By Francis Moran
One of the more thought-provoking presentations at last week’s International Startup Festival was by Randy Smerik, a serial entrepreneur who has lived through more than one startup, venture capital investment and eventual acquisition. His personal experience added a significant note of authenticity to his session, “Build 2B Bought,” but it was the statistics he presented that really got me thinking.
Let me summarise Smerik’s narrative.
- There is a 90 percent chance that the eventual liquidity event for a startup will be its acquisition by another company.
- The average merger-and-acquisition (M&A) exit is worth $20 million.
- A VC investing only $2 million into a company and acquiring 20 percent of its equity based on a $10-million post-money valuation will need to earn $20 million on that investment to get the minimum 10x return that VCs target from each investment. (Admittedly, Smerik did acknowledge that most funds get a 20x to 30x return from two out of every 10 investments they make, with the other eight returning little or nothing.)
- At a 20 percent ownership level by the VC, that means the company must sell for $100 million.
- But the average M&A deal is only $20 million.
As Smerik said, “Yikes! This is a problem.”
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By Peter Hanschke
We’re finally getting close to the end. I must say that although it has been fun, I’m looking forward to the end. Maybe because I’m thrilled to have an app in the store; or maybe because the long nights and weekends are getting to me; or maybe both. Not sure why, but I’ll be glad when it’s over. My last post talked about the importance of marketing your app and not relying on the app store to get the word out. Today we’ll talk about taking your app on the road and engaging others for the first time with your app …all in the name of testing it.
Whether you are developing for iOS (as I am), Android, windows8, or BlackBerry, there are a number of variants that you need to test. On the iOS platform you have iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and various generations of each device and the OS. At the outset you have to select which combination of devices and operating systems you want your app to run on; this defines the device section of your test plan. For my app, I narrowed the field down to iPhone and iPod Touch (fourth and fifth generations), running OS 6.x. With Apple cranking out new devices and new operating systems frequently AND (by witnessing lineups at Apple stores on launch days) users upgrading to have the latest, I figured that my narrow field is a significant enough market for me to tackle. Android, on the other hand, is different. Many versions of Android are still in play today, which makes the testing a more difficult and longer process.
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By Leo Valiquette
Given the time of year, it only seems appropriate to compare content marketing to a vegetable garden. Once you’ve planted the seed, you must keep tending it with suitable amounts of care and attention until it yields a fair crop. Neglect it for too long and all you’ll end up with is compost.
I often work with clients who are trying to figure out which seeds to plant and how to be certain they’ll have enough to yield results that will make their efforts worthwhile. Be it a blog, a bi-weekly newsletter or a regular gig as contributor to an industry publication, the challenge is the same: how do we create, and where do we find, original, compelling content, and on a consistent basis?
So here is my basic inbound marketing gardening guide:
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By Megan Totka
You may or may not have heard this recently, but SEO seems to have introduced a new sibling into the online marketing family. ASO (or App Store Optimization) is the online marketing of mobile apps through items like their descriptions, keywords and titles. Because apps are marketed somewhat similarly, but not the same way as traditional web content, the industry has dubbed this area of optimization accordingly by giving it the name ASO, and thus identifying the “store” as the means through which one attempts to market their app successfully.
Instead of optimizing content for a search engine, like with traditional SEO, ASO requires one to optimize apps specifically for app stores. The two most popular app stores currently on the market are iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) and Google Play.
The proliferation and use of mobile devices is ever-increasing in today’s world, and accompanying that mobility is the demand for mobile web access, as well as access to mobile apps. The goal for marketing your business should be to reach your customers where ever they are, and that will likely mean going mobile.
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By Hailley Griffis
This Friday we have two distinct trends in our favourite articles of the past week.
The first is the importance of looking to the future of marketing. Articles by Marketo Blog and featured on LinkedIn discuss the changing landscape of marketing, the new roles that will be required in the future and suggestions for accomplishing your goals while you can.
The second trend is that of customer service, something this blog always makes a point to highlight. Articles by CopyBlogger and FastCompany look into why you may be losing your prospects’ trust and how to avoid it. Also, should you actually listen to your customer? What if they don’t really know what they want?
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Is your software demo killing your sale?
July 11, 2013 by Francis Moran
There may be nothing quite so ubiquitous in the normal sales cycle for the enterprise software market as the software demo. And there may nothing that kills as many promising deals as the software demo done poorly. […]
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When one city hogs a national economy
July 10, 2013 by Maurice Smith
The independence debate is dominating Scottish political debate right now, and will continue to do so for at least the next 15 months. […]
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Keeping constructively busy through these dog days
July 09, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
Summer, as I wrote in my last post, is no time to slack off from a marketing and PR perspective, but this raises the obvious question, what to do through July and August? […]
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Do researchers and storytellers hold the key to improved productivity and startup survival?
July 08, 2013 by Jay Innes
Marketing and communications pros – hell, even PR folks and business developers – can force a smile after reading a study examining Canada’s productivity and following that with a scan of a Branham report on the Canadian ICT industry […]
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Great articles roundup: A content formula, customers on social media, building credibility, 1940s content marketing
July 05, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
As per our usual Friday schedule, we have rounded up some of the best articles we’ve come across in the past week to share with our readers.[…]
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Social media marketing: Pitfalls and how to avoid them
July 04, 2013 by Chamber of Commerce
Most people understand how to use social media to find friends, activities, games, etc. Businesses are also becoming more adept at finding both their current customers as well as new ones by using social media sites to their advantage. But social media can be a […]
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Why confidentiality? (Part 2)
July 03, 2013 by David French
This is Part 2 to an earlier posting on the above topic. In Part 1 we addressed “confidentiality agreements,” and “nondisclosure agreements – NDAs” […]
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June roundup: What does it take to get technology to market?
July 02, 2013 by Hailley Griffis
Last month’s content lineup featured great posts that shattered common myths about listening to feedback from investors, the future of the tech-world for entrepreneurs and how far a little cleverness can take you in your marketing strategy […]
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