E-Mail: marc@scrappyupstarts.com
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Registered Since: 2008-11-26 18:21:31
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Posts by Scrappy Admin:
- Vet programmers carefully
- Put everyone in one office
- Plan - create documents and diagrams
- Intense bug tracking
- Test
- Create a software schedule
- Think about monetization before launch
- Hyatt Corp.
- Burger King Corp.
- IHOP Corp.
- The Jim Henson Company
- LexisNexis
- FedEx Corp.
- Microsoft Corp.
- CNN
- MTV Networks
- Trader Joe’s
- Wikipedia Foundation Inc.
- Sports Illustrated
- GE (General Electric Co.)
- HP (Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP)
BtoB Event Advertising
November 20th, 2008
My scrappy upstart, VirtualAdAgency.com, has secured a print ad spot in SES Magazine, being distributed at the SES Chicago conference this December. For those of you not familiar with SES shows, they are really a top-notch opportunity to soak up information about search engine optimization, attended by thousands of marketers and small business owners.
Advertising opportunities like this are cost-effective, targeted and perfect for scrappy upstarts who provide goods and services to other businesses. Events and BtoB publications offer outstanding outlets to get your message in front of your potential customers. Even if you don’t plan to attend the conference, reach out to the hosts and find out what opportunities there are in terms of print ads, or even sponsorships.
The event guides that are handed out to every attendee at these conferences provide great ad placement. The audience tends to be well engaged and in a purchasing mode. Also, sponsoring a lecture or segment of the event offers an added element of prestige to your organization.
If you are running an ad, try to offer a specialized discount code for attendees, or instead of driving them to your home url - try a custom landing page instead. In this tight market, BtoB conference advertising is a great, cost-effective opportunity any small business should consider.
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Tweet ThisProject Management Tools
November 18th, 2008
We spent several months fine tuning the back end to virtual ad agency just to have me start over recently. The back end I’m referring to is the online collaboration and project management area that clients and workers of virtual ad agency see.
In the last 6 months several new project management and online collaborative sites have developed into incredibly robust online apps. Smashing Magazine recently reviewed 15 of the most popular Project Management Tools.
The review includes:
Basic project management apps
Wiki-based project management apps
bFug and ticket tracking, Collaboration
Conferencing
invoicing, and time tracking
Check out the whole article here.
Not so ironclad rules for starting a tech venture
November 16th, 2008
In this month’s Inc. magazine, Joel Spolsky writes about his journey to creating stackoverflow.com, basically a programming community Q&A site with voting and editing - Digg for programmers.
It seems Joel normally has some ironclad rules he follows when developing sites and businesses, which include;
Joel explains how after briefly talking with programmer, Jeff Atwood, he basically abandoned all of these principles and still ended up with exactly what was planned (Caveat to rule 7, turns out this one is important to consider upfront - currently StackOverflow has no monetization model).
While Joel didn’t exactly follow his first rule, by thoroughly vetting his programmer he used his experience and instinct when he decided to move forward. And, in the end, partnering up with Jeff seemed to have made all the difference.
On the flip side, here is an article from last year where Joel documents how he broke all these rule and things went horribly wrong.
14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump
November 12th, 2008
These 14 enterprises started up during a recession:
Find out more: 14 Big Businesses That Started in a Slump
Make your site iPhone optimized - instantly
November 11th, 2008Brand new site allows you to make an iPhone version of any web site that has an RSS feed.
Intersquash.com - Has a simple 4 step process: enter the RSS feed of your site, enter the site name, upload a home screen image and place the provided code between the header tags of your website.
A decrease in ad spend is good news?
November 8th, 2008
Sometimes its hard to pick out the good news from constant bad news but I think for the most part us Scrappy Upstarts have a significant advantage in this down time, we just need to be aware of it in all the ‘bad news’ data.
A very recent 42 page analysis from Morgan Stanley, “Internet Advertising Trends” reports ad spend could decline as much as 4% next year. While its bad news for google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and my 9-to-5 employer, Incisive Media, it can mean good things to a scrappy upstart.
Rapid inventory combined with CPM should make for low cost online ads. In other words, decreased ad spend overall means lower cost ads for you
Also measurability - Ad publishers will be forced to make sure their customers ads are performing. Expect to see more robust metrics and easier to use analysis letting you know if your ads are performing.
We’re seeing ad impressions increase with a significant CPM decrease
1) Internet usage growth remains strong
2) Search share gains remain relatively robust
3) Performance-based advertising seeing success
Start Ups love a recession…Really.
November 7th, 2008
Blog post over at killerblog discusses 10 Reasons why you should embrace the recession.
Among them:
Downturn makes you think
Availability of great people
Strong get stronger
Microsoft launches BizSpark
November 7th, 2008
Microsoft today announced BizSpark , a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage software Startups. Microsoft hopes BizSpark will provide these companies with software, support and visibility. Find out more at the Microsoft Startup Zone.
Jobless rate at 14-year high
November 7th, 2008
Just in today the October jobless rate from the US Labor Department - Unemployment rose to 6.3 percent bringing us a 14 year high.
U.S. employers slashed an unexpectedly steep 240,000 jobs from payrolls last month and the jobless rate shot up to a 14-1/2-year high, the government said on Friday in a report underscoring the economy’s steep slide.
Worse before its better?
Service-producing industries cut 108,000 jobs in October on top of 201,000 lost in September.
See the full story here.
What’s all this mean? Get to work you upstart!
New banner ad distributor
November 7th, 2008
BuySellAds offers a fantastic Ajax interface and easy way to buy ad space for your web site. While still in beta - its a great place to start advertising on sites specific to your content or service, that tend to be more in the long tail of the web.
You can also sell ad space on your site. Their commission in my opinion, is rather high at 25% but could be a good place to market your site to advertisers looking for inexpensive monthly ad subscriptions.
And yes that photo and link promote this site…what? You would do it too!
Never forget a call or text
November 7th, 2008
For you scrappy upstarts working the phones, Skydeck allows you to keep close track of your calls.
Manage your calls and texts the same way that you manage your email. Check who called yesterday, the last time you spoke, and use notes and tags to remind yourself to follow up.
Freshbooks one of my personal favorite web site as software sites, has integrated skydeck into their invoicing system making it doubly useful.
How To Demo Your Startup
November 7th, 2008Jason Calacanis, former CEO of weblogs inc. posted a story to his emailing list discussing a 10 day marathon of startup pitches. Each presenter had 10 minutes to present their idea. He put together a thorough list of tips for entrepreneurs pitching their start up, including;
The greatest tech products over the past 10 years would take no more than five minutes each to demo
Head to TechCrunch for Part 1 and Part 2.
What’s with the web 2.5 thing?
November 6th, 2008
That 2.5 badge at top means that hopefully some of the scrappy upstarts on this site will be what makes web 3.0 happen.
The inspiration for this site came form a recent Kevin Rose, the young founder of Digg, video blog post. Rose points out that the darlings of Web 2.0 like digg, were actually started very early on, in the last web cycle certainly before web 2.0 had been identified. They were able to gain traction and be seen as leaders by the time the web 2.0 nomenclature took.
Kevin believes starting up now before the “next big web 3.0 push” could make all the difference in what sites make it and what sites don’t.
Whatever comes next in terms of web 3.0 will probably be born out of these economic times and in this upstart web 2.5 world.
Require even more reassurance you’re on the right track with starting up in a down time? Take a look at Bill Graham’s article Why to Startup in a bad Economy.
