A VC - Latest Comments in Startonomics

Re: Startonomics

davemc500hats — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:35:38 -0000

Chief Burn-Rate Officer is awesome. nice job.

Re: Startonomics

Michael Weiksner — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:23:54 -0000

Well, everybody knows about "measurable" metrics. How about instrumenting for unmeasurable metrics? I'd be up for that! :)

Re: Startonomics

Robi Ganguly — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:01:20 -0000

Ugh... I wish it was possible to comment on your blog from my blackberry Fred. Is this a Disqus limitation? Totally missed your 5 pm deadline as a result.

I would've said, measure and listen to everything that your customers say AND DO. Too many teams just listen to each other, or a few paying customers at best. Startonomics seems to really be about matching your aspirations with customers' behavior.

Re: Startonomics

Kevin Elliott — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:22:15 -0000

I'm very excited to attend STARTonomics! I recently wrote about it in an article on my blog (http://www.kevinelliott.net... --- I think it's going to be a great event for anyone building a startup. My startup (WeLike LLC) is still very young, but I hope to gain some insights on Thursday that will give me the tools necessary to be successful.

Re: Startonomics

MattKane — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:16:31 -0000

Thanks! The conference sounds really interesting. Shame I'm a continent away, really. Any plans for one in Europe?

Re: Startonomics

iHearAmericaSnoring — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:35:11 -0000

I've found countless times with startups that they may set decent kpi's however they do not follow up with aggressive analytics research. Combining both the traditional (quantitative) with the current (qualitative) data and throw in some serious segmentation gives an enormous amount of real actionable insight. This stuff is really invaluable yet dismissing this data happens over and over again.

Re: Startonomics

CDC — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:22:45 -0000

I'm preparing to launch my new startup and would love to attend Startonomics to better understand how "to get focused, get better, get leaner, and ultimately to get profitable".

Re: Startonomics

aschobel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:15:39 -0000

Make something people want by measuring what works. Instrument or die!

Re: Startonomics

Edwin Khodabakchian — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:11:20 -0000

SHORT VERSION
If you can not measure it, you can not manage it. Applied to user acquisition and profitability

LONGER VERSION
In the feedly case, AARRR looks like this: visit feedly.com -> install feedly -> keep feedly installed -> uses feedly once a week -> uses feedly daily -> tweet or write a post about feedly -> more people visit feedly.com. We have also defined infrastructure cost = f(users) and ad revenue = f( users).

Thanks to this model we are laser focused on streamlining each step and increasing users to the point where ad revenue > infrastructure cost + salaries. This also enables us to determine for each feature we push out if it has a positive impact and we should invest in it or if it a bad idea and we should learn and move on.

Re: Startonomics

Nick Molnar — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:11:10 -0000

Spend each marketing dollar like it was your last. Divide, conquer, and abolish the nonperformers. Multiple domains make print media measurable.

Re: Startonomics

davemc500hats — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:56:48 -0000

that's a pretty unique idea. got my vote ++

Re: Startonomics

Brandon B — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:46:26 -0000

I use startonomics to not only measure the basics like churn rate and acquisition costs for our service, but also some non-traditional metrics like connect time for our customers, # of forum posts by our customers, and use of our API to understand how engaged customers are with our product and service.

Re: Startonomics

Christopher Golda — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:21:58 -0000

Should do the whole workshop on user acquisition - retention -- that's where all the iteration goes on, before even thinking about revenue

Re: Startonomics

chachra — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:26:01 -0000

Use startonomics to build what people need, measure what they want and and deliver what they don't know they need! Iterate & $profit :)

Re: Startonomics

Arvind — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:36:03 -0000

will use it not to bankrupt myself

Re: Startonomics

fredwilson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:29:14 -0000

Ooh. I love the idea of running derivatives until you flat line. Very nice!

Re: Startonomics

andyswan — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:21:54 -0000

Use startonomics to define the metrics that tell you the problems that your friends, customers and employees will not.

Re: Startonomics

davemc500hats — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:16:14 -0000

thanks fred!

guess now we're on the hook for NYC in 2009 eh?

I'll make sure Debbie Landa at DealMaker -- my partner in crime producing Startonomics -- knows we gotta bring the noise from the left coast next year.

in the meantime we'll be streaming the event online and tweeting updates real-time @ http://Twitter.com/STNX starting thursday.

Re: Startonomics

khawk — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:54:48 -0000

I'll use the free Startonomics pass to learn how to become a better CBO: Chief Burn-Rate Officer.

Re: Startonomics

MattKane — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:29:03 -0000

Interesting stuff. My economics degree has made me a bit obsessive about trying to model all aspects of our business. I'm in the UK, so couldn't go to the conference, but these are some of the things we've learnt at CleVR:

Measure EVERYTHING, and keep graphing higher derivatives until you get a flat line. You may find interesting patterns. As a simple, non-commercially sensitive example, at clevr.com we've found that our new user signups show a constant month-on-month percentage increase. Use Google Analytics etc, but your own database should be your most useful source of information. Don't forget that you can use the Google __utmz cookie yourself: it has useful information in it.