Specifically, this strategy led to growing Udemy consistently 20 percent almost every month for the last few years, helping Lyft’s launch in LA be more successful than San Francisco, and a host of other successes that are not yet public.

What made us more effective than other growth hackers? We applied lean startup methodology to marketing (“Lean Marketing”). Of course, we’re not the only ones to do this, but somehow the art of customer development has been largely lost in the fad that is growth hacking.

To be an effective marketer, you can’t just be great at running and analyzing large swaths of data. That’s table stakes these days. Everyone knows how to A/B test, what the cost/benefits of each channel is, what viral marketing is, and the basics of LTV/CAC analysis.

With all of our obsession over quantitative (“performance”) marketing, we’ve forgotten one of the core ideas of building brands. Brands are built by understanding the customer. The better you understand the customer, the better you are at everything growth hacking:

• Copy and calls to action are more compelling. You pick words that convert the highest because you understand why customers will buy your product and what triggers their curiosity to learn more.
• Images convert better. You know who your customer is, what they look like, and what they’re attracted to.
• Better channels. You understand what your customer reads, where they eat, and who they follow on Twitter.
• Improved targeting. You’ll be able to create personas of your ideal target customers and use those to build better targeting on your ad spend.

The problem is that most growth hackers spend too much time in spreadsheets and not enough time out of the building. They obsess over numbers and prefer to work behind a screen. That’s a necessary skill set for effectively building viral loops and optimizing performance marketing campaigns, but it is not enough. Even the best marketers could be better if their initial tests were better. Say you have 50 ideas for copy that could work on a Facebook ad. How much time would it take to A/B test all 50 ideas? How much money?

What if instead, I could tell you what the top five of those ideas were with a reasonable level of reliability? All of a sudden, I’ve saved almost all that money and a hell of a lot of time. The best marketers know how to pick those five, and you can be one of the best too. Just get to know your customers better.

What’s the best way to know your customer? Meet them. Go out and do real user research — just like UX designers or lean startup entrepreneurs. Steve Blank, Eric Ries and Janice Fraser provided us with an incredibly good framework by which to do said research. Apply the same thing to marketing.

Three methods for success:

1. Interview your customer. Get out of the building and pick up the phone. Talk to your customers — at least five of them — and make sure they are fairly representative of your user base or target market (I usually find that after five, it’s repetitive).
2. Pitch your customer in person. Take what you learned from step 1 and start testing copy by pitching customers in person. If you are a food app, set up shop at a farmer’s market. If you are a payments company, go pitch startup entrepreneurs at a tech event. Whatever you’re selling, go to where people are buying and convince them. Iterate on your pitch constantly, and by the end of the day you’ll have an incredible understanding of your prospective user. This is often faster and far more cost-effective than A/B testing. Now you have a shortlist of amazing phrases that you can then A/B test the shit out of online.
3. Repeat periodically to “refresh” your understanding and test new ideas. Just like with Lean UX or Lean Startup, this process doesn’t end. It continues indefinitely — you and your team should constantly be bringing in users to interview them and understand their motivations for buying.

Ultimately, marketing is part art and part science. As a startup community, we’ve done a great job recently of perfecting the science. However, the best marketers are good at both. You can be too; just get out of the damn building.

Gagan Biyani is an entrepreneur and growth hacker. He co-hosts with Erin Turner the Growth Hackers Conference, which is on May 3, 2013 in San Francisco. Also, he has led marketing at marketplace startups Lyft and Udemy. You can follow him on twitter: @gaganbiyani.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

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It feels like everywhere you go these days, “content marketing” is the buzzword of choice. As the co-founder of a company that enables marketers to produce content at scale, I want to take a step back and share a bit about what we are seeing thus far in the content marketing space.

If you run a startup — or a small company that is navigating the waters of content marketing for the first time — read this before you dive head-first into any content marketing initiatives.

More content means more garbage

Nobody nailed this better than Velocity Partners, a UK-based content marketing firm, in a clever/informative presentation everyone should read. More and more companies are going to think they can game the system by flooding the ‘net with content, while simultaneously navigating their way around the “duplicate content” issue by changing words here and there.

My advice to marketers here is simple – do not try to be Buzzfeed, Bleacherreport, or other successful content machines. They have more resources, huge editorial staffs, insane amounts of in-house analytics tools, and other bells and whistles you will not have access to. Produce original content — and be yourself.

I know SEO is considered a dirty word these days, but you will get absolutely hammered by search engines for re-purposing too much content, and pretending like it’s your own (unless you are doing so through a service like Curata). Remember that you still care about your search engine rankings, which is one of the major reasons you are running content marketing campaigns (remember, social content now gets indexed by Google — so tweets matter). You want to have natural conversations with your customers, but you also want to rank high in Google, Bing and other search engines to bring in more customers.

More content means more “experts”

Here we go again… It feels like just yesterday that the influx of “social media consultants” to the Bay Area began. Now the rise of the “content marketing expert” commences, and it’s not likely to end anytime soon. Everyone and their grandmother is attempting to re-brand themselves as an expert in this space, when the reality is (myself included) we are learning new things every day about the value of content.

The early data shows that most companies that run content marketing campaigns, without spamming the hell out of prospective customers, are successful. I wrote a piece in Forbes about some of the success Scripted has seen through content marketing campaigns — we will continue to use content as one of our primary forms of customer acquisition.

Anyone with a blog with a reasonably good-looking WordPress theme is claiming to be an expert in the space. Avoid the fakers, they are easy to spot.

Shortcuts and cheap solutions don’t work — and expensive solutions may not work either

Do not buy $5 articles and expect to see results, especially if they are laden with keyword-rich content.  Here is what Google will do to you if you decide to go this route. Similarly, just because you hire an ex-journalist for $200/hour, you will not necessarily achieve terrific results.

Bottom line: as a startup, you need to strike a compromise between subscribing to heavyweight tools that you won’t necessarily use, and overly cheap products that promise results and end up hurting you in the end. For most startups and early-stage companies, tracking specific pieces of content (and their conversion rate) using Google Analytics is more than enough.

Solutions like Simple Reach and Parse.ly are building robust analytics tools to prove out the effectiveness of specific writers, specific types of content, and other relevant info. Consider subscribing to analytics tools only after you have a good base of high-quality original content created — analyzing based on a few data points will do you absolutely no good.

No one really knows how this is going to play out

We all know that content is important, but it is still very early. We know that terrific companies like LinkedIn and Flipboard are headed in the direction of becoming high-quality content curator/generators.  And we know that there is going to be an absolute dog fight in various areas of the market. For example:

• Editorial Management Tools: Contently, Kapost, and eByline are all strong tools for editorial management.
• Content Recommendation Engines: Outbrain is the leader here, but there are many others that have entered the space and raised lots of cash.
• Curation/Syndication: Newscred, Curata, and others are playing in a very interesting curation/syndication space that’s ripe for disruption. Newscred just raised a massive round and is attempting to be a complete solution.
• Creation: Aside from Scripted, companies use sites like oDesk, and perhaps more prevalently, the in-house freelance writer.
• Distribution/Analytics: I mentioned Simple Reach and Parse.ly, but there are a whole host of others trying to play in this space too.

…But here’s my best guess

A lot of folks I’ve talked to think that there is going to be “one solution” that binds the entire market together. Based on what we are seeing in the market right now, I don’t believe it will play out that way. The number of companies that could possibly manage, sustain, and grow under one solution is extremely finite (think large enterprises with deep pockets).

The real opportunity lies with companies that do not have much higher than a $10k budget/month, and need a cost-effective solution to run campaigns.

Instead, I think a combination of tools with robust APIs will be the solution of choice for most marketers. And I believe that the winner in each area of content marketing will have the chance to become a multibillion-dollar company once the dust settles, and people actually know what they are doing.

Any way you slice it, content marketing is going to be a massive opportunity. Is your startup ready?

Sunil Rajaraman is the founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. 

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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The business world has been lamenting over the past few years that the US has shifted from being a country that makes things to a country that largely makes its things somewhere else. With the cheaper labor costs of many developing countries — not to mention the new technologies that make managing such relationships easier — outsourcing and offshoring have become prevalent among growing US businesses.

But we’ve started to see manufacturing work (and jobs) slowly but surely “reshoring” back to the U.S. For startup entrepreneurs, this is a very good time to evaluate your supply chain. You may find some advantages to moving production back to the U.S. that could take your business to the next level.

Why we “reshored” our manufacturing

Our company, Kenai Sports, creates 100 percent sustainable clothing made from waste and post-consumer content harvested from landfills. And like so many others in the labor-intensive apparel industry, we started off manufacturing abroad for the typical reasons. Hats that cost $0.45 to make and T-shirts that came in at under $1.00/piece were a siren’s song for an upstart apparel company.

But we very quickly determined this was not going to work in the long run. With issues like unreliable communication and extended lead times, customer satisfaction was quickly waning. Avoidable mistakes (like off-center logos, printing errors, and not-so-straight seams — all indistinguishable in photos provided by manufacturing) prevented us from realizing the cost advantages we anticipated. And those problems were coupled with an overall lack of accountability that showed no sign of changing.

Our frustration lead us to a brainstorming session where we unanimously decided to “reshore.” Here are the some of key benefits we identified:

1. Lead time: First and foremost was a drastically-improved supply chain. We cut our average lead time in half while simultaneously gaining the ability to collaborate and monitor quality control at levels unprecedented for our company to date.
2. Sales: A major portion of our work comes from collegiate athletic programs, and to be able to produce a sample in a week, as opposed to a month, made the sales process markedly easier.
3. Customer retention: Customer satisfaction and retention rates also saw a substantial uptick, both of which are integral for success in almost any startup, regardless of what you’re making.

But what about the cost?

It turned out that the higher production costs were well worth our drastically improved supply chain and happier customer base. Since we openly strive to be sustainable in both product and process, reshoring falls right in line with our company values. We now have a transparent operation we can confidently state emphasizes a strong social element in the production process.

Luckily, we also have a customer base that values our reshoring enough to pay a slight premium for this service. By working with us, forward-thinking schools like Babson College — a key partner in innovation and sustainable product development — see their own purchase decisions as a chance for further education. And top-level decision makers, like Babson’s athletic director, use Kenai’s focus to prove that competitiveness through innovation really works.

These results are by no means unique to Kenai. According to recent Boston Consulting Group research, more and more consumers in the U.S. (80 percent) and abroad are willing to pay a premium for products made in the U.S.

Should you reshore your manufacturing?

The short answer is, it depends.

Reshoring is by no means an end-all solution, and for many businesses, it still makes sense to produce abroad. But it’s worth noting that in more than a few developing countries with a strong manufacturing presence, a thinning labor supply and a recent (and much-needed) spotlight on worker’s rights means costs are on the rise — a trend that looks as if it will continue. This may make reshoring more financially justifiable.

It’s also an ethical choice: According to a report from the Clean Clothes Campaign, more than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in factory fires since 2006. This number includes the November 2012 disaster at the Tazreen Fashions factory, where over 110 workers were killed. A December 2012 New York Times article placed blame squarely on factory management for the extremely hazardous working conditions and lack of safety protocols. But more importantly, it exposed the lack of transparency in apparel manufacturing – U.S. retailers that were selling the apparel made at Tazreen Fashions had no idea that’s where their clothing was made (nor would they have known had it not been for the fire). As media outlets continue to expose horrific events like this, retailers are forced to accept an unprecedented level of accountability for their sourcing decisions.

If you run a young company that may realize some of the same benefits we experienced, we strongly suggest investigating this option even further. Even in this “new economy,” targeted investment into an underutilized sector of the “old economy” may provide shockingly positive results.

Charlie Bogoian is one half of the visionary entrepreneurial team behind Kenai Sports, the award winning “sustainable sportswear” brand. Recently named one of Connecticut’s “Social Entrepreneurs of the Year,” this Babson College grad is a passionate ally for sustainability initiatives across the globe. Phil Tepfer, cofounder and CEO of Kenai Sports, also contributed to this article.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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I know many women who are irked by Sheryl Sandberg’s dictum to “lean in,” the subject of her new book. Sheryl’s basic premise is that women don’t reach the top of corporate and political ladders because we stop trying at the most critical time in our careers and instead start preparing to raise families. In other words, we lean back — rather than lean in and pursue professional success with the same hunger as our male counterparts.

This idea pisses off a lot of women. Not just women who have sacrificed their careers to raise families, but also those of us who are charging forward with them. There are a couple of reasons why Sheryl’s message gets women so riled up.

The first is that most us are jealous of Sheryl. She is one of few women in a prominent leadership position who have somehow managed to achieve everything – wealth, power, respect, marriage, family, intelligence, beauty, and the list goes on. It’s hard to not feel jealous of all that. So when someone like her tells us it’s our own fault we’re not succeeding, it’s only natural to get defensive. “Who are you to tell me to ‘lean in’ when you have two nannies raising your kids?” we think to ourselves. “Take your advice to someone who has been blessed with the same privilege as you have.”

Indeed, the fact that you are most to blame for your own failure is hard to face.

Yet even if you take all that away, a doubt still lingers. Because underneath the sage advice to sweat like a man if we expect to play a man’s game lies hidden another message that is harder to swallow – that we must accept the rules as they have been presented to us, and play them well.

What if we’d rather change the rules instead? Those unspoken rules of workplace engagement, which developed at a time when men worked only with other men, continue to dictate the professional world today — even though men are no longer the only players in it. Both the obvious rules, like those that tell us the more time you spend at the office, the better an employee you are, and the subtler ones, like the idea that crying in front of a colleague is a sign of weakness, are still in play. Norms like these have shaped a working culture, over the years, which is often hostile to women in both big ways and small.

I remember the first time I cried at work. It was during a tense one-on-one conversation with a male colleague. I felt foolish after leaving the meeting, disappointed that I had demeaned myself in that way. But as I reflected later about what had transpired during the heated debate, I realized that my crying had actually been a helpful response in that particular situation. It had deescalated the tension and caused my colleague to be more empathetic towards me, paving the way for an amicable outcome. I obviously didn’t cry on purpose. It was a natural response, dictated by my evolutionary impulses, which led to a better outcome than if I had simply kept posturing like a man. So why did I feel like I had done something wrong? The “no crying” rule was clearly written by a man.

This may seem like a minor, perhaps even petty, example to some of you, but I believe it is in these subtle day-to-day interactions that women slowly lose the motivation to fight for their careers, and turn instead to that other form of work that more closely aligns with their evolutionary impulses.

I see so many capable women struggling to reconcile their career ambitions with that relentlessly ticking biological clock. Unwilling to compromise on the professional success we have been sweating over for three decades, we lean back instead on our personal lives. We delay childbirth so long that it takes a full medical team just to help us conceive, and when we do finally get pregnant we lean into our work to the point of exhaustion, squeezing out every last ounce of productivity until the baby arrives. We then proudly trumpet a brief two weeks of maternity leave (a la Marissa Mayer) and bounce right back to work, breast pump in tow. Did a man invent the breast pump too?

Truth be told, I think many of us would happily trade that innovation for more flexible work-from-home policies. Some women have a superhuman reserve of energy and chutzpah, and can withstand the exhaustion of early motherhood while steaming full speed ahead with their careers. Props to them. Seriously. But for most of us, the decision to go back to the office immediately after birth is often a choice between the lesser of evils, and some of us choose to lean the other way.

The rules that govern our workplace were not created to be unfair to women, and the men who continue to live by them do not, for the most part, do so maliciously. They are simply rules from an older time. So the message that we should continue operating within them even as we tout the progress of women at work can sometimes seem like a copout. We’re fighters after all, those of us still left standing. Do you really expect us to just shut up and play along?

Perhaps that is in fact the real wisdom in Sheryl’s message: Only those with power can change the rules, and the best way to gain power is to win the game.

Regardless of how we perceive her message, I believe we owe Sheryl a thank you for showing us that it can be done, no matter what the rules say.

Prerna is Chief Product Officer at Smule. She is also an investor and mentor at 500 Startups. You can follow her @prernagupta.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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I’m going to be honest from the get-go: I hold a legal degree, and I’ve spent a long time advising startups after they’ve already gotten themselves into a small (or big) situation. I’ve worked as both a large-firm lawyer and a boutique lawyer. And I think large law firms are great — I just don’t think they happen to be the right choice for every startup.

That said, as an entrepreneur myself, I’m also a big fan of working with service providers that want to grow with your company.

Getting the right legal counsel for your company is like getting a great base for your startup, but you have to know how to pick the lawyer or firm that will best serve your goals. Here are five questions to ask as you embark on your own search:

1. Do they understand your industry?

My biggest gripe with lawyers is that they often don’t understand their clients’ industries. Many firms are excellent with contracts and document preparation, but if they don’t understand the industry your startup lives in, they aren’t going to be the best counsel for you, because they simply won’t know what to look out for.

So test their industry knowledge a little, and make sure they get your business. We’re in the fashion world at Viciare NY, which means we looked for someone who understood everything from international textile buying to copyrights, manufacturing contracts, and e-commerce. If our legal counsel doesn’t know key industry information, they won’t know what to advise you except what you tell them. And in that case, what’s the point?

2. Have they worked with early-stage startups?

Early-stage startups have very different legal needs from mature startups. For early-stage companies, the focus has to be on building a legal infrastructure for the company; for later-stage companies, the focus is often on securities, funding, etc.

If a firm hasn’t worked with early-stage companies, it may not understand what goes into that architecture. I once worked with a startup that had incorporated a C-Corp in Delaware and then registered in New York as a foreign entity – and, as a result, was paying twice the fees and taxes it would have if it had chosen to register in only one state. It just did what its lawyer said to do, without having the lawyer explain exactly why he/she was advising this course of action. The startup folded after two years and paid taxes even without having made any money.

Remember, a lot of firms work with very established clients. Many don’t have the experience of setting up a business from scratch. Look for a lawyer that understands the inception-to-launch process.

3. Which lawyer will actually be working on your matter?

This is critical, because you may get a great presentation by an experienced partner and find out later that the person handling you as a client is a first-year associate who doesn’t understand exactly what your company does.

Those conversations become very annoying, very quickly.

4. What is their fee structure?

Startups want everything for extremely cheap or for free – especially when it comes to service providers (hey, it’s bootstrapping – we get it!).  But when someone starts offering you free legal services, I want you to consider this: What are they getting out of it?

If you can’t find an answer, then there is something wrong with the scenario. Last year, I ran into a startup that was two months away from closing a funding round and was in a panic because its lawyers were now demanding legal fees in excess of $30,000. Until that point, the lawyers had been working on the startup’s matter for a mere $150/hour (a heavily reduced rate). What the startup had not realized was the firm was not bound by any obligation to continue that rate – and exactly when the startup needed lawyers the most, the firm upped the charges.

This is not all that unusual — it’s just rarely discussed. There’s a reason they call us sharks — because lawyers are good at knowing the right time to get what is needed.

So look for legal counsel that is up-front with its fee structure or has a startup package.

5. Do you actually like the person you’re talking to?

This is something we all forget to consider: Do we actually like the lawyer we’re hiring? In any hiring decision, personality matters. If you don’t want to talk to your lawyer more than you absolutely have to, they not be the right person to represent and advise your company. Treat your legal counsel like any other hire.

Benish Shah is the CEO of Vicaire NY, an online e-commerce platform bringing luxury emerging designers to the middle market consumer, and defragmenting the fashion industry in the process.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

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Living in the technology and startup ecosystem, we are constantly bombarded with the latest hot new app, device, technology, or company. They get their 15 minutes of fame and then something newer, hotter, and latest-er comes along to replace them. But every now and then, something sticks around for a while.

Since it’s nearly impossible to sort through the noise when talking to my technology friends, I’ve taken to listening to family and friends who are far away from the tech scene – most of whom still don’t “get” Twitter, can’t understand what all the fuss is about with Apple products, and would be willing to bet that Sand Hill Road was on a beach in Mexico. Last year, those friends all seemed to suddenly discover and start posting photos from Instagram, music from Spotify was showing up in my Facebook Ticker, and I was bombarded with old friends from high school joining Pinterest. I’ll take those signs to mean these three have successfully crossed over to the mainstream.

Some of the products and innovations below may have been hot for a while in the technology ecosystem; they might have raised boatloads of money, and could even be airing fancy television commercials already. But it’s only when my mom asks if she should buy the Nike+ Fuelband for my dad’s birthday that I’m pretty sure we’re onto something.

Here are six technologies, products, and innovations I believe will go mainstream in 2013:

Nike+ Fuelband: Accessible health data in a cool package

Earlier this year I purchased a Nike+ Fuelband thinking it would be a great way to keep tabs on my physical activity. Since then, this black band with the the slick LED display has been a conversation starter for everyone from friends to total strangers. Several similar devices are on the market right now – Jawbone’s Up and the Fitbit are two I get asked about the most. The devices are all relatively simple in their functionality (think of them as glorified pedometers with some cool extra software).

These devices have the benefit of real-world virality, in that they do spark conversations leading to aspirational fitness fans getting into the action. Personally, I have been more active since I started tracking my activity, so I can certainly see how this personalized health technology will become a real trend — even more so than the current functionality. I definitely expect to see more bands, clips, and watches at the 2013 Koester family Christmas.

Evernote: Organization 2.0

For all the advances in technology over the past few years with smartphones, tablets, and laptops, it’s somewhat surprising that there isn’t a go-to application for consumers to keep organized. That’s why I’m bullish on Evernote. It’s been a darling of the early adopter community, and I finally started using it towards the tail end of 2012 as I struggled to manage my scattered notes, to-do lists, and photos of whiteboards. Enter the solution that helps keep all of those key documents organized and in a single place.

The reason I think 2013 is the year for Evernote is its slick-as-they-come iPad tablet application. I found myself constantly wanting to use my iPad when in meetings, but wasn’t confident that I’d remember to export the notepad notes. And it turned out I wasn’t alone. I soon spotted my legal eagle friends carrying tablets around for note-taking and likewise using Evernote to keep tabs. I think part of the reason it didn’t make the jump sooner was the fact that the pain wasn’t as obvious on a smartphone or PC, but Evernote really supercharges a tablet, and that’s why I expect it to truly go mainstream.

Flipboard: Your socially curated magazine

As I mentioned, my non-tech friends still don’t quite “get” Twitter. To me, Twitter helps create a socially curated (by me) news and conversation feed. Unfortunately, it’s a little too much noise, a little too much work, and a little too “insider-y” for many in the mainstream. Enter Flipboard. Without any real effort, Flipboard helps turn your Facebook feed, Twitter feed, or just your interests into a visually rich, magazine style application. It’s great on both smartphone and tablet but really shows off the underlying power of social curation.

My mom got her iPhone two years ago (primarily because she wanted to be able to show off her son’s app at bridge). She’s not an app person, but I was amazed to see her use Flipboard to consume Facebook content rather than the mediocre Facebook app. I asked her why, and her response surprised me: “It’s less work – Facebook on my phone was getting sorta boring.” While Facebook and Instagram are making consuming content easier on mobile, Flipboard seems to have nailed the casual magazine-flipping experience, all with a nice social curation. Watch for a big year for them.

Airbnb: Unique and affordable places to stay

As a big fan of the collaborative consumption and peer-to-peer economy myself (given that my company participates in the space), I’d always been amazed we hadn’t seen a new mainstream success after eBay and Craigslist paved the way. Etsy has made a great deal of progress and is growing wildly, but I expect Airbnb to go “mainstream” this year.

As the company matures at breakneck speeds, it’s started to tap into the right vein that mainstream can grasp and stomach. No more is this staying on someone’s couch; it’s access to a unique, personal, and affordable place where hotels probably won’t go. In some ways, it’s almost the anti-peer-to-peer messaging. It’s subtle in some ways but represents a major difference for non-early adopters.

Several college friends of mine were describing their trip to San Diego at the end of last year, and I was surprised to hear them say, “We booked this great beachfront condo on Airbnb – it was so amazing and cheaper than the hotels. Have you heard of Airbnb?” Uh, yup… I’ve heard of it.

Airbnb’s handling of the Sandy hurricane cleanup efforts, including donating its fees and helping increase properties for temporary rental, also showed how the company has the ability to become a key piece of a city’s fabric – which will be critical as the company looks to go from the cheap, non-hotel option to the one-of-a-kind, convenient stop.

Boxee: Web and TV become one (finally)

I wanted to say that Web-powered television was already here and mainstream, but it’s still amazing whenever I visit anyone’s home and see the number of cable subscribers. I keep expecting to see more Xbox units, Roku boxes, Apple TVs, or Boxee boxes out there – but alas, I haven’t. However, I think conversations are starting to happen where consumers are looking for more on-demand programming outside of what cable can offer. And that’s why I expect 2013 to be a year when Boxee goes mainstream (and though it very well could be the other delivery boxes, I’m going to put my bets behind Boxee).

Just why does this year (unlike all the other years it was supposed to be the year) look like on-demand, non-cable programming will make it big? I think the way television has changed in 2012 opens a huge opportunity outside of cable. Look at some of the most popular shows of 2012 and you’ll find stations like HBO (“Game of Thrones” or “Newsroom”) and Showtime (“Homeland”) leading the way. Meanwhile, original programming is finding its way onto YouTube.

Television consumption is amazing – normal consumers watch a large amount of programming. As programming moves outside of normal cable packages or outside of the cable realm completely, I expect consumers will turn to Boxee to get that program they’ve heard about.

My cousin said he watches 5-6 movies per week on Netflix through his Xbox before he goes to bed. Why? Because it’s free, its easy, and it’s on his schedule. Television programming remains one of the biggest guilty pleasures out there, and as must-watch content moves from cable, look for consumers to buy the boxes and devices that can serve it.

Brit+Co: Making our real lives like Pinterest & Etsy

It’s hard not to have a major online crush on Brit Moran, the founder and face of Brit+Co. She’s like a tech savvy Martha Stewart who makes life a little easier for the rest of us without making us feel bad for not having perfectly pressed pants, an amazing soufflé, or a home ready for professional photography. But Brit represents a much larger trend – technology showing off beauty of real life. Companies from Etsy (a beautiful marketplace for handicrafts or vintage items) to Pinterest (a design-inspired site for collecting images) are offering a way to showcase beautiful design and imagery. But Brit and her site (okay, let’s call it an emerging empire) seem poised to help take that to our real lives.

I think Brit+Co is poised to go mainstream this year because the huge fan bases of Etsy and Pinterest are looking for their Martha … and who better than Brit? She’ll be a featured guest on the “Katie Couric Show,” which I expect to introduce her to the masses. I’ve watched my female college and high school friends liking her on Facebook, which seems a sign of things to come.

Eric Koester is a serial entrepreneur and most recently founded Zaarly.com, a peer-to-peer marketplace to discover hand-curated local service providers. You can read more at http://www.ekoester.com.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►Peter Parkes/Compfight cc

The pursuit of funding can start to feel like the startup journey itself — an endless cycle of pitching, relationship building, research, analysis, and proving your business model. If you take a smart approach to the process, however, the exhausting process can be a lot more fruitful.

The key is to frame the funding process as an intensive business development effort: tapping into your ecosystem, staying up to speed on industry happenings, being an advocate for your business model, and doing everything you can to build relationships. Just as business development is about more than drumming up new business by attending a conference here and there and handing out some business cards, the pursuit of funding is equally complex. To succeed you need to be informed, focused, organized, and motivated — with a steady gaze to the long term.

Regardless of the level of funding you are seeking, follow these steps to “biz dev” your funding process:

1. Determine your funding round

First, figure out what size round you need to help determine if you will go after friends and family, bank loans, angel investors, venture capitalists, or private equity shops. Develop your finance roadmap by calculating how much investment you will need to achieve each milestone and then targeting a range of investment rounds. Your financial plan should include a bottom-up projection for cash flow, high-level income statement, and balance sheet.

Don’t stick with the most optimistic plan; play around with your assumptions for different outcomes based on different inputs. And take your desired rate of growth into consideration: If you want to accelerate growth, you’ll need a larger investment. As any entrepreneur knows, you will almost always wind up spending more money than you initially thought you would. So make sure you plan for enough funds to take you at least six to 12 months beyond your current milestone.

2. Choose your business financing type

There are two kinds of business financing: debt and equity. Determine which is the best option based on your current situation and future business goals.

• Debt financing: If you’re looking for cash for the short term, debt financing may be your best bet. In this scenario, you borrow money and agree to pay it back, with interest, within a given time frame. Debt could be traditional debt, typically tied to an AR line of credit, inventory, or, if it’s a working capital line of credit, to revenue and profit. Or debt may be venture debt — though that more typically comes after you have already raised some venture capital.
• Equity financing: Equity financing is more of a long-term strategy. For equity financing, you sell a part of your company for cash. If your company succeeds, your investor gets a nice return on their investment (much greater than an interest rate would return). If your company fails, the investment is lost. The question is, how much of your company are you willing to trade-in for a cash infusion? Instead of having to pay money back for loan repayments, you can use the extra cash to invest back into your business for accelerated growth.

3. Build your value proposition

This is much more than just a biz dev to-do, of course. But, when the time comes to seek funding, you better make sure there is some market problem/pain-point that is crying out for your solution. If you can’t convince an investor that you can solve a problem, how are you going to convince potential customers?

4. Time it right

You can try to fight the market, but you’re going to lose every time. Understanding where the market is in its life cycle will help you figure out how to time your pitch. Admittedly, there is no magical formula for timing your product/concept; there’s a large element of luck (and instinct) at work. But there are actions you can take to improve your timing.

• Stay on top of your industry. From this vantage point, you’ll be better positioned to ride the trends. With endless access to social media, there’s no excuse for not being up-to-date. In other words, don’t try to pitch your new big data concept to a VC if the bubble just burst on this sector.
• Calculate and manage TTM (time to market). Even if you can’t control the overall market, you can control your TTM by establishing product development processes. With improved time to market, you’ll be better positioned to take advantage of market opportunities and you’ll earn greater revenue over the product life cycle. Investors will also place more confidence in your company if you demonstrate your awareness of TTM.

5. Find your fit

Investment firms tend to have a clear focus, either on a given industry, sector, or company stage. When you pitch to a firm with experience in your niche, you don’t need to waste time on education; instead, you can focus on selling, highlighting your business model, and competitive advantage within your industry.

6. Do your due diligence

You want to do your due diligence on your own company to make sure your business is in order. But you also need to do your due diligence on potential investors, prior to reaching out to them. Attend “Meet the VC” events and work your network for insider information about potential investors. What kind of deals is your investor in the market for? What is their funding timeline? What types of companies do they have in their portfolio? How will your company add value to their business? When you know the answers to these questions, it’s time to make contact.

7. Target key players

If you have chosen to go the route of VC or angel investors, identify your key targets. Read VC blogs and follow key targets on Twitter; also check out which boards and panels potential VCs sit on. Based on their blogs and where they are active, you can find out key information: Who are they? What makes them tick? Business is people and investments are about more than money.

8. Tap into the ecosystem

It’s not enough to get a good banker or lawyer or accountant or insurance broker on board. You need to pick service providers who will do more than provide a service. Think of service providers as professional partners.

For example, if your sector is clean tech, are there specific lawyers with a list of clean tech clients? Funded clean tech clients? If so, they can help provide more than legal support. Anyone you work with or who works for you should live and breathe within your ecosystem — and if they have key connections to VCs and angel investors, all the better!

9. Work your network

Business development is all about connections. Work your existing network and continually seek out ways to expand it. Identify key connectors within your community. Reach out to other CEOs and executives at companies that have already been funded. Then ask for introductions.

10. Persist

The last step to getting funded is also the first: Persistence. We’ve all heard the myth of the startup that laid the golden egg, but getting funded requires more than luck. It requires research, hard work, and tenacity. Rinse, repeat.

Business development is a way to step outside your business to further it. So too is the pursuit of funding.

David Ehrenberg is CEO of Early Growth Financial Services. His expertise includes building high growth technology companies, venture funding, debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic planning and operational expertise in accounting, human resources, legal and corporate governance, facilities, IT and administrative functions.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►zedworks/Compfight cc

“Do your shareholders choose you or do you choose them?  Sophisticated CEOs choose their investors by defining their particular business approach and strategy and ensuring that their investors are aligned with that program.”  - Bill George, former Medtronic CEO

Startup founders eager for cash can put the long-term vision of their venture at risk if they make assumptions about investors and why they want to participate. Startup investors have various objectives in mind when they consider a startup, including financial returns, passion for the narrative, or affinity for the team involved.  But when investors’ motivations diverge from founders’, friction ensues — so it’s up to you, as a founder, to make sure your investor’s goals align with your own.

In my nine years of building startups, I’ve heard many stories of misalignment causing entrepreneurs and investors to row in different directions. That’s why I began wondering how I would explore alignment when I co-founded Fig, a mission-driven startup focused on enhancing holistic wellness for consumers.

Importantly, alignment is different than “value add,” which is about the relevant skills, connections, and reputation that an investor provides your company. Value add is important, but it isn’t everything.  Alignment is sharing commitment to the same mission, values, and time horizon.

Here are a few approaches I’ve found helpful for exploring fit along these dimensions:

1. Define your mission and values and share them early.

What is the purpose of your venture?  What principles are most important to your founding team?  What are your objectives and exit plans?  This clarity will help with evaluating investors, team members, and other kinds of of partners. Clearly articulating these values, as companies like Twilio have done, is also important for creating a reinforcing culture. At Fig we aim to incorporate our values into every hiring, investor, and partnership decision.

After determining your mission and values, ensure investors know they are important by sending them in your pre-pitch deck. Including 1-2 slides on mission and values as part of a 5-6 pre-pitch deck will not only highlight their importance to you but also allow investors to self-select based on compatibility — saving both of you time.

2. Share specific instances of your values in action.

Give specific examples of your behavior that illustrate your commitment to your mission and/or values. While many investors are hoping you’ll build an enduring and consequential company, others are hoping for a quick flip.

When I told potential investors that my co-founder Bart and I rejected our first acquisition offer largely because we were not convinced it would lead to furthering our mission, I was conveying our commitment to building a mission-driven company over the long term. My goal was to weed out investors hoping for a quick exit.

3. References are a must.

You wouldn’t make a key hire without checking their references. Do the same for potential investors. Leverage your network of friends, mentors, and former colleagues to both find and screen potential investors. Your friends are likely to share at least some of your values and know others who hold similar priorities. Structure these discussions beforehand to honor your friends’ time. Your company’s mission and values should determine what you’re solving for.

4. Be transparent with your due diligence.

Sometimes it’s impossible to evaluate alignment before a meeting. If an investor seems keen on moving forward, let them know you plan to talk with mutual contacts. I’ve found it helpful to ground this “heads up” in a spirit of reciprocity.

While raising funding for Fig, I would say, “I want you to be confident in who you’re investing in, Mr. Investor. Feel free to talk to anyone I’ve worked with in the past — I’m even happy to introduce you to one or two Fig investors. I plan to call one or two of my friends who have worked with you. I want both of us to enter this partnership with eyes wide open.”

5. Pay attention to your emotions and internal dialogue during pitching conversations.

Building a company will definitely have its ups and downs. Choose investors you want to spend time with at the peak and in the valley. Quality time means enough time to accumulate sufficient firsthand data for your mind and impressions for your gut. In my experience, most investors will want two conversations with you before they invest. During these conversations, ask yourself, “Do I want to spend more time with this person or less? Would I be proud to introduce this investor to my team?”

Investors are key business partners; misalignment with investors has the potential to negatively affect all other areas of your business.  Prioritize alignment from the beginning, and enjoy the benefits of everyone rowing in the same direction.

Kevon Saber is cofounder of Fig, a mobile startup focused on personal wellbeing. Prior to Fig, Kevon co-founded GenPlay Games, a mobile games developer which has created 15 games and $40+ million in revenue. Kevon holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►Gerard Fritz/Flickr

Getting this crucial business element right from the beginning should be one of your top priorities as a startup owner. It can be incredibly tempting to set your prices low from the start in order to undercut your competitors, but this is actually a terrible idea for growing businesses. Here’s why:

• Pricing low makes future growth less sustainable. If you do so, incoming revenues may not be enough to keep the business afloat. When you price your products low, you’ve got to sell a heck of a lot more of them to make enough money to continue reinvesting in your business. In some cases, there may not be enough customers in your target audience to ever generate sustainable revenue if you’ve set your prices too low.
• Pricing low devalues your product offerings. Consumers understand that premium products command a higher fee — which is why wines from prestigious labels routinely command higher prices than discount brands, even though blind taste tests fail to uncover significant differences in flavor. When customers see low prices, they often assume that there’s a reason for the discounted rates — and that the tradeoff in price comes at the expense of quality.
• Pricing low is hard to recover from. Even in the best of economic times, increasing your prices can be difficult. Whether or not the increase is justified, it can be difficult to convince consumers to pay higher rates for the same product they received before without losing customers in the process.

Instead, it’s a much better idea to price your products appropriately from the start. To do this, you’ll need to start with some background research. Put some time into understanding the following three variables before you set your prices:

1. Materials costs: the amount of money you spend on the raw materials needed to create your products.

If you manufacture products, these costs will be fairly straightforward (though you should be aware of various price breaks that may occur for bulk component purchases). Even if you only release digital products (as in the case of software and mobile apps), your materials costs may still include things like stock photography, licensing fees, and other expenses.

2. Labor costs: the number of hours required to make your product and the hourly rate associated with those hours.

It’s also essential that you know exactly how much time goes into creating each of your products and how you value that time. If you’re making each of your products by hand, understanding exactly how long it takes to create each piece — as well as the hourly rate you need to earn a living wage — will prevent you from setting your prices so low that you can’t afford to live. In addition, if you use outsourced workers at all in the creation of your products, be sure to account for their time and rates in your calculations.

3. Overhead costs: any further expenses required for the operation of your business.

The final cost category to be aware of when calculating prices is your overhead expenses. Depending on the scale of your business, this could include anything from web hosting and cell phone service to office space rental, electricity, and furniture purchases.

Once you have a good estimate for these expenses, use the following formulas to estimate your prices:

Base Cost = Materials Cost + Labor Cost

Wholesale Cost = (Materials Cost + Labor Cost) * Wholesale Markup

Retail Cost = Wholesale Cost * Retail Markup

Profit = (Retail Markup * Items Sold) – Overhead Cost

Now, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind as you complete these calculations.

• Research your potential markups. The specific markups you’ll be able to charge will vary significantly by industry, so it’s worth doing some research into what your niche’s standards are. Some fields — like grocery goods and mobile apps — operate on tight margins due to the potential for high volume sales.  Others — primarily luxury goods and electronics — can sustain higher markup rates without diminishing sales.
• Respect industry ranges. If your calculations put your estimated prices significantly above or below your competitors, you need to either alter your profit expectations or find a way to make your products more efficiently. Alternatively, you may be able to find a way to market your product differently in order to command higher prices.
• Use these calculations to work backwards to your desired profit. If you know that you want your business to earn a certain amount of money each year, try starting with your desired profit instead of your set costs. Doing so will help you to determine whether your business ideas are sustainable or not.

By paying careful attention to both your costs and trends within in your industry, it is possible to set your prices in a way that both attracts potential customers and ensures your startup’s financial stability from the start.

AJ Kumar is the co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, and various other marketing strategies.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►xoxoryan/Flickr

Whether you’re a male or female entrepreneur, starting a company feels a lot like giving birth. You went through the planning, the pain, the emotional roller coaster of fear, excitement and anxiety and, months later, you came out of it stronger than ever.

Fast forward a year or two past the launch. Your startup is a teenager, nearly ready to step into adulthood. It has full-time employees, a 1-800 number, maybe even a blog. There’s just one problem: You’re still cutting the crusts off your startup’s sandwiches. That is, you’re still fielding phone calls from clients, working hands-on with the product, probably even writing the blog yourself. You’re babying your startup by working in the business instead of on the business.

More than likely, it’s because you’re too afraid to let go. But if you keep treating your business like a baby, it will keep acting like one — in the form of infantile profits, sophomoric growth rates, underdeveloped vendor relationships, and an overall juvenility that will cripple your ability to accomplish long-term goals.

Fortunately, there’s a solution for this: Cut the cord … as in, the umbilical cord.

But how do you let go of the fear that’s tethering you to your business?

1. Create — and hand off — a systems manual.

The first step is to facilitate the evolution of your company from a clumsy, awkward, pimply-faced teen into a capable, debonnaire young adult. Create systems for each aspect of your business so that new employees can step in and quickly take over those roles. It’s easier than you’d think.

Walk through each process, from start to finish, and write down every step. The number of steps can range from four or five up to 100 or more for each aspect of the business. This should include everything you currently do, from direct client interaction to press releases and everything in between. Just make sure you document every last piece of the puzzle.

Congratulations, you’ve just created a systems manual. Now hand it to someone else and never answer the front office phone again … ever.

2. Hand-pick and personally train your leadership team.

OK, so “handing it to someone else” might be an oversimplification. Once you have your systems documented, the next crucial step is trusting others to undertake those responsibilities. Like a 20-something learns how to do laundry, pay bills, and survive away from mom and dad’s basement, your startup needs to learn how to run itself.

That means you have to let go of the day-to-day operations.

Letting go can cause emotional discomfort and logistical friction, but the end game is well worth it if you have the dedication and focus to continually improve on your systems. To do that, it will help if you train (and possibly hire new) individuals who will be taking over the most key functions of the business, e.g. marketing, client-care, development, etc. This will be your leadership team.

3. Give your leadership team the autonomy to develop their own systems.

Once you have a team in place, they can handle all of the subsequent hiring, training, and creation/implementation of new systems. Over time, they’ll need to bring even more high-quality people into the operation as your systems continue to evolve and expand. These new team members, like the original leadership team, will create and implement systems of their own.

Essentially, it’s an intelligent design/watch-maker scenario. Build a regular wristwatch, and you’ve got a nice timepiece on your wrist. Build a wristwatch that’s smart enough to build more wristwatches, though, and you’ve got a self-sustaining business.

Your leadership team will report directly to you with regular status updates, as well as information regarding important new matters. That should help curb your anxiety over letting go of the day-to-day operations.

4. Test your team by taking a short sabbatical. (Really.)

Once your startup is, to quote the movie Swingers, “all growns up,” you’ll find yourself with a lot more time on your hands. The true test of your systems comes when you can step completely away from the business for a month and come back to a more profitable, more successful company than when you left.

(Note: As a word of hard-earned advice, you might want to start with a week or a single day and then build up to a month-long hiatus.)

5. Congratulations — you can now run your business strategically.

Now you can finally afford to look at the big picture. You can come up with ideas for long-term growth, supplemental revenue streams, new partnerships, and other big-picture ideas that you never would have had time to think through had you still been writing your company’s blog.

You’ll be amazed at what new things you can accomplish when you let go (at least partially) of what you’ve already achieved and focus on what’s next.

And hey, perhaps you’ll even create another little startup to add to the brood!

Nick Friedman is President and Co-founder of College Hunks Hauling Junk and College Hunks Moving, the largest and fastest growing US-based junk removal and moving franchise opportunities. He started the business in college with his best friend in a beat up cargo van, and now has over 40 locations nationwide.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via ►CubaGallery/Flickr

This post was written by Travis Steffen, founder of WorkoutBOX and ActionJunkie Labs and co-founder of Lessons On Becoming A Millionaire. He is heavily involved in a variety of other online startups. Travis is also a published author, producer of the upcoming reality show, World’s Toughest, and is currently building a new charity.

You’ve developed a great product, and you and your team are now focused on selling as many pieces as you can through your website. Suddenly, a member of your team voices their opinion:

“What about giving customers a promotional code to discount their purchase price? That should be a solid way to increase sales, right?”

At first, it may seem like a no-brainer — sure, a discount will definitely increase your absolute number of sales. However, if you don’t put the necessary thought into a promotional campaign, you may run the risk of decreasing long-term profits.

On one hand, you’re giving people more of an incentive to buy, since customers feel as though they’re getting a better deal than they otherwise would. This can be a good thing, but only if you get these discounts into the hands of the people who wouldn’t have purchased from you otherwise. If you give discount codes to people who would have already become your customers, then you’re basically giving away money. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling — that strategy isn’t good.

If you give out coupon codes to all prospective customers without exception, you not only reduce your average profit per sale on the customers who would have bought from you regardless, but you also run the risk of reducing the perceived value of your brand.

A few approaches could help you solve this problem:

1. Target potential customers who are on the fence.

If a potential customer is unsure if they want to buy, coupons or promos can sometimes help sway them. One of the only ways you can target these people is by hitting them up as they leave your site without buying. By putting a special offer in front of people who are exiting your site right as they leave, you’re targeting customers on the fence — instead of everybody at once. The more you can customize your interactions for people who are on the fence and actually want more information, the more successful those interactions will be.

2. Provide coupons as a way of incentivizing desired actions.

For example, reward users with a future-use coupon code for clicking a “Share” button after purchasing to advertise your product to their social networks. Offering a discount for their next purchase encourages repeat business AND spreads the word about your brand. The downside to this strategy is that you’re not presenting the coupon to users who were on the fence about buying in the first place, which is the most valuable place to offer a coupon.

3. Instill a sense of urgency.

This is done quite often via sales copy and is a time-tested concept. For example, tell potential customers what your product is typically valued at (let’s say $50). Then, cross this number out and tell them what it’s being sold at (let’s say $20). This difference in price makes your customers feel as though they’re getting a great deal as they’re saving $30. However, some users who have every intention of buying will tell themselves that they’ll just buy it later. To inject even a bit more power to this strategy, let your customers know that your current price will only be this low for a  limited time. This gives them a reason to buy right now, instead of waiting around and possibly forgetting completely.

4. Craft your checkout page with promo links.

Customers who would have bought from you anyway may begin asking for a promo code because they either heard of others getting one, or because your checkout screen highlights the area to input a promo code too much. Instead, have customers click an extra link to input a promo code. Make it obvious to the users who are looking for it, but don’t throw it in the faces of users who don’t have a coupon code to enter. If you put a form field out in the open, asking for a promo code, users will bounce to look for one on Google. And when they don’t find one, they may never return.

5. Don’t offer coupon codes at all.

Many higher-end brands never offer coupons and also don’t allow retailers to discount their goods. They view it as a negative strike against their high-end branding efforts. While this strategy doesn’t apply to the majority of brands, it remains a valid option for some.

Regardless of which strategy you choose to use, put some thought into it. Don’t put a promotion live just because you think it’s going to skyrocket sales. If you’re not thorough or targeting the right people, that discount can significantly decrease your bottom line.

The moral of the story here is that even seemingly simple, no-brainer decisions are worth some thought. Don’t take anything lightly, as the smallest decisions may impact your brand in a big way.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via krossbow/Flickr

This post was written by Jeremy Hitchcock, CEO of Dyn, an Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) provider.

Dyn has been a bootstrapped company and profitable from day one. We get a lot of questions on how we pulled this off, and while I would love to claim all the credit, there’s nothing really magical about our success. We started as an open-source, community-led project, found a need, and grew a company around it — fueled by a lot of hard work and many sleepless nights.

But when we incorporated in 2001, things weren’t pretty. We had never thought about funding, and since we were in college, we asked our customers to bankroll us. Actually, we said that the project would get shut down unless we were able to raise our $25,000 goal. When $40,000 came in, we knew we were on the hook.

We’ve grown and been profitable year over year. Now we’re eight years removed from my college graduation, have 150 people, and service some of the best Internet companies — plus 4 million customers — all over the world. We’ve learned a lot along the way, and there are a few tips that we can pass along.

1. Start with something you love.

Don’t be afraid to start small. We started with a little project that helped us access papers off our dorm room computers so we could escape walking through the cold to get to a lab printer. This is also how you understand the market/product fit and who is an ideal customer. By pursuing something personal, you understand the pain and the value that you can deliver in a product.

2. Spread the word and get others involved.

It’s easier than ever to get people to see projects and other ideas and to get public momentum behind them. Kickstarter, Twitter, Facebook, and Angel.co are great ways to do just that. You’ll want to get people using your service. We were free at the time (which was pretty unique) and enlisted a core group of volunteers who served as our initial customer support staff.

3. Get to minimum viable product (MVP) and dollar one fast.

When you start out, you are constantly thinking about dollar one — the first customer that actually pays you for your service. While we asked for donations to keep the project going, we also simultaneously launched a paid version of the service with additional features. When people are willing to part with their money because you deliver value, you’re onto something.

4. Revenue has to be greater than expenses.

John Lynch, the popular governor of New Hampshire and former head of Knoll Furniture, said this line many times: If there is a single rule in business, it’s that revenue has to be greater than expenses. This fiscally conservative approach worked well for New Hampshire, which, even during one of the worst financial crises in history, was able to maintain a balanced budget and create jobs. If it works for an entire state, it’ll work for your business.

Sometimes, this means sacrificing comfort. Since we were in college when we started Dyn, we didn’t have expensive tastes (except for the occasional trip to the Cheesecake Factory); we were perfectly happy cramming into a small office space. In fact, even as we grew, we maintained modest accommodations. All of those early sacrifices paid off, as we now have a spacious 30,000 square foot headquarters — but only because we can afford it.

5. Optimize efficiency first.

The biggest tradeoff that comes with living within your means is that you obsess over efficiency. You’re always thinking about next year’s challenges while solving this year’s problem. It takes a lot of will to break out of each plateau and make sure that you don’t get stuck.

Around 2007 we were cruising along as an e-commerce platform, selling our services to small businesses and home users. But we wanted more. After a lot of careful consideration and even more risk, we decided to move upstream and provide an enterprise service. This gamble didn’t pay off immediately. There were more sleepless nights, but today, it’s fueling our growth. We wouldn’t have been able to take this leap if we weren’t living with one foot in the future.

6. Get lots of good advice.

Because people love the bootstrapping story, it’s easy to find people willing to share their experience. Don’t just talk to people in tech. Talk to people who run restaurants, ad agencies, do metal fabrication, own car dealerships, etc. You’ll realize that once you get the market/product fit relatively right (always a work in progress), all of your problems are related to people.

Of course, listening to advice is only part of it — you also have to implement it. Sometimes that is easier said than done, especially when you’re 23 years old. If you’re an entrepreneur, there is always part of you that thinks you know everything. But to grow a company, you have to accept your shortcomings and look elsewhere for answers — while simultaneously remembering that if you’re truly innovating, there may eventually be some things people can’t help you with, simply because they’ve never been done before.

7. Have a lot of fun.

In the end, it’s important to have a good time and love the people you work with. There’s nothing secret about running a company that is profitable from day one. It involves a lot of hard work but is incredibly rewarding when it happens.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via yyellowbird/Flickr

Today’s audiences aren’t automatically sold by celebrity endorsements anymore. Instead, they’re tribal to major online influencers who not only know their industry well but are the ones disrupting it and propelling it forward.

We asked 14 young entrepreneurs about how they identify and leverage major online influencers to help their brand — and whether such a mission is worth all the time, effort and/or funds.

Follow research by relevant names

Lawrence Watkins, @lawrencewatkins, Great Black Speakers

I look for annual lists whose goal is to highlight certain people within a profession. For example, Empact 100 helps me find entrepreneurs to connect with, and The Grio 100 helps me find new speakers for GBS. The best way to leverage the influencers is to offer them something of value. The association with reputable people raised the value of my company and influenced others to be a part of it.

Make use of Muck Rack journalists

Seth Kravitz, @secondcityceo, Technori

Muck Rack is one of the best ways we have found for targeting influential journalists on Twitter and building lists to begin targeting messages to them. Pretty much every major publication is listed there, with nearly all of their writers listed in really simple lists. It’s a huge time saver.

Connect through Yamana by Twtrland

Ben Lang, @benln, EpicLaunch

Yamana by the folks at Twtrland is an excellent product for identifying the right influencers to help your brand. Their trick is finding the best people in your niche, and it definitely shows good results that are useful.

Ditch Klout for Kred Story

Lane Sutton, @lanesutton, Social Media from a Teen

While Klout is controversial for its strange influence algorithm and the scores simply mean a number, Kred Story is a good alternative that actually adds points to influence scores for engagement, amplifications, outreach, audience size, communities, and influential topics. It also adds points for each tweet and message posted and gives a run-by-run breakdown of how your score adds up.

Give and get guest posts

Bhavin Parikh, @bkparikh, Magoosh Test Prep

We’ve looked for opportunities to help major influencers in our space by writing guest content for them. We focus on areas where we are experts. These relationships have helped us gain exposure with their user bases and have helped us rank higher in search results.

Savor popular social sharing aggregates

Eric Corl, @ericcorl, Fundable LLC

One great tool we’ve found are social sharing aggregates like Reddit and Hacker News. When we recently launched a new 3D conversion device, 3-D Vision’s Instant 3-D Converter, we leveraged our relationships with long-time contributors to Reddit — or “Redditors” — to give them a preview of the device and vouch for its capabilities and functionality. The results were outstanding, and coverage snowballed.

Promote them so they promote themselves

Stephanie Kaplan, @stephaniekaplan, Her Campus Media

On Her Campus we’ve done coverage and giveaways of major celebs’ fashion lines, books, etc., and the celebs have promoted our post to their many millions of followers. For example, when we did a giveaway of Snooki’s new book, Snooki tweeted about it, and it sent us a ton of new visitors and entrants.

Diligently stick to all social media

Andrew Schrage, @moneycrashers, Money Crashers Personal Finance

We are actively involved in social media, namely Twitter and Facebook. But we have also started to seek out followers by identifying industry professionals on LinkedIn and inviting them to join our conversations. This has definitely helped our branding on social media websites. We also regularly partake in any questions or interviews asked of us as a way to showcase our expertise.

Test out contextual influence marketing tools

Jesse Davis, @entreprecurious, Entrustet

Influencer marketing is a new focus within social media. Subsequently, it spawned a nascent industry of tools designed to help brands identify key influencers. Most recently, a subcategory of tools, called contextual influence tools have popped up. These tools let brands find influencers based on any subject a brand wants to search. Appinions, Traackr and Soc Metrics are the leaders in the space.

Take your influencer search to Twitter

Natalie MacNeil, @nataliemacneil, She Takes on the World

Many of the relationships I have with major influencers began on Twitter. Start by engaging with their content, retweeting, and participating in conversations they initiate. This puts you on their radar. When the time comes to reach out, make sure you clearly answer the question, “What’s in it for them?” One more thing: Be patient. Relationships aren’t built overnight.

Start an industry interview podcast

Allie Siarto, @allieo, Loudpixel

I learned the power of podcast interviews by accident during my senior year in college. By creating a niche podcast around your industry, you open a door to reach out to and talk with industry influencers. This will give you a chance to learn from the interview and boost your own visibility online. After the interviews, they will typically promote the published podcast to their networks.

Go with good ol’ fashioned giveaways

Peter Nguyen, @peternguyen, Advertiser360

Reach out to big bloggers, YouTube stars, gurus, experts — basically, anyone who’s already captivated an audience — and send out your product. Give it away for free, and hook up their followers with deep discounts. This is a great way to put yourself on the digital map, and it’s a free way to use digital PR.

There is no magic bullet!

Alexandra Levit, @alevit, Inspiration at Work

Uncovering the top influencers in one’s field requires old-fashioned research. Read the trades, go to industry events and, of course, check out Twitter, Facebook, etc. Then, gradually develop a relationship with the influencers by asking questions and citing their content. Do NOT ask an influencer to contribute to your site for free — influencers don’t need your exposure!

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via Jonathan Kos-Read/Flickr

This post, brought to us by the Young Entrepreneur Council, was written by Nick Reese, a founding partner of Microbrand Media, which specializes in digital strategy and affiliate marketing. 

A common motivation for entrepreneurship is the craving for freedom that is supposed to come with being your own boss. People envision setting their own hours, delegating work to a competent staff, and smiling benignly at the books while the money flows in without a hitch.

Unfortunately, even the most talented people with the most marketable ideas often wind up being slaves to their new businesses instead. If you’re working for the business instead of the business working for you, you desperately need a system.

What’s a system, and why do I need one?

A system breaks down your businesses processes and sets verifiable checkpoints with expected outcomes for each task. A comprehensive system is much more than a simple how-to document; it’s more like an organic collaboration of ideas and validations, constantly updated by every member of the team to find the minimal number of steps necessary to maximize return on investment.

To put the value of systems in perspective, imagine you’re opening a brand-new cupcake shop. You are known for making the best cupcakes in town, but you’re only one person. To grow your business, you’re going to need more people to help you run it. These people may not have your talent for making cupcakes, so you’ll have to build a system to help your employees run the business for you. Without smart systems in place, your business won’t grow to the levels you want.

Follow these steps to create bulletproof business systems that boost profits while freeing up time and expenses:

1. Let go of having to do absolutely everything. For most startup entrepreneurs, the business is their baby and they want to be to be hands-on every step of the way, but this is a common growth limiter. Making your business successful means letting go of control over every detail and making employees accountable for doing their jobs.
2. Adopt automated processes whenever possible. If you can implement simple systems for your most essential business processes (cleaning, ordering, etc), you can step away knowing that most of these systems will go according to plan. You can confidently delegate repetitive tasks to employees, freeing yourself to work on the areas of the business that generate additional cash flow. Any processes that you can’t fully automate should be batched, including email campaigns, social media campaigns, monthly ordering, and more.
3. Draft thorough step-by-step manuals. A good process will include training materials, which may be how-to procedures, templates, worksheets, sample orders, bills, or other documents, spreadsheets, a workflow chart or software, an FAQ page, and any other information needed to perform the task at hand. Checklists are especially handy to ensure consistency and quality. Each task can be broken into steps and checked off when complete. This may sound intimidating, but a simple shared spreadsheet online will do the job — and allow you to delegate tasks going forward.
4. Hire employees you can trust. For complex situations, implement an open-ended decision process that I like to call line-of-sight decision making. Line-of-sight decision making is where you, as a business owner, realize that no system will cover every possible scenario, so you trust your team to solve most problems they will encounter. If you run out of flour at the cupcake shop, let your team decide the best medium for solving the problem. In real life, most problems aren’t as simple as this example, but it illustrates why hiring and effectively managing A-list players is key — because you shouldn’t have to tell people where to get flour.
5. Create a two-way training process. To ensure that your employees do things your way and think the way you do, it’s important that they are well trained. Make sure they understand every aspect of their job, including why things are done. Also, empower members of the team to propose changes, reject inefficiencies, reduce redundancies, and build and refine successful processes.
6. Track each system’s efficiency. Most successful systems should also have a simple feedback loop built in. This feedback loop will make it easy to see when things are going as planned and when they aren’t. Reviewing feedback can be as simple as a weekly or monthly check-ins with team members or as complex as financial modeling based on performance data. As the business grows, these feedback loops will allow the system to become more and more focused.
7. Leave room for error, and expect it. In a business, sometimes — well, often — things don’t go according to plan, so your systems need to be flexible enough to account for that. These unexpected events are a great time for you to trust in yourself and your team to figure things out. From there, notice what went wrong and fix it in your system so you don’t make the same mistakes again.

The best part is that you, the business owner, can concentrate on what you do best — whatever it is that made your dream a reality in the first place. Surround yourself with rock stars, give them the tools necessary to do their jobs, and get out of the way. Ideally, everyone in the chain will know what to do – and will do it.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Image via Vladitto/Shutterstock

Designs and user experience are just as important as your product, so tailoring everything to your audience– from your postal packaging to your website’s navigation menu — can make the difference between converting a few customers every so often and generating endless leads.

We asked 11 young entrepreneurs how they incorporate their target audience demographics into their site experience,  their app design, and iterations of their products.

Seek out design aesthetics

Nathalie Lussier, @nathlussier, Nathalie Lussier Media

Allow the design of your web or app design to follow the design aesthetics of your target market by using brand archetypes. Look at what other brands your audience uses and get a feel for what design aesthetics they respond to. Don’t copy, but use these designs as inspiration for your own designs. Think fonts, colors, spacing.

Content will always be king

Thursday Bram, @thursdayb, Hyper Modern Consulting

No matter what app or site I’m working with at any given time, making sure that the content we publish lines up precisely with the audience’s demographics is crucial. Content creates context, showing the audience why they need to be using a particular tool that otherwise might not make sense to them.

Introduce your team members

Nancy T. Nguyen, @sweettsalon, Sweet T

The previous owner of my hair salon catered to ethnic hair. Since our team and clientele is diverse, when we rebranded the business we decided to post fun photos of ourselves. We scheduled a photoshoot to show the diverse looks of our stylists. Our clients feel comfortable choosing which stylist they want based on their photo and bio on our website.

Measure Your Audience With Quantcast

Pablo Palatnik, @pablopalatnik, ShadesDaddy.com

You can also look at Quantcast and see the demographics of your competitors which will be yours. You want to make sure the images and written content you use on your website speak to those demographics.

Consider the visitor’s urgency

Nick Reese, @nickreese, Microbrand Media

A design factor that’s often overlooked is addressing the urgency associated with the problem your visitors are trying to solve. Let’s say they have a leaky faucet and it is flooding their bathroom. They want answers fast and don’t care about design. Solve high urgency problems (even getting through your shopping cart without hassle) in as few steps as possible.

Broadcast headlines over brochures

Jordan Guernsey, @moldingbox, Molding Box

Our product caters to all demographics, but we try to keep it simple when it comes to web design. Simple or bold headlines, along with a call to action and limited followup text, work well. People don’t take the time to read, so you have to make an impact with your headline versus a brochure. Drive them to learn more by sending them to your sales team, who can then close the deal.

Don’t limit your own audience

Elizabeth Saunders, @RealLifeE, Real Life E®

Despite my website being pink, over half of my clients ended up being men! This led to a website redesign with a bright blue spot of color. I also had my designer integrate lots of white space and curved lines to create a sense of peace and calm, because my clients want to achieve more with less stress.

There’s no substitute for data

Bhavin Parikh, @bkparikh, Magoosh Test Prep

Rather than trying to guess what our audience wants, we regularly test different messaging and images on our site and see which ones convert the best. Many of the results seem counterintuitive at first but make sense once we dig beneath the surface. There’s no substitute for data.

Color, copy and consistency

Aaron Schwartz, @ModifyWatches, Modify Watches

Target demographic information is one of the most important factors of the design process. To make our experience enjoyable for cool and quirky fans, our design features primarily gender-neutral colors that have a real kick as well as copy that is lively and inviting rather than dull and pompous. The majority of the site is aesthetically similar to what our target demographics are used to using.

Play off their media interests

Melissa Cassera, @casseracomm, Cassera Communications

Our clients eat pop culture for breakfast, so it’s crucial for our company to deliver magazine-quality content and create a visual brand experience that’s inspired by entertainment media. I suggest researching other brands your customer’s patronize and what type of media they enjoy reading/watching/listening to and infuse these elements into your web/app design.

Try speaking their language

Patrick Ambron, @patrickambron, BrandYourself.com

While our web-based software does the same thing for everyone — helps people improve their own Google results — users want to do so for different reasons. For example, job applicants want to get a job, real estate agents want to get more clients. Based on these motivations, we tweak the messaging so each user understands how the product can help them accomplish those specific goals. For example, the landing page for a job applicant might say ‘Employers are Googling you, make sure you get an edge,’ where that same landing page for a real estate agent might say, ‘Sellers will Google you before doing business with you. Make sure you aren’t losing opportunities.” The product is the same, but by speaking their ‘language,’ we’re more likely to sign them up.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via Funky64/Flickr

At the end of the day, your business comes down to numbers — low overhead, high revenue, increasing net profits, and even expanding social media reach. A valuation is an incredibly attractive number that intimidates competition and attracts potential investors, but how can entrepreneurs accurately value their business when it’s still a fledgling startup?

We asked 10 young entrepreneurs for their top tips for putting an accurate valuation on an early-stage company. Here’s what they had to say:

Forget the potential

Devesh Dwivedi, @Break9to5Jail, Breaking The 9 To 5 Jail

Your business is pretty useless for valuation purposes because you can’t put a value on it, or even say with a certain degree of confidence that it will grow as big as its potential. MySpace and other players in social networking had the same potential as Facebook, but today, each of them have different valuations. Look at facts and capacity, not potential.

Ask around!

Stephanie Kaplan, @stephaniekaplan, Her Campus Media

As an early-stage startup, you’re probably not going to be valued based on revenues or other typical metrics used for valuing larger companies. Your valuation is going to be much more subjective. To get a sense of what it might be, ask different players what they would value you at — VCs, angels, advisors, big companies — and see if the figures gravitate towards a similar number.

Consider the ramifications

Doreen Bloch, @DoreenBloch, Poshly Inc.

Entrepreneurs in early-stage firms can benefit from low valuations. When your stock is cheap, it benefits new employees and investors who can still get in at the ground level. Before pursuing a 409A or other formal valuation of your firm by an accounting or advisory company, make sure you speak with advisors and understand the implications of getting your firm formally valued.

Be reasonable and relative

Nathan Lustig, @nathanlustig, Entrustet

Look around and see what other companies similar to yours are being valued at. If you’re in Chicago, you need to look at other Chicago companies, not the latest and greatest in Silicon Valley. Then pick a number that’s justifiable to both you and your potential investors. Make sure not to make it too high, or you will scare off investors or risk having a down round later in the process.

There’s no such thing!

Matt Mickiewicz, @sitepointmatt, Flippa

Valuations for early-stage companies are all over the map. Tech startups always demand higher premiums than retail companies. Businesses with traction and paying customers are usually better valued than mere concepts, and the history of the team and even their geographic location can impact valuation by up to three times. It’s more important to have the right investors than the right valuation.

Read up on intellectual property

Thursday Bram, @thursdayb, Hyper Modern Consulting

Most of the value in a startup is the intellectual property, but the average entrepreneur doesn’t know enough about the topic. Since you can’t copyright an idea, you need to know what your company owns that you can put a dollar value on.

Speak up!

John Hall, @tweetJohnHall, Digital Talent Agents

Don’t be scared to ask for help. Turn to a mentor or advisor who has a background in valuations. Accurate valuations could have more variables than you would consider. Someone with more experience in the industry and in valuing companies is less likely to miss a material influencer in value.

Comparables are key

Nicolas Gremion, Foboko.com

Comparables are essential. Base your valuation, and support it, using industry comparables. The closer they represent your company — not only in model but also in size — the better. It’s the most accurate comparison you can make.

Are your projections valid?

Brent Beshore, @BrentBeshore, AdVentures

Be reasonable. Investors are looking for returns, so the higher the possibilities, the less ownership they will have to take for the same amount of money to generate a higher return. Your job is to convince them that your projections are valid.

Free cash flow to the firm

Lucas Sommer, @audimated, Audimated

I see a lot of entrepreneurs value their company based on future values, invested time and money, emotion, and other unsubstantial metrics. The only thing that matters (besides patents and intellectual property) is your free cash flow to the firm — what does the firm make when all of its expenses and obligations are paid? That’s the number you want to use in your valuation.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via gingerbeardman/Flickr

Let’s face it, apps are the new sexy.  They’re an easy path to success, right?

With companies like Instagram being purchased for $1 billion, everyone hopes their application is going to become the next big hit. But with the hundreds of thousands of apps on the market, only a few are going to be huge successes.

This is where platform choice becomes critical. Having reliable vendors, massive distribution channels, and the ability to rapidly bring products to market sounds like a gift from the startup gods. At the same time, relying too much on a single vendor, a single distribution channel or a single product can make it difficult to both scale and stay successful. The platform you choose may determine the fate of your business. Instead of relying upon OPP (other people’s platforms), why not build, control, and own your own?

Entrapment by the “Gang of Four”

In the book, The Age of the Platform: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Have Redefined Business, author Phil Simon explains how the “Gang of Four” are leveraging their platforms to succeed, making thousands of other businesses and millions of consumers reliant on them in the process. Few talk about the Internet without talking about these platforms.

1. Amazon: Amazon’s platform powers some of the largest websites. When you hear of a problem with AWS (Amazon Web Services), you hear about major websites going down, from established giants like Netflix to growing startups like Quora. There are certainly advantages to allowing Amazon to do the heavy lifting for your business, but becoming too heavily invested in a single provider creates other issues, such as vulnerability to their terms, pricing, technological changes, and downtime. That’s why companies like Twitter and Zynga are increasing investment in their own data centers to support their mission-critical operations and limit exposure to OPP.
2. Apple: Many online businesses also use their vendor as their primary distribution channel, creating increased platform risk. If Apple decides to change its rules for apps, your business may suddenly be at risk if the company rejects your feature. Or, it may decide to incorporate your feature into its platform — suddenly, your business is obsolete.
3. Facebook: With Facebook updating its policies and updating its layout regularly, it’s becoming harder to adapt to the evolving platform changes. Again, Zynga is expanding outside Facebook to further reduce its reliance on OPP. Like Apple, Facebook takes a 70/30 split on sales through its platform, but 30 percent is significantly more than the 2-4 percent in processing fees you’d pay if selling through your own website.
4. Google: Everyone wants to be at the top of Google’s search results because it’s free advertising.  To a small business, that free advertising can be a significant driver of revenue. However, being too heavily reliant on Google can be devastating when it makes an algorithm change — just ask the small businesses who were affected by the recent Penguin algorithm update.

Why Digg failed

When I asked Phil Simon about Digg, he said, “I wouldn’t say that Digg failed ‘as a platform’ because I’m not entirely convinced that it ever was one. They made two fundamental mistakes: their improvements weren’t innovative enough, and companies like Twitter and Facebook more or less co-opted Digg. In 2004, the idea of doing one thing on one site made sense; but in the Age of the Platform, people no longer want to use single-purpose sites as much as all-encompassing platforms.”

Digg never became a critical tool in the arsenal of its customers in the same way the Gang of Four have. It wasn’t a platform customers relied upon for critical needs, and so its disappearance caused no pain to anyone but its VCs.

Why Instagram was different

While Instagram leveraged the Gang of Four, it became its own social platform in the process, with people relying on it to power their photo sharing experiences. Certainly Instagram’s growth wouldn’t have been as explosive if it wasn’t for OPP, but it still controlled its own destiny and caused a rushed acquisition to thwart the hugh threat to Facebook.

You don’t need to build a massive global platform to succeed, but you will need to do two things: limit your exposure to OPP, and become your own platform.

Your website, your platform

Unfortunately, small businesses still have the mentality that a website is just for marketing, when in fact, your website can become a vital tool in your arsenal and serve as the launching platform to scale your business while limiting exposure to OPP. But if your website is not a critical part of your operation, then it’s not a platform and can’t be sufficiently leveraged to scale your business — yet.

Regardless of how popular OPP become, your website can be the platform upon which you can control your own destiny. With the least exposure to external forces, ultimately, your website can be the foundation upon which you build all other services — including mobile applications. Plus, wouldn’t it be cool to have people build on top of your platform, and make it so they can’t survive without it?

Take the first step: define the critical operations of your business, then start planning a website platform around them.

Mark Cenicola is the President and CEO BannerView.com and the author of “The Banner Brand: Small Business Success Comes from a BannerBrand, Build it on a Budget.”

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via kirainet/Flickr

“Do few things but do them well. What doesn’t work, kill quickly.”

This is not a quote from Sun Tzu. It’s from Simon Rothman, who is probably just as smart. Simon was one of the very early guys at eBay and was responsible for starting eBay Motors, which ended up becoming a $14 billion-a-year global business and generating about one-third of all of eBay’s merchandise sales. He later became a board member at Tesla and is now executive-in-residence at Greylock Venture Partners.

I had a chance to meet with Simon last week. The advice he gave me about marketing strategy was just too good not to pass along, so I thought I’d share it. Here are Simon’s four rules on marketing:

1. Place only a handful of bets.

Startups rarely fail for a lack of ideas; they fail for a lack of focus. As a founder, your job isn’t to come up with a million marketing ideas but instead to prioritize the top three. So many startups fail because they try to boil the ocean. Instead of trying to tackle a million different marketing ideas, keep in mind that 80 percent of your revenue will likely come from your top 20 percent of customers. Try to figure out the common characteristics behind these top-producing customers, and then focus on the channels that are bringing them in.

2. Put enough time, money, and resources into each strategy to give it chance to succeed.

If you place too many bets, you spread yourself too thin and set yourself up for failure. Some of your bets will fail, not because they were bad ideas but because they were undercapitalized and never even had a real opportunity to succeed. The key is to put more money into fewer bets.

Take display ads, for example. You might be losing money for three months on your display ads, but then on the fourth month, you make a small tweak in the ad copy and your ads turn into a huge moneymaker. But if you only had enough budget to run the ads for one month, you never would have figured this out and just would have thrown money down the drain. Marketing is all about iterating and making as many tweaks as possible in the time frame that you have allotted. The more money you budget for a particular channel, the longer you can stay in the game and the better your odds are of figuring out a formula that works.

3. Test your hypotheses in any way you can — including your instincts.

There’s an old saying in marketing, “What you can’t measure, you can’t improve.” This saying is absolutely true — except when it’s not. Try to test as much as you can, but realize that you can’t measure everything. One of the things that worked well to drive growth early at eBay was PR, one of the most notoriously difficult tactics to measure. Simon said that even though they couldn’t really measure it, they just knew it was working. In other words, sometimes, as a founder, you have stop being a nerd, put down your copy of The Lean Startup, and just trust your instincts.

4. Add fuel to the fire, or kill it quickly and move on to the next idea.

Once you’ve tested a strategy, you have two options. If the strategy is knocking it out of the park, pour more time, money, and energy into it in order to make it scale. If the strategy is not working, kill it immediately. As Simon said, ”If you have to ask yourself repeatedly whether a strategy is working, then the strategy is NOT working.” The harder question arises when a strategy is working pretty well but is not really knocking it out of the park. The tendency in most startups is to keep it going, because they have already put significant time and money into it and want to see it all the way through. This is the wrong choice!

Instead, recognize that the resources you put in are sunk costs, and kill the idea. When you only have enough money and bandwidth to execute on two or three ideas really well, the opportunity cost of putting resources into anything but the best performing strategies is too high.

Marketing is a crap shoot; no one really knows which ideas will work until they let them loose in the wild. The more ideas you test, the greater your chances are of finding the one that works. But don’t test them all at the same time. That won’t work. If you do that, they’ll all fail because you’ll be stretched too thin to execute any of them well. The key is to prioritize.

Lastly, be an idea assassin. Don’t get emotionally attached to your ideas. Be ruthless about killing off the medium performing ideas and just keep the absolute best. Because if you don’t make it a practice to kill off your ideas, your ideas will end up killing off your startup.

Ethan Austin is co-founder of GiveForward and author of the blog Startups and Burritos. He is currently searching for an awesome VP of Marketing to join the GiveForward team. If you know the perfect candidate, shoot him an email ethan@GiveForward.com and if the person gets hired, Ethan will buy you unlimited burritos for a year (seriously). Taco fans need not apply.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via Alyssa Gonzalez/Flickr

Today’s entrepreneurs face a major branding challenge. The next generation of power purchasers is here — and they’re some of the most drastically different consumers to date. A group of young influencers in their mid-twenties to early thirties, members of the Millennial Generation have their fingers on the tech pulse and a thick wad of cash in their wallets.

Their experience-driven purchasing habits are a stark contrast to the current power generation, made up of soccer moms who drive SUVs and live in the sprawling McMansions of suburbia. The soccer-mom generation of buyers prefers the familiarity of a casual-dining chain restaurant to more adventurous alternatives; they’re packrats with basements full of things rarely used.

But after being handed life on a silver platter, affluent Millennials have an evolved their own set of values. With mobility in mind, they ditch suburbia for downtown to be closer to other young people and fun things to do. What they do buy into is the rare — trendy service-based businesses (bars and restaurants) and luxury goods (think Apple, Bose, Versace) are now booming. For example, Millennials eat out an average of 3.39 times per week, compared to 2.54 for Gen X and 2.34 for Boomers. So how can your company cater to these buying habits?

Start branding experiences, not products.

Members of this generation are unaffected by mass-market advertising and instead support brands and causes they identify and connect with. They believe they can positively impact the world — 37 percent will purchase a product to support a cause they believe in, according to ShareLikeBuy. For example, Tough Mudder – a long distance obstacle event I participate in every year — encourages participants to raise money for The Wounded Warrior Project. With this generation, service providers have the most to win, as Millennials are more focused on entertainment and experiences than products or price.

Product-based companies have quickly adjusted their product cycle, marketing techniques, and advertising strategies to reach the next power purchasers. Nike’s Better World and Levi’s Go Forth campaigns are superb examples of lifestyle marketing aimed at Millennials. Conveying their inspiring message over print, Web, and video campaigns, these companies highlight the actual product less, and instead sell the experience a purchaser will have.

To succeed, brands must put the lifestyle and aspirations of the next power purchasers at the very core of their strategies. Those that create an emotional experience around their product or service, push technological and social boundaries, and offer a clear vision of how their services will impact or improve buyers’ daily lives will thrive. Anything less is just noise. Here’s how to do so:

Ride the trends.

Millennials strive to spend less time working and more time enjoying life and exploring – 75 percent would like to travel abroad as much as possible. They actively seek service providers that will either entertain them or allow them more time to play. Millennials are more likely to pay someone else to clean their apartment or purchase their groceries. Therefore, entrepreneurs should build a product or service that directly targets these needs. Think smartphone users, restaurant goers, dog owners, beer brewers, and new wine drinkers — check out the marketing approach that Second Glass is taking.

Capture the feeling.

These power purchasers value quality over quantity, and focus on the experience that the product will create. They frequent nice bars and restaurants, order microbrews or craft cocktails, and enjoy artisanal foods. This generation prefers to spend its disposable income on entertainment, like video games or a concert. Craft an emotional experience for your product or service that is memorable and unique, like Heineken has.

Think social.

Millennials are highly connected and often consult their social network for shopping advice. ShareLikeBuy found that 70 percent of Millennials prefer to have their friends’ approval on all major purchasing decisions. Millennials watch and mimic friends’ spending and purchasing habits, often buying the same brands or items. Establish your brand presence on social networks to tap into these social consumers.

Focus on quality.

Millennial power purchasers are buying less, and what they do buy has to be top quality. Case in point, Business News Daily reported that Millennials account for 31 percent of luxury goods web spending, compared to 23 percent from Generation X and 19 percent from Baby Boomers. This generation cares more about collecting experiences than material objects, so quality is more important than quantity. When they do shop, Millennials are browsing online to find exactly what they want, meaning promotional sales have less impact on their purchasing habits.

Incorporate freemium.

Millennials have major purchasing power, totaling just over $200 billion in direct spending power annually. However, they still love free or nearly free. Follow in the footsteps of Spotify and Hulu and provide a free product, but tie it to an upgrade to make the experience even better for those who choose to pay.

The Millennial Generation is having a greater effect on consumer products and services than ever before. Brands that create a powerful connection between product and experience will find the most success, but those that ignore the experiential purchasing habits of these emerging power purchasers will fall by the wayside.

Justin Beck is the co-founder and CEO of PerBlue, a mobile and social gaming company in Madison, Wis. PerBlue is best known for its flagship product, Parallel Kingdom. The popular location-based massively multiplayer role playing game for mobile and web platforms has over one million players worldwide. Founded in 2008, PerBlue is now home to 40 full-time software developers, artists, and business specialists.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #Fix Young America: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via Emerald2810/Flickr

Now let’s get one thing straight from the start: I’m a huge fan of Kickstarter, Indiegogo and the number of similar crowdfunding sites that have sprung up recently to provide capital directly to exciting business ideas. There’s something very “American Dream” about being able to build one-on-one engagement with consumers — not to mention how nice it is for companies to have a viable alternative to traditional VC and angel capitalization.

That said, Kickstarter (or any other crowdsourcing platform) isn’t a viable option for all companies, and I believe it’s irresponsible at best to herald the company as a “people-first,” egalitarian solution for all business financing needs.

In particular, here are five reasons some business owners should not pursue crowdsourced funding:

Reason #1: You can’t offer a discrete product.

The most effective Kickstarter campaigns (like the $10+ million raised by smartwatch creator Pebble) are those that will eventually deliver a discrete product.  That product might be physical or digital in nature, but the end result is a deliverable that buyers can interact and engage with.

Unfortunately, this means that crowdfunding isn’t the right solution for every growing business.  If, for example, your company provides a service or produces an enterprise-level product (which may not generate the same public interest as consumer goods), you may be better off pursuing traditional financing options than investing the time needed to apply for and run a Kickstarter campaign.

Reason #2: You haven’t thoroughly defined your distribution channels.

There’s a reason established companies have entire departments dedicated to logistics. The process of packaging and shipping products economically can be incredibly complicated and often leads to unexpected frustrations for unsuspecting startups.

Consider the case of the “Desktop Jellyfish Tank,” a Kickstarter project that received 54 times more investment than its original goal. Although the project can be considered successful from a financial perspective, the Kickstarter page associated with the campaign is littered with comments from frustrated backers who have yet to receive their purchases.

The bottom line is this: No matter what type of product you’re raising funds for, what you’ve set for your investment goal or how you plan to eventually deliver your product, it’s imperative that you put a plan into place to manage packaging and shipping costs and ensure shipments are delivered correctly before you even begin to think of soliciting funds.

Reason #3: Your prototypes aren’t effective.

People who invest in crowdfunding campaigns do so believing that the product they’re investing in has been proven to work. In general, they’re willing to grant some flexibility for final product iterations and version changes, but they typically enter into the crowdfunding arrangement believing they’re going to wind up with a workable product. All of this means that you — as an applicant — better be able to deliver the goods in the end.

Just take a look at the failed example of the i+Case iPhone cover to see why this is so important. Despite featuring designs on its Kickstarter campaign page that led backers to believe that prototypes had been successfully created, subsequent issues with signal quality arising from the aluminum in the case made the product nearly worthless — resulting in hundreds of dissatisfied backers. Not a great way to build a solid business reputation!

Reason #4: You can’t commit time to customer service.

Running a startup is challenging, and no one is arguing that the demands on an entrepreneur’s time are anything less than monumental. But unfortunately, one component of a successful crowdfunding campaign is dedicating the necessary hours to providing appropriate customer service. And if you can’t do that, you have no business seeking crowdsourced funding.

So before you hit that big green “Start Your Project” button, think about how you’ll manage customer queries — whether your project winds up being hardly noticed or hugely successful. If you don’t have the resources available to handle customer service yourself, consider hiring a friend, relative, or outsourced worker to help you manage the load.

Reason #5: You aren’t prepared for over-funding.

One final consideration is that Kickstarter and similar sites allow projects to be over-funded. Not only does this increase the amount the company generates through its 5 percent cut, but it’s also great publicity to have projects go on to do exceptionally well through its system.

But for you, as a business owner, the picture can be far less rosy. If you haven’t put effective prototyping, distribution, or customer service systems into place, how will you handle these needs if your project receives significantly more interest than you expected? As you prepare your Kickstarter campaign, make sure you address your product’s scalability.

AJ Kumar is the co-founder of Single Grain, a digital marketing agency based in San Francisco. Single Grain specializes in helping startups and larger companies with search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media and various other marketing strategies.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Note: An earlier version of this story stated that Kickstarter takes a 4 percent cut of funds raised. The correct number is 5 percent.

Image via redfox/Flickr

Thinking about adjusting your original big idea? Lots of companies have made BIG pivots — if they hadn’t, Twitter would still be called Odeo and unsuccessfully publishing updates longer than 140 characters.

We asked 15 young entrepreneurs about the big pivots their companies made early on in their careers.

Increasing travel – Sean Ogle, @seanogle, Location 180, LLC

I was always under the impression that to be an entrepreneur and own a business, you need to get funding, open up a brick-and-mortar space, and devote all of your waking hours to it. I wanted to travel. Early on, I realized just how much is possible via the Internet. So I ditched the idea of staying in one place and built a business that allows me to travel whenever and wherever I want.

Quality over quantity – Pete Kennedy, @petekennedy, Main Street ROI

In the first days of my marketing agency, we were only doing performance-based deals with clients. We took all the risk and spent our own money on ads, and we’d only get paid if we could deliver results. This approach made it really easy to attract clients, but we got lots of clients we couldn’t help. Our first pivot was to define our ideal client, and today we focus on quality over quantity.

Switching Target Clients – Jun Loayza, @junloayza, RewardMe

We initially targeted local mom-and-pop businesses with RewardMe. We quickly realized that although small businesses can benefit from a rewards program, they are not sophisticated enough to care about the unique product data that we capture. We pivoted our target market to nationwide franchises because they have the money and resources to take advantage of the unique data we collect.

Narrowing Your Focus – Thursday Bram, @thursdayb, Hyper Modern Consulting

When I started out, I was a run-of-the-mill freelance writer who would take any project she was offered. It was only after I really narrowed my focus, both in the types of projects I would do and the types of clients that I would work with that things started to boom.

Expanding Your Audience – Ashley Bodi, @businessbeware, Business Beware

We targeted contractors from the start but quickly noticed we had an overwhelming number of other people asking if they could use our website as well. Turns out, fewer contractors use the site — it’s businesses all across the board. Never discount a group or audience that you might appeal to, because you might just miss out on some great potential members and/or customers.

Giving up Short-Term Revenue – Christopher Kelly, @ThoughtsOnBiz, Sentry Centers

About a year into our business, we discovered that our celebrated up-sells were our clients’ pet peeves. We pivoted our focus from driving revenue to understanding and better serving our clients’ needs. Despite slightly decreased revenue per sale, total revenue has skyrocketed along with customer satisfaction and loyalty. Giving up some short-term revenue was ultimately a profitable decision.

Jumping on a Movement – Dave Kerpen, @davekerpen, Likeable Media

We started our business as theKbuzz, an offline word-of-mouth marketing company, and in 2007, the first year of our business, as social media exploded, we pivoted. We realized that social media was a much more efficient way to generate buzz than mall events and other guerrilla marketing. We pivoted our business model and changed our name to Likeable. We haven’t looked back!

Carving out a Niche – Jordan Guernsey, @moldingbox, Molding Box

My service menu was too large when I first started. I had to pare it down to ensure that what we provided was quality, 100 percent of the time. I found I couldn’t do everything and be successful. Finding our unique niche and staying the course led to less stress and much better profit.

Offering Paid Memberships – Nicolas Gremion, Foboko.com

I stepped out of my comfort zone and took the advice of a new team member, which was to offer paid memberships on our free eBook website. This, to me, didn’t seem right, but it quickly became our biggest source of revenue, allowing us to not be dependent on advertising alone.

Diversifying Revenue Streams – Raoul Davis, @Ceo_Branding, Ascendant Strategy

A big pivot we made was understanding the need to diversify revenue streams. If your business is purely retainer and/or driven by a one-time commission, a macroeconomic shift can be devastating. We’ve focused on creating more residual and royalty-based revenue models to maximize our long-term financial sustainability.

Planning for Scalability – Michael Margolis, @getstoried, Get Storied

For years I was a consultant and message architect to big brands. I made a good living but it wasn’t a scalable platform. In 2009, the business imploded amidst a divorce and I lost everything. Forced to start over, I reinvented my business with a range of online infoproducts devoted to the business of storytelling. This allowed me to expand and reach a market of thousands instead.

Gender-Neutral Marketing – Elizabeth Saunders, @RealLifeE, Real Life E®

When I started my time-coaching and training business, I thought that my clients would primarily be females. Accordingly, I choose pink as my site’s color and marketed to women in business. Despite my total lack of effort to reach out to a male audience, I found that men started finding my business and asking if they could participate. Now my business is gender-neutral.

Moving to a New Payment Model – John Hall, @JohnHallCOMO, Digital Talent Agents

We moved to a pay-for-performance model. This pivot defined our business and rapidly increased our client base. Trust is built when clients know you’re only charging them for the results they can see.

Structure Switch – Heather Huhman, @heatherhuhman, Come Recommended

Come Recommended started off as an exclusive online community for interns and entry-level candidates, but it’s now a digital PR and content marketing firm focused on helping companies with products for job seekers or employers. We’re still able to help job seekers and employers connect, just in a different way from where we originally started.

Foregoing the Double-Pivot – Nick Friedman, @NickFriedman1, College Hunks Hauling Junk

When I started the business, we tried unrolling too many peripheral services all at once. It ended up being too much too fast and didn’t work out. We were forced to scale back operations and focus on our core service offerings. I learned that sometimes, it’s the pivot you don’t make that matters the most.

[Top image credit: 140proof/Flickr]

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Split-testing — when you create variations of your website and test which ones perform the best — is quickly becoming the rage among marketers and entrepreneurs.

Sometimes called A/B testing, split-testing is the tool of choice by most “growth hackers,” marketing people focused on attracting more users, conversions and the like. Many potential investors and angels will be impressed when they hear that you’re running split tests, and you sound 100 times smarter at a networking event when you mention that you’re testing your ideas.

But ego-stroking aside, split-testing can be an incredibly valuable tool for increasing conversion rates and hitting your goals. You can use it to validate a lot of the assumptions and ideas you have as a team, and get real data on what works for your business.

I’m not going to tell you how to split-test your website. Instead, I’m going to tell you how to prepare for it, psychologically. Although split-testing is not difficult, you do have to hop into it with the right frame of mind to get results. Here are five things to consider when getting started on split-testing your website:

Nothing is true unless it’s tested.

If you’re human, you likely have an opinion on design and copy. Everyone does. When it comes to running tests the key is to assume nothing and test everything. Any big idea that your team proposes is an assumption that should be tested.

For example, say you have an e-commerce website and you notice most visitors go directly to your “About” page before completing the signup process. You instantly assume that displaying more information on the homepage will make people sign up faster. But before you hire a designer, you should first brainstorm 10 to 15 ways you can improve the copy on your current homepage to achieve the results you want. Next, run 10 to 15 different experiments testing those ideas using programs like Optimizely, Visual Website Optimizer or Google Website Optimizer. Soon, you’ll have real data to give to your designer, who can then help make intelligent decisions on how to improve your site.

Congratulations! You’ve just saved hundreds of dollars and hours of your time by running a few simple split tests.

Variables must be tested independently.

Split-testing is also known as A/B testing for a reason. Make sure you’re testing your assumptions in a mathematically valid way. Let’s say your co-worker believes a different headline and lighter background will lead to more conversions. To test out this theory, run your tests one at a time against the original design: one test for the background color and one test for the headline. It will be difficult to make independent decisions if you have too many variables in your experiments.

Changes won’t stick if the team doesn’t agree.

Okay, you’ve run some tests and collected great data on why your team should make some specific changes. However, your team of designers does not believe you’ve run your tests correctly, or perhaps they trust their own intuition as designers more than your data. In short, you have wasted weeks of split-testing because your team was not ready for your insights.

Before you get started, you have to prepare your team’s mind for testing. Make sure your entire team is on board, and that they understand every decision is an assumption to be validated. Your entire team must be ready for the results of a test, no matter how surprising they may be.

Tests need traffic to be accurate.

This is very important. When you begin split-testing and you start to see results, it can be super exciting. If you see that your proposed orange button is beating the other variations, you immediately want to call your co-workers and scream, “I told you so!” However, my advice is to put the phone down and back away slowly from the screen. Try not to watch your results in real-time. You need to reach statistical significance — the point where enough people have participated in your split tests – before you make any decisions. Optimizely gives you an alert once you’ve collected enough data to choose an accurate winner. If you need to drive more traffic to run your tests quicker, consider using Google Adwords or Facebook Ads to generate more clicks.

Split-testing has to start somewhere.

The hardest part about split-testing is knowing where to start. In fact, that decision alone can be so overwhelming that most choose not to start at all. Don’t let that happen. I’d suggest spending an hour looking through Google Analytics (or whatever traffic-measurement tool you use) to discover trends and generate intelligent hypotheses on why you’re making the sales that you are. Perhaps many people who end up purchasing your products are coming from a certain blog, or maybe the majority of your first-time visitors come through a particular landing page. Look for some of those trends and make a list of assumptions. Then, simply build experiments around that list.

It’s okay if you bump your head or you have to run a few failed experiments to get it right. Split-testing is not only a way to discover new insights, but it’s also a tool that you can use to validate all of the assumptions you have about your product, about your visitors and about your business. The beauty of it is that you can only get better by testing.

Arielle Patrice Scott is the Marketing Director of Storenvy. Storenvy is a fast growing online store builder and marketplace for independent stores online. Arielle blogs about marketing, startup culture and e-commerce on her blog, TheArielle.com. Prior to Storenvy, Arielle was the founder of GenJuice, a content recommendation service.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Image via andrew.zerick/Flickr

Forget the company conference room. Coworkers no longer need to be in the same office space — let alone the same time zone — to hold a productive progress reports or brainstorming session. We asked nine young entrepreneurs about how they conduct virtual meetings between their startup teams, and actually get things done while doing so. (Share your own thoughts in the comments.)

Stick to the agenda

Since it’s incredibly easy to get off task in a virtual meeting, it’s important to have an agenda, listing only a few goals of the meeting and complete with an overall time limit. Designate someone to lead the meeting and hold that person accountable for making sure everyone stays on topic to move the meeting along.

Nick Friedman, @NickFriedman1, College Hunks Hauling Junk

Start the meeting beforehand

Sending supporting information before the meeting can often help save you time in the meeting, since everyone is already briefed on the basics. If the meeting is just about making a decision, it can often be fast and productive.

Jason Evanish, @Evanish, Greenhorn Connect

Remember, the clock is ticking

For even more efficiency, put a time limit on each subject of the agenda and ruthlessly cut off rambling. Virtual teams are just as susceptible to unfocused meetings, so having an impartial, third-party reference makes it easier to transition topics and stay focused.

Kelly Azevedo, @krazevedo, She’s Got Systems

Try to shut up

I speak too much. One thing I am constantly trying to work on is asking better questions, and then just listening and letting my team interact. Virtual meetings can be productive if everyone comes together to express what is going well and what they need help on. Also, using the group to throw out potential solutions often reveals a great idea.

Patrick Curtis, @WallStreetOasis, WallStreetOasis.com

Follow up afterwards

Make sure to end the meeting with a list of followup tasks and owners, and have someone distribute by email to the entire team.

Michael Tolkin, Merchant Exchange

Set a schedule of speakers

The main reason for meetings is to give different people a chance to speak. That means that you need to make sure that attendees know that they’re expected to do just that. When you’re planning out your agenda, assign a few speaking slots and make sure that your speakers know what they need to cover. Of course, you do want to have some unstructured time, but balance it out.

Thursday Bram, @thursdayb, Hyper Modern Consulting

Peer pressure turns off multitasking

Without fail, people zone out on conference calls. Have your team use Google+ Hangouts (or another group video chat) so that everyone is actually “present.” Seeing everyone’s face will bring extra energy to the meeting and, of course, it will help you make sure that no one is on their phone or emailing so that you can get the most out of the important virtual chat.

Aaron Schwartz, @ModifyWatches, Modify Watches

Ask yourself, do we really need to have this meeting?

Your first question should always be: Do we need this meeting at all? If a meeting is not necessary because you have nothing substantial to discuss or you could accomplish your goals just as well through another faster method, cancel it.

Elizabeth Saunders, @RealLifeE, Real Life E®

Try weekly reports instead

I manage my virtual team by outlining and sharing the following week’s worth of tasks and projects on Sunday night. For the more urgent projects, I then require daily updates at the end of each day. For everything else, each team member must submit and share their progress at the end of the week. Then, it’s up to the team to analyze everyone else’s work and collaborate for the next week.

Logan Lenz, @loganlenz, Endagon

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization composed of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment and provides entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth.

Virtual meeting photo via dpstyles/Flickr

Working team via Flickr