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5 Steps to Becoming a Networking Superstar - The Peter Pham Interview
If you want to know the value of having a good network, take a look at what it’s done for Peter Pham’s new company, BillShrink:
- Networking helped him find a co-founder who is a former venture capitalist.
- Networking helped him land a top creative director without having to pay a recruiting fee.
- Networking helped him get an adviser who successfully sold a startup in the industry Peter wants to dominate.
- Networking helped him get his business funded.
Here are 5 of the steps he took to become a networking superstar. (Listen to the full interview for more.)
Go where they are - To get hooked into the web startup community, Peter went to tech events. He met his co-founder at the very first event he went to, the TechCrunch party in Michael Arrington’s house.
Once isn’t enough - Even the shiest networker can start building contacts by consistenly going to similar events. People start to recognize you and relationships naturally develop.
Everyone knows the host - After going as a guest to a few events, Peter switched roles and started hosting his own dinners. When you’re a guest, you get to meet a few people at an event, but the host gets to know everyone.
Tap their lists - To broaden his guest list, he co-hosted his dinners with two other connections: Mike Jones, CEO of userplane and Keith Richman, CEO of Break.com
Watch it grow - Word started to spread about his small dinners and people started asking for invitations. So Peter and his co-hosts created bigger events. The most recent one had over 150 guests. There’s even a web site, now betasouth.org. It’s a “.org” because the goal to make connections, not profits.
What are your networking tip? Add them to the comments.
Right click to download this interview
Pictures from Mixergy Drinks @ 11thr
See the original invitation here.
New Mixergy Event: Lunch 2.0 @ SuggestionBox.com
Lunch 2.0 is returning to San Diego thanks to SuggestionBox.com.
Johnny Negretti told me that he got his business funded because of a conversation he had at a Mixergy lunch in San Diego. That’s why I do these events.
Where:
SuggestionBox.com’s Office, 120A South Sierra Avenue, Solana Beach, CA 92075
When:
Friday, September 26, 2008 from 12:05 PM - 02:00 PM (PT)
Thanks for promoting this event:
Melani Gordon of gWave Consulting, Alex Funk of digital-telepathy, Calley Nye of technews.la, Edward O’Connor of edward.oconnor.cx and Dan Tentler of Aten Syndicate.
Let me know if you’re promoting this event (on twitter, blog, etc) so I can add you here.
See it LIVE:
SuggestionBox.com is going to stream this event live on their ustream account: http://www.ustream.tv/SuggestionBox
7 Tips for Bloggers from Michelle Thatcher of CNET
After listening to Michelle’s tips, if you have any of your own, add them to the comments!
How To Grow An Email Mailing List - The Justin Premick Interview
When you signed up for Facebook or Twitter, did you start using it right away? Or were you like me and only started becoming an active user after getting a few emails for the company to remind you that you have an account and helping you get acquainted with it?
I’ve noticed that many of the most successful online companies–and many well-known bloggers–understand how to use email well. To learn what they know, I interviewed Justin Premick, a teach at aweber, an email software company.
Here’s some of what I learned about growing a mailing list:
Understand why: Most people don’t understand the power of email marketing so they don’t make growing their list a priority. If you have a good mailing list, you can ensure that you’ll reach your audience–if you don’t, you never know if a user liked your site but never came because because he forgot about it.
I don’t even see it! One reason that users don’t join mailing lists is that they don’t even see where the registration process is. During our interview, Justin and I went hunting for an email registration form and we couldn’t find it.
“Why should I?” Most people don’t say, “I want more email.” They say, “why should I register?” So you have to give them an incentive to join your list. When Justin looked at my site, he said I didn’t give people enough of an incentive to register and suggested I offer special interviews just to people who register.
Location, location, location: Justin told me that one thing successful list growers do is put their registration processes in multiple locations.
Do you know any other ways to grow a mailing list?
Right click here to download the full interview!
How “Talk Like A Pirate Day” Became A Sensation - Interview With The Founders
Ahoy, me hearty!
Have you noticed how every September 19, people around the world start talking like pirates and web sites start writing like pirates? It’s called “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” and it’s gotten so big that it was even celebrated on the International Space Station.
I wanted to find out where it started and how it spread, so I could learn how ideas take off. That’s why I interviewed the two founders, John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers. Here’s what I learned from them.
Random & fun: This was the most disturbing aspect for me. I like to think that everything can be planned. If you listen to my interview, you’ll hear me constantly ask for the techniques the two founders used to grow their movement (that’s what I do). And they keep telling me there was no business plan. It just happened.
Simple publicity: The only formal publicity they did was email humor columnist Dave Barry. They told him how one day on a raquet ball court they started talking like pirates and that their friends thought it was so cool that they too started talking like pirates. They asked Barry to run with it and he did.
What trademark? I think a key reason that Talk Like a Pirate Day spread is that Baur and Summers allowed anyone to run with it, no limits. You can sell tshirts, call yourself “the official” this or that of Talk Like a Pirate Day, or do whatever you want with the concept without asking their permission. That opens people up to creativity and helps the idea spread virally.
You can be uptight: Another reason the “holiday” spread so fast is that anyone can do it. You just have to toss an “Ahoy!” or “me heart!” into your conversation and that’s it.
Why do you think “Talk Like a Pirate Day” spread so widely?
Right click to download the full interview!
How Domainers Profit - The Susan Smith Interview
You ever go to a web address and see a page full of links? Those links are all ads and the pages are owned by “domainers.” To learn how that business works and how anyone can profit from it, I talked with Susan Smith of DomainSponsor.
Here are some of the things I learned from her. (Download the interview for more.)
The easy days are over - In 1996, Scott Day bought watermelon.com for $3,000 and a crate of watermelons. He went on to build a domain empire that included bed.com, dress.com, and even GeorgeBush.com Today, the easy-to-get names are gone.
You have some already - Chances are good you already own some domains and aren’t doing anything with them. Try running ads on them and see how profitable they are. Maybe you bought PartySupplies.com with a plan to build a party supply empire one day. Until you get around to it, use that domain. If you send it to Susan, she’ll run ads for you and help you figure out how profitable it is.
You can contact Susan here: ssmith[at]domainsponsor.com
Don’t Tase Me Bro - New words, concepts and ideas keep popping up into the language. When you hear a phrase that you think will stick around buy that phrase as a domain name. (DontTaseMeBro.com is already taken.)
Did I miss something? If you have any other lessons from domainers, add them to the comments.
Right click to download the interview
New Event: APOC Presents The Mixergy Viral Forum
Get More Traffic To Your Site
You’ll leave this event with pages of notes on how you can make your specific site more viral.
I’m doing this event with The Annenberg Program on Online Communities (APOC) The University of Southern California.
Our goal is to teach you how to make your site more viral.
To ensure that we do that, we invited these experts:
Neil Patel - Partner at ACS - He helped TechCrunch grow its traffic and he’ll teach you how to grow yours.
Jason Nazar - CEO docstoc - He’s teach you what he learned by building docstoc largely through viral marketing.
Chris Bechtel - VP iPressRoom - He’ll teach you how to create new good conent using the techniques iPressRoom teaches its Fortune 500 clients.
Why Your Site Isn’t Viral. - The Dan Olsen Interview
To help me better understand how to make a site viral, a good friend introduced me to Dan Olsen. Dan led product management for Quicken and Friendster. Then, he launched Olsen Solutions, where he helped build online products for companies like box.net, Xing, and TrustedID. Now he’s CEO & Founder of YourVersion.com.
Based on our conversation, here are some reasons your site might not be viral:
You’re asking too many questions.
Dan says many sites lose users because their registration forms ask too many questions. What’s your name? When where you born? What’s your pet’s name? Etc.
If they can’t get past your endless questions, your users will never want to tell their friends about your site.
You’re not thinking holistically.
Many people create a web site and then try to figure out how to make it viral. Viral isn’t a feature. It’s either part of the core purpose of your product, or it feels awkward and it doesn’t work.
Your product just isn’t meant to be viral.
Dan says that not all products are viral. If your site isn’t meant to be viral, think of another marketing method. Viral isn’t the only way to grow.
You’re not making it easy enough.
You can’t expect your site to be viral and then hide the features that help your uses spread the word. Put your viral tools (like an “invite a friend” link) where users can see them and they’ll be more likely to be used.
Why do YOU think some sites aren’t viral?
Right click to download this interview!
“Mario, I F-cking Hate You.” How To Build Community. - The Davy Rothbart Interview
It started when Davy found a note that someone mistakenly put on his car. The note said, “Mario, I f-cking hate you. You said you had to work. Then why’s your car HERE at HER place?? You’re a f-cking LIAR. I hate you I fucking hate you. –Amber PS page me later.” (See the note.)
Since then, Davy’s been combining what he and his community find into FOUND Magazine, a community art project. Since the project couldn’t exist without the community, I knew Davy could teach me how to build an online community.
Here are a few things Davy taught me. (Listen to the interview to hear more.)
Get out of your house - I tend to think of building communities as something that happens remotely. But Davy built his community by touring–and meeting people in person. Organizing a tour was one of the first things he did when he started. At first, only 4 to 12 people might show up for a reading, but now his audiences are in the hundreds.
The cycle of life - Communities thrive on a giving cycle. At FOUND Magazine, the community sends Davy what it finds. Then he posts what they send him. And that encourages others to send him more finds.
Email is still important - Davy keeps building up his email list. He says that his friends’ bands are often reluctant to ask people to join their mailing list, but he actively asks people to join because he knows how powerful a good list can be.
Ask - Davy is about to go on a European tour with FOUND Magazine. He can plan it remotely because he asks for and gets support from his community.
Where’s the profit - While he says he doesn’t want to profit from his community, Davy gets other benefits because of his community. Because of the growing “FOUND Magazine family” this book of his stories got published. He also got to be a guest on Letterman, travel the world and other benefits.
What can you teach us about building a community?
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Recent Interviews
