Silicon Valley is re-booting... again. As the rest of the US economy gets turned upside-down, startups in silicon valley are getting used to a lot less capital, and a lot more numbers. The "Web 2.0" startup model has matured, and internet startups are now applying a more scientific & metrics-oriented approach to their business, and a more cash-conscious approach to funding & operations. The best startups now build products on a budget of less than $1M (some for under $100K), and use startup dashboards & web analytics tools to measure user behavior, product usage, feature conversion, and marketing effectiveness. They also use rapid development, fast iteration cycles, and a/b / multivariate testing tools to optimize product features & marketing programs.
If you are a startup entrepreneur, developer, investor, or technology business executive, this 3-hour lecture & workshop will show you how to put together your own business metrics framework for your startup or company. The workshop will focus primarily on how to use a simple 5-step model for startup metrics (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue) to make better product & marketing decisions. We'll show you how the model works, how to apply it to your business, and we'll do live "Startup Makeover" reviews for 5-10 companies. Examples & variations on the model will be explored for several types of startups, and we'll cover the following topics: creating a basic user conversion dashboard, defining your company & product keyword vocabulary, selecting & evaluating marketing channels, testing & optimizing landing pages, setting up simple email strategies for user retention, and designing a business model that will attract investors.
Speaker Profile
Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for almost twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, & internet marketing nerd. He is an advisor or investor for Mint, SlideShare, TradeVibes, TipMobile, Oortle/PhotoPhlow, 750 Industries, KissMetrics, Spock, TeachStreet, Eventvue, RichRelevance, Mashery, Simply Hired, HealthUnity, & Canopy Financial. His current passion is helping startups with internet marketing, product strategy, and startup metrics.
Dave is the program chair for STARTonomics, a conference on startup metrics, and the founder & organizer of Startup2Startup, a monthly dinner series for Silicon Valley entrepreneurs & investors. He has previously been a conference chairperson for Graphing Social Patterns, and Web 2.0 Expo. He has been a guest lecturer on social networks, application platforms, & viral metrics at Stanford University. Dave is a board member for microfinance accelerator Unitus, advisor to microfinance lender Kiva.org, and a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network.