Why do we worry about scaleability on Day 1?

The other day I was having a Clarity call with an entrepreneur about generating initial traction for his startup idea. The entrepreneur wanted me to share some of the strategies that we had implemented (with success) at WooThemes over the years. But he had a proviso: “I know quite a bit about many inbound and outbound marketing strategies and activities, but most of them only work when you already have visitors on …

This is a fantastic post that reflects a lot of our beliefs. We at AdNuance are currently doing a lot of stuff manually before creating our automated engine. A lot of what’s being said on how startups could scale is a very resonating message for us. We hope you enjoy this post and sound your thoughts as comments.

Growing Pains - Lessons From People Who Grew Linkedin, KISSMetrics & Livingsocial As a startup founder it’s always a struggle to decide if a certain conference is worth your time. The growth hacker conference caught my attention with their speaker line up which was super impressive and included the likes of Chamath Palihapitiya (formerly of Facebook), Elliot Shmukler of Linkedin  and Aaron Batalion, CTO of Livingsocial. To top it all, the event was organized by our fellow cohort Gagan of Udemy and hence I decided to give it a shot.  The speakers shared some key actionable insights that an entrepreneur can apply to his daily business. Without much further ado, here are some of the lessons that I took away from this conference 1. Know your customers Sean Ellis, CEO of Qaularoo and formerly an Interim Marketing head of Dropbox, Xobni, Eventbrite, had an excellent presentation on how important it is for businesses to understand their customers. Often startups spend a lot of time trying to interpret customer actions via analytics and other technical solutions forgetting that they can accomplish this by asking the customer a direct question. Targeted one question surveys can yield more information and understanding of a customer than any other tool. This a reminder to entrepreneurs like us that often simple solutions are the most elegant and insightful.  2. Beware of vanity metrics, choose your benchmarks & build your own tools A panel consisting of Hiten Shah, Founder of KISSMetrics, Nabeel Hyatt, Founder of Conduit labs, and Joe Zadeh, product lead at Airbnb shared some great insights. Hiten was very clear in  advising that companies not get caught up in metrics without actually having an understanding of those metrics and their impact to growth. It’s important that companies spend time defining the metrics that matter and track them. For companies that are constantly growing it’s important to benchmark growth against their own and not just chase the competition. One last piece of advice from this great panel was, no analytics tool or solution will ever offer everything a business needs to track. It’s important for businesses to build their own tools and reports that measure growth. 3. A/B testing is not the miracle drug for growth Mike Greenfield of Circle of moms had some important aspects on A/B testing. For starters he cleared some myths about A/B testing and provided clarity. The key points are: A/B testing matters when traffic on your site / product is not a statistical blimp but an actual graph A/B testing is an investment for high growth companies to test features instead of actual product releases You cannot A/B test your product to growth without actual product vision 4. Know thy API The most spirited and energetic talk of the day was by Aaron Batalion, CTO of Livingsocial. Aaron rocked the room with some superb technical advice. It was interesting to know that before Livingsocial was a reality or a business, Aaron and his team made their livelihood building social apps for the Facebook platform. Aaron and his team built more than 60 apps before they launched the idea of Livingsocial. It was wonderful to listen to Aaron’s story on how understanding a platform’s power and leveraging API led to one of the most viral or a virus of an app (Animoto), which incidentally was also the most popular app before Zynga games. Aaron talked about how they were able to build some key aspects of virality for growth just by paying attention to API of the social platform.  5. Double down on your strengths Elliot Shmukler of Linkedin growth really shared the math behind growth strategies. He shared a story of how they chased a big number by going after a low conversion channel and raising the number. It took them about an year to get there, while they realized they achieved a growth number similar to their original goal with the high conversion channel within a short period of time. The lesson for me was double down on the strengths of your product, you will be able to grow faster. This growth will improve your weak channels too. Leveraging engaged users to evangelize your product is also a good idea. Hope these insights were helpful and happy growing pains.
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Growing Pains - Lessons From People Who Grew Linkedin, KISSMetrics & Livingsocial

As a startup founder it’s always a struggle to decide if a certain conference is worth your time. The growth hacker conference caught my attention with their speaker line up which was super impressive and included the likes of Chamath Palihapitiya (formerly of Facebook), Elliot Shmukler of Linkedin  and Aaron Batalion, CTO of Livingsocial. To top it all, the event was organized by our fellow cohort Gagan of Udemy and hence I decided to give it a shot. 

The speakers shared some key actionable insights that an entrepreneur can apply to his daily business. Without much further ado, here are some of the lessons that I took away from this conference
1. Know your customers
Sean Ellis, CEO of Qaularoo and formerly an Interim Marketing head of Dropbox, Xobni, Eventbrite, had an excellent presentation on how important it is for businesses to understand their customers. Often startups spend a lot of time trying to interpret customer actions via analytics and other technical solutions forgetting that they can accomplish this by asking the customer a direct question. Targeted one question surveys can yield more information and understanding of a customer than any other tool. This a reminder to entrepreneurs like us that often simple solutions are the most elegant and insightful. 

2. Beware of vanity metrics, choose your benchmarks & build your own tools
A panel consisting of Hiten Shah, Founder of KISSMetrics, Nabeel Hyatt, Founder of Conduit labs, and Joe Zadeh, product lead at Airbnb shared some great insights. Hiten was very clear in  advising that companies not get caught up in metrics without actually having an understanding of those metrics and their impact to growth. It’s important that companies spend time defining the metrics that matter and track them. For companies that are constantly growing it’s important to benchmark growth against their own and not just chase the competition. One last piece of advice from this great panel was, no analytics tool or solution will ever offer everything a business needs to track. It’s important for businesses to build their own tools and reports that measure growth.

3. A/B testing is not the miracle drug for growth
Mike Greenfield of Circle of moms had some important aspects on A/B testing. For starters he cleared some myths about A/B testing and provided clarity. The key points are:
  • A/B testing matters when traffic on your site / product is not a statistical blimp but an actual graph
  • A/B testing is an investment for high growth companies to test features instead of actual product releases
  • You cannot A/B test your product to growth without actual product vision
4. Know thy API
The most spirited and energetic talk of the day was by Aaron Batalion, CTO of Livingsocial. Aaron rocked the room with some superb technical advice. It was interesting to know that before Livingsocial was a reality or a business, Aaron and his team made their livelihood building social apps for the Facebook platform. Aaron and his team built more than 60 apps before they launched the idea of Livingsocial. It was wonderful to listen to Aaron’s story on how understanding a platform’s power and leveraging API led to one of the most viral or a virus of an app (Animoto), which incidentally was also the most popular app before Zynga games. Aaron talked about how they were able to build some key aspects of virality for growth just by paying attention to API of the social platform. 
5. Double down on your strengths
Elliot Shmukler of Linkedin growth really shared the math behind growth strategies. He shared a story of how they chased a big number by going after a low conversion channel and raising the number. It took them about an year to get there, while they realized they achieved a growth number similar to their original goal with the high conversion channel within a short period of time. The lesson for me was double down on the strengths of your product, you will be able to grow faster. This growth will improve your weak channels too. Leveraging engaged users to evangelize your product is also a good idea.

Hope these insights were helpful and happy growing pains.
“Startups to businesses: We are not an extension of your creative agency” ProblemImage Source: Hongkiat.com I recently read a great post of how startups face a problem dealing with brands/businesses using their time in ad creative process. Startups complain that they are not an extension of their creative agency and cannot afford to spend the time to create/realize great communication formats.There lays the problem, businesses (read advertisers) know the messages they want to broadcast on a platform. However advertisers often don’t fully understand the native interaction in these digital platforms, while startups are busy building their products and adding more interaction features.  Who then carries this burden of bridging this creative gap and bringing the knowledge of the platform? Why is this important? Let me elaborate… Each digital content, messaging, or sharing platform has it’s own distinct behavior and community dynamics. Let me start with some examples Facebook is a place for social updates between friends and family. There is a sense of community and social norms of the world that is replicated here. Businesses, as they’ve come to realize in recent times cannot propagate a commercial marketing message in such an environment. Facebook has lately figured out that too and asked advertisers not to pay attention to vanity metrics such as number of like’s , or just comments. Twitter on the other hand is more focused and has become an interest based curation platform (some even call it a media platform). Twitter seems to be taking on the lead on advertising via their promoted messages - which is very much the native interaction format of Twitter. Platforms like Tumblr however has slowly opened up it’s platform for advertising, however it has gated the advertising rush by placing a high price on its ad units, this is for the same reason of preserving the native experience of the platform.  The nuances, subtleties and the depth of interaction is different for each of these platforms. A business has to figure out the key message that it wants to propagate. The form and interaction factor of that message can be very different based on the context of platform. The “Nativity factor” of an interaction seems to be the prime aspect of successful messaging. However there still lays the problem of understanding the digital context, end target and finally marry this to the marketing message. Businesses usually outsource this to a creative agency or try and engage with the platform players and it is during this process there is friction. The other route these businesses take is to do the in-house creative or try to wing it. In house creative and winging it are both costly methods.  This is the problem premise on which we base our business on. AdNuance bridges this gap of the context of the platform, nativity factor and message. How do we do this? First we are in tune with the digital platforms, second our creative writers understand the context of the various platforms and nature of interactions, third we are acutely aware of the kind of demographics that is available to target, local aspects of that target market, urban language/lingo and the trends. A correlation of these factors with the key messaging in mind and in context of the medium of delivery is a key to the context of successful advertising - which is what we do. While a lot of information and research can be accomplished via a simple google search, curating and creating a contextual copy brief that can provide a writer key insights is not easily done. A lot of this gap can be bridged by creating a engine that mines with this motif and presents information in the prism of advertising. Imagine this kind of specially mined information when provided to a human being who specializes in creating a business message crafted just for you. That is what we offer you and our customers at AdNuance. An unprecedented and never before catered to service of intelligent, contextual, beautiful and magical world of advertising for all. It’s important that all businesses have the same access to the services, which big brands have, to compete fairly. This is a small thing we are doing to level the playing field. On the same note we should not forget that with changing form factor of communication, devices and mass media distribution businesses cannot have “1 size fits all” messaging approach. Finding a way to communicate natively to customers in the digital context they are, seems to be the only key to success. So yes startups are not an extension of a businesses creative agency but there ought to be specialized services that just do this and we hope to be the one. Sound off your thoughts on native advertising and challenges you face as a business when it comes to communicating with your customers.
View Separately

“Startups to businesses: We are not an extension of your creative agency” Problem

Image Source: Hongkiat.com

I recently read a great post of how startups face a problem dealing with brands/businesses using their time in ad creative process. Startups complain that they are not an extension of their creative agency and cannot afford to spend the time to create/realize great communication formats.There lays the problem, businesses (read advertisers) know the messages they want to broadcast on a platform. However advertisers often don’t fully understand the native interaction in these digital platforms, while startups are busy building their products and adding more interaction features. 
Who then carries this burden of bridging this creative gap and bringing the knowledge of the platform? Why is this important? Let me elaborate…

Each digital content, messaging, or sharing platform has it’s own distinct behavior and community dynamics. Let me start with some examples Facebook is a place for social updates between friends and family. There is a sense of community and social norms of the world that is replicated here. Businesses, as they’ve come to realize in recent times cannot propagate a commercial marketing message in such an environment. Facebook has lately figured out that too and asked advertisers not to pay attention to vanity metrics such as number of like’s , or just comments. Twitter on the other hand is more focused and has become an interest based curation platform (some even call it a media platform). Twitter seems to be taking on the lead on advertising via their promoted messages - which is very much the native interaction format of Twitter. Platforms like Tumblr however has slowly opened up it’s platform for advertising, however it has gated the advertising rush by placing a high price on its ad units, this is for the same reason of preserving the native experience of the platform. 
The nuances, subtleties and the depth of interaction is different for each of these platforms. A business has to figure out the key message that it wants to propagate. The form and interaction factor of that message can be very different based on the context of platform. The “Nativity factor” of an interaction seems to be the prime aspect of successful messaging. However there still lays the problem of understanding the digital context, end target and finally marry this to the marketing message. Businesses usually outsource this to a creative agency or try and engage with the platform players and it is during this process there is friction. The other route these businesses take is to do the in-house creative or try to wing it. In house creative and winging it are both costly methods. 

This is the problem premise on which we base our business on. AdNuance bridges this gap of the context of the platform, nativity factor and message. How do we do this? First we are in tune with the digital platforms, second our creative writers understand the context of the various platforms and nature of interactions, third we are acutely aware of the kind of demographics that is available to target, local aspects of that target market, urban language/lingo and the trends. A correlation of these factors with the key messaging in mind and in context of the medium of delivery is a key to the context of successful advertising - which is what we do.
While a lot of information and research can be accomplished via a simple google search, curating and creating a contextual copy brief that can provide a writer key insights is not easily done. A lot of this gap can be bridged by creating a engine that mines with this motif and presents information in the prism of advertising. Imagine this kind of specially mined information when provided to a human being who specializes in creating a business message crafted just for you. That is what we offer you and our customers at AdNuance. An unprecedented and never before catered to service of intelligent, contextual, beautiful and magical world of advertising for all.

It’s important that all businesses have the same access to the services, which big brands have, to compete fairly. This is a small thing we are doing to level the playing field. On the same note we should not forget that with changing form factor of communication, devices and mass media distribution businesses cannot have “1 size fits all” messaging approach. Finding a way to communicate natively to customers in the digital context they are, seems to be the only key to success.
So yes startups are not an extension of a businesses creative agency but there ought to be specialized services that just do this and we hope to be the one. Sound off your thoughts on native advertising and challenges you face as a business when it comes to communicating with your customers.
Offensive Foul: Do Some Ads Go Too Far?Image courtesy of Ed Yourdon, http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/ Let’s face it: advertising ain’t easy.  I take that back; good advertising isn’t easy.  You’re asked to come up with something that resonates with a certain demographic, or, for the unfortunate few, something that carries supposedly universal appeal- which doesn’t exist.  An easy (and some say cheap) method ad people use to get attention is shock.  Done well, the outrageous can garner the kind of attention, doesn’t matter whether good or bad, that makes people talk, feign disgust, or pretend to like for the sake of trying to seem desensitized and awesome.  So which ads have done it right, wrong, or some train wreck of an in-between?  Let’s take a ganders at a precious few. Offensive, Or Just Annoying? Some of the most complained about commercials have actually been tagged as whatever the highest rating is on the annoyance factor, which makes sense.  Taking offense to something is one thing, but being annoyed enough to actually call in (because people who submit complaints still use their phones to do it) takes some really deep rousing.  This KCF commercial was one of the most complained about commercials ever in the UK.  Offensive?  Not so much.  Annoying?  Very.  And there’s a big difference.  So we’ll move on.  Misguided Rage Some of you may remember the Mad Men season five preview posters that were plastered all over the side of buildings a while back.  These ads were magnificently simple, and featured a suited character falling in free space not unlike the opening credits to the actual show.  This image led some misguided idiots to pointing out the similarities between it and 9/11.  Never mind the fact that the falling man image is an homage to the movie Vertigo, which came out over 40 years before 9/11 occurred.  I can’t help but feel for the families of those affected by the events that day, but to draw comparisons between these two very different things is really reaching.  I was once involved in a pretty horrific car accident.  But I don’t get offended every time I see a Fast & the Furious car chase scene between Johnny Tran (Rick Yune is a good actor) & that bald dude.     Sometimes a flower is just a flower (all you Georgia O’Keefe fans know what I’m talking about).  Let’s Face it. We’re All Too Easily Offended I’m sure many of you have seen the Comedy Central roasts, where nothing is off topic.  Age, race, gender- these are just the opening quips of most of those extremely unattractive comedians.  Once a year a few garden gnomes get together and collectively defecate on each other and one lucky roastee about all the supposedly off-limits topics of the day.  And this is commonly accepted.  Is it because these people aren’t trying to sell us something?  Or do we feel exempt because we’re the ones being talked to?   The most offensive ad is the one that doesn’t work, because then it becomes just a tasteless joke.  It is no fun to sit and watch something that is flailing around desperately.  Remember the Groupon Super Bowl commercial?  The most offensive part of that ad was the fact that it was poorly executed.  An attempt at humor quickly turned into a cringe fest.  Everyone seemed to survive that ad, except Groupon, which gambled and lost.  Then again, that ad was one of the most talked about commercials that Super Bowl…    So here’s the moral of the post.  The next time you start to get offended by some over the line ad, turn the television off, look away, or close the page, and remember this: ads just want to get inside your head, and if you talk about them, whether good or bad, the goal has been accomplished.  But here’s the important part: some just do it with a little more class.  And that’s where AdNuance takes over.    
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Offensive Foul: Do Some Ads Go Too Far?

Image courtesy of Ed Yourdon, http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/

Let’s face it: advertising ain’t easy.  I take that back; good advertising isn’t easy.  You’re asked to come up with something that resonates with a certain demographic, or, for the unfortunate few, something that carries supposedly universal appeal- which doesn’t exist.  An easy (and some say cheap) method ad people use to get attention is shock.  Done well, the outrageous can garner the kind of attention, doesn’t matter whether good or bad, that makes people talk, feign disgust, or pretend to like for the sake of trying to seem desensitized and awesome.  So which ads have done it right, wrong, or some train wreck of an in-between?  Let’s take a ganders at a precious few.

Offensive, Or Just Annoying?

Some of the most complained about commercials have actually been tagged as whatever the highest rating is on the annoyance factor, which makes sense.  Taking offense to something is one thing, but being annoyed enough to actually call in (because people who submit complaints still use their phones to do it) takes some really deep rousing. 

This KCF commercial was one of the most complained about commercials ever in the UK.  Offensive?  Not so much.  Annoying?  Very.  And there’s a big difference.  So we’ll move on. 

Misguided Rage

Some of you may remember the Mad Men season five preview posters that were plastered all over the side of buildings a while back.  These ads were magnificently simple, and featured a suited character falling in free space not unlike the opening credits to the actual show.  This image led some misguided idiots to pointing out the similarities between it and 9/11.  Never mind the fact that the falling man image is an homage to the movie Vertigo, which came out over 40 years before 9/11 occurred. 

I can’t help but feel for the families of those affected by the events that day, but to draw comparisons between these two very different things is really reaching.  I was once involved in a pretty horrific car accident.  But I don’t get offended every time I see a Fast & the Furious car chase scene between Johnny Tran (Rick Yune is a good actor) & that bald dude.    

Sometimes a flower is just a flower (all you Georgia O’Keefe fans know what I’m talking about). 

Let’s Face it. We’re All Too Easily Offended

I’m sure many of you have seen the Comedy Central roasts, where nothing is off topic.  Age, race, gender- these are just the opening quips of most of those extremely unattractive comedians.  Once a year a few garden gnomes get together and collectively defecate on each other and one lucky roastee about all the supposedly off-limits topics of the day.  And this is commonly accepted. 

Is it because these people aren’t trying to sell us something?  Or do we feel exempt because we’re the ones being talked to?  

The most offensive ad is the one that doesn’t work, because then it becomes just a tasteless joke.  It is no fun to sit and watch something that is flailing around desperately.  Remember the Groupon Super Bowl commercial?  The most offensive part of that ad was the fact that it was poorly executed.  An attempt at humor quickly turned into a cringe fest.  Everyone seemed to survive that ad, except Groupon, which gambled and lost.  Then again, that ad was one of the most talked about commercials that Super Bowl…   

So here’s the moral of the post.  The next time you start to get offended by some over the line ad, turn the television off, look away, or close the page, and remember this: ads just want to get inside your head, and if you talk about them, whether good or bad, the goal has been accomplished.  But here’s the important part: some just do it with a little more class.  And that’s where AdNuance takes over.    

An Image Is Worth 1000 Words, Do You Have One?

Image Transcends The Realms Of The Physical
Image. It’s born in the crevices of imagination, raised by the stares, the compliments, the drive-bys; and if cultivated just right, it grows up to have other-worldly appeal. It’s why people wear their shades indoors (and arguably, wear shades at all). It’s why I wouldn’t dare touch my hair, that naturally falls in soft waves, with permanent chemicals for fear it might lose its look. Image is the answer and the validation to our striving- products become the props that help get us there or make people see where we are. Image ignites the flames of style and the glowing embers of charisma. It’s on the outside, yet its staying power comes from the inside. It exudes magnetism, it’s about the intangibles, blurring the lines of physical and inner qualities. I’d argue that what brands and good advertising really sell is an image. You’re buying an outlook on life, a system of beliefs, a personality, a trait. Sell the right image and consumers will flock to your product like screaming teenage girls to Justin Bieber.

Outshine With The Gleam Of Image
Image isn’t only the perceived breadth of our surroundings, it’s within a brand and ourselves.  Rooted in our minds, it’s tied to self-worth and brand value. Image is the gleam that defines a product or service and makes it stand out. Brand image is vital to success. Take celebrity endorsements. The image of the celeb shines a glaring light on the image of the product. Personal image puts on its cleats and comes into play also. The image we like is a potent mix of our fantasies, desires, and realities; and we often choose to buy based on that. I can tell you that you can snowboard just as well with a cheaper, Salomon board as all the cats with the fancy, super-expensive Burton boards; be among the fastest in track whether Nike or K-Swiss, and that skill in tennis isn’t determined by the racket. It’s really not as much about the equipment as it is about the person using it, yet it’s image that takes hold of your heart. Pro rackets help you feel like one; fancy equipment says you’re serious and possibly very good.

These Brands Aced Their Test Drive With An Image 

Find Everything In Nothing

Montana: There’s Nothing Here campaign: The classic image of Montana being a state…of nothing. Instead of sulking, The Montana Office of Tourism and its agency partners milked it for all it’s worth. They targeted the traveler who appreciates the nothingness of Montana and nature. To increase awareness and travel, they used Montana’s beautiful landscape and a headline of “There’s Nothing Here.” The result? Consumers went from thinking “There’s nothing here” (sigh) to “There’s nothing here!” (happy exclamation). Montana’s awareness as a destination for travel increased 36%,  intent to travel there almost doubled. To top it all off, Montana had the nation’s highest hotel occupancy rate that year. Now that’s something.

Take A Stand Against Uncertainty


Allstate’s “Our Stand” Campaign: In a gloomy world where all insurance was seen as the same and a commodity, price was the only thing to differentiate competitors. Enter Allstate swooping down, armed with a different approach- to instead change the image and perception of insurance. Image became their ammunition as Allstate took a stand that having protection against life’s uncertainties is more important than price. Their weapon of honest conversations, everyday vulnerabilities, and active protection worked. Understanding the value of being in good hands, consumers reconsidered. Allstate got new business and success. Looks like their image is in good hands too.

The Future Never Tasted So Good.

Voted #1 Vodka Of 2033 Campaign: This Swedish vodka burst onto the scene like it was all one big futuristic party, unique image in hand. With the smirk of a provocative spokesbot, it showed that it’s here to contend. Against Absolut, against everyone. It successfully fought in a crowded category, pushing away all its competition. Its muscle power was brand image. SVEDKA  created a unique vision to own the future, complete with futuristic bot and tagline “Voted #1 vodka Of 2033.” Its success proved it to be the life of the party. As of 2011, it was the #3 imported vodka into the US with fast growth, shattering all internal goals and established category records. Now that’s tasty.

Image That Hits All The Right Notes
Image, it can move mountains. It’s mighty to save, or will send a product straight to the grave. Your pulse and a brand’s heartbeat moving to the rhythm of pain, strength, and glory. The core; an inner heart, shining outward. Make your pulse a beautiful sound, and  your brand won’t fade like a one-hit wonder, but will last like a classic.