverage are simply liars.

Looking at the posts defending PR for startups, the general theme is this: PR is not just media relations. Bobbie Carlton posted her thoughts:

There was a lot of great information served up in the panel but if I was an entrepreneur, all I would have heard was, “Run away from PR people, they are useless to you.  In fact, probably worse than useless because top reporters look down on them as a breed.”

The reality is that PR = public relations and in today’s world the best PR people are skilled communicators who coach entrepreneurs as they think about how they communicate with their communities.  (All those words have “comm” as a root for a reason. )  The relevant skills found in a traditional PR tool kit include: excellent writing and communications skills, a broad understand of business and marketing,  an understanding of what makes a good story, and thus, what a community cares about.  Maybe you are calling it a Community Manager or Content Creator but it sounds like PR to me.

In This Corner: Journalists

I think it would really be easy to classify the debate here as Journalists hate PR and, like Bobbie said, you’re probably worse off hiring them, but that’s just lazy. Journalists don’t hate PR. They hate lame pitches. They don’t want to write about boring products that aren’t interesting to their readers.

And with the explosion of tech startups over the last, say, 10 years, just imagine how many coverage requests they get each day. When all those requests come from PR people using the machine gun coverage strategy of “pitch the story to anyone with an email address regardless of what they cover”, it’s pretty easy to start seeing all PR reps as evil monsters.

Let’s go to make believe land for a second. Pretend that there are thousands of 4 foot tall pink rabbits. They’re really fuzzy and cute looking, and you want to be friends with them. But every 80% of them run over to you and bite you. After a while, I think you’d probably shy away from 4 foot tall pink rabbits even though some of them just want to have a beer with you. In fact, you might even suggest to your friends that staying away from all pink rabbits is a good strategy.

The Takeaways

If you want journalists to cover your startup, there are some really idiot-simple things you should do:

  1. Select the right journalists for what you’re pitching. Find out who covers what you’re trying to get coverage for, then talk with them. In the panel, Wade Roush noted that he covers 4 specific story topics, and if your story doesn’t fit, you should probably find someone else.
  2. Connect with a hot trend. Journalists care about things like page views, so they’re much more likely to cover something that has a connection with a hot topic. Scott Kirsner’s blog gives the following advice: “My favorite columns capture something that is changing about the local innovation scene, for better or worse… useful lessons from the front lines for entrepreneurs…a trend that people are just starting to talk about, a new industry cluster emerging, an important new area of research…or an incredible story about success or failure.”
  3. Stories about people are always the most interesting. Even if you have the hottest new technology, if it doesn’t have a story about the people involved, it’s probably not all that interesting. When I worked at matchmine, we got Boston Globe coverage because we were backed by the Kraft family…..not because we had a cool recommendation engine.
  4. Make a personal connection with the journalist you are targeting. This was the one thing they all agreed on: the best way to get coverage is to get to know the journalist, have a compelling story that fits their coverage area, and be interesting.

In the end, it’s not that journalists flat-out despise PR, they just don’t want to be overwhelmed with lame pitches for boring products without an interesting story. It doesn’t matter if its a PR rep, the company’s CEO or a 4 foot rabbit…..if they’re pitching something the journalist doesn’t care about, they’re not going to waste their time.

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I was on PermissionTV

by Nathan W. Burke on August 3, 2009

The nice folks over at PermissionTV asked me to join them on their show on Friday, and the video is available here:

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Boston-Area Startup Marketing Meetup Group- July Meeting Notes and Video

by Nathan W. Burke on July 24, 2009

On Wednesday July 22nd the second meeting of the Boston-area Startup Marketing Meetup Group was held at Aprigo in Waltham. We had two presentations:

Matthew Mamet from PermissionTV gave a presentation on Using Video in Online Marketing (slides | blog post).

Phillip Zannini gave a presentation entitled “Starting Up Is Hard To Do”, as he shared his tips and suggestions for those just starting out in the startup world.

The presentations are below.

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