If there's a major theme that will emerge in 2013, it will be the need for startups to focus on generating revenue as opposed to just having a lot of users. It's Business 101 but we live in a world ... Continue reading → ...

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Via: Mark Evans Tech Written by Mark Evans Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad,

Here are five tests you should be able to pass when your team decides "We'll run ads" is your business model: ...

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Via: Sean Murphy Written by Sean Murphy New Technology Product Introduction Focused on Early Custome

As consumers grow accustomed to automated payments and pay-per-use solutions, the benefits of fostering repetitive customer contact and creating recurring revenues through a subscription model are obvious. However, subscriptions should not be considered the end game for the billing world. ...

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Via: Marketing Profs

I was recently interviewed for a WSJ article that was exploring the trends associated with the popularity (or lack thereof) of the freemium model called "When Freemium Fails." In researching my answers for the WSJ reporter, I dug up some data on TechStars companies over the last several years that use the freemium model. Here's the data: ...

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Via: David G Cohen Written by David G Cohen Founder/CEO of TechStars. Investor 150+ Amazing Startups. Ge

Give the text in this picture a read. Clearly Wright brothers had it all wrong - starting with customer segment, choosing one that not only had a pressing need but also had the budget to pay for it and charging for the product. Had they made it free for all, after all ...

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Via: Iterative Path Written by Rags Srinivasan Practicing Effective Pricing

I believe in the saying "high-tech allows for high-touch" and that we can use the self-service nature of the web to not eliminate the human-powered sales force, but to scale it efficiently to let each salesperson work better leads and close more sales. ...

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Via: SaaS Marketing Written by Lincoln Murphy I help SaaS and Cloud companies acquire - and keep - more cu

Most technical founders abominably misprice their SaaS offerings to start out. I'm as guilty of this as anyone, so I wrote up my observations about un-borking this as The Black Arts of SaaS pricing a few months ago. ...

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Via: Swombat on Startups Written by Daniel Tenner Cofounder of GrantTree and Woobius, Blogger @ http://swombat

Server Density does server monitoring to a) give you peace of mind when all is well and b) alert you really darn quickly when all isn't. (Sidenote: If you run a software business, you absolutely need some form of server monitoring, because the application being down costs you money and trust. I personally use Scout because of great Ruby integration options. ...

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Via: Kalzumeus Software Written by Patrick McKenzie I'm a small software developer. Blog: http://www.kalzumeus.

Complicated Isn’t Cool…it Kills Conversions! Confused minds don’t buy… they bounce, and take the money that you spent to get them to your site and their lifetime value as a customer with’em! Look at your SaaS sales funnel, your Free Trial sign-up process, their first in-app experience, etc. If anything in there isn’t 100%, absolutely [...]Free Trial Rules of Eng ...

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Via: SaaS Marketing Written by Lincoln Murphy I help SaaS and Cloud companies acquire - and keep - more cu

It seems to particularly prey on solopreneurs and micro-businesses. It's only natural. We have fewer resources. We have to wear more hats, so we're more susceptible. The problem? We're riding the revenue rollercoaster. See if this sounds familiar... ...

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Via: Carol Roth Blog

Choosing the freemium business model can be brilliant or deadly. The difference lies not only in the execution of the marketing, but also in the nature of your product and the design of your business. Can you coordinate all three to become sustainably freemium by making a profit? ...

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Via: Wensing Written by Matt Wensing Pricing, segmentation, and #HackerDad tips. Co-founder & CE

In my opinion, too many startups are afraid to sell their products. They're afraid there's too much competition, they're afraid not enough consumers will be willing to pay for it, and they're afraid of not getting the traction to attract investors or an acquirer. Instead, they take the easy way out by offering their product for free ...

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Via: Mark Evans Tech Written by Mark Evans Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad,

This is the second time in three months I've suggested to a software startup (different startups) that they might have to choose between being disruptive and charging money to cover costs. Which strikes me as dangerous advice. Hit it really big or go broke. It certainly heightens the risk. ...

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Via: Gust Blog Written by Tim Berry Founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software; entrepreneur, bu

Companies that employ the "freemium" business model give away a product or service for free and then charge for additional features. The freemium model has gotten more popular as the cost to deliver free services has dropped but the cost of employing sales and marketing people hasn't. ...

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Via: chris dixon's blog Written by Chris Dixon Founder & investor

One of the biggest red flags I see in many Internet-related business plans today is advertising as the initial revenue stream, or a key part of it. If challenged, the founder usually cites the Facebook business model (free service to users, revenue from ads), but forgets that Facebook has had several hundred million in funding, and has been profitable only in the last couple of years. ...

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Via: Startup Professionals Written by Martin Zwilling Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro

The freemium business model propelled the phenomenal growth of Dropbox and Evernote, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Future Simple’s Uzi Shmilovici helps you decide if freemium is a good fit for your company and, if it is, how to make it work for you. ...

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Via: Gigaom Written by Uzi Shmilovici Founder and CEO - Future Simple Inc (futuresimpleinc.com) pa

Posted in EssaysFor the next couple of weeks, Mondays will be “Bootstrap Mondays” on the blog & I’ll try to share some insight into how we’ve bootstrapped WooThemes to the size & significance it is today. Way back in 2007 (2 November 2007 to be exact) when I first released the original product that lead to me meeting my co-founders and us launching WooThemes, I wasn ...

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Via: Adii Written by Adii Rockstar Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of

At today’s MIT Enterprise Forum Atlanta Entrepreneurs Uncensored Sanjay and I were asked if there were things that kept us up at night. Being the first to respond, I quickly said that I sleep great at night (unrelated to my Tempur-Pedic bed but that’s nice as well) for one simple reason: recurring revenue. Recurring revenue [...] ...

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Via: David Cummings Written by David Cummings 10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family,