good shorthand for solving the right set of customer problem/needs, and i agree metrics alone probably only helps you optimize for the local max, not for the larger possible solution set.

I believe that businesses need different acquasition strategies at different stages of their lifecycles.

My thinking is that in the beginning a business needs to have a lazer sharp approach to marketing as both financial and human resources are limited.

However as businesses progress in their lifecycles they can expand their marketing channels. This could be because of changes in their business model or just the fact that the demand for growth is greater and the business can afford to have channels which may have lower ROI but never the less be profitable.

Taking this further the idea that it takes momentum and business experience to maximise the revenues of a customer. This may restrict profitable marketing channels in the beggining that could open up later on in the businesses lifecycle.

Look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

John

Before committing to a new startup opportunity, I like to make sure there are several viable marketing angles. Once committed, I prioritize these angles and start focused tests on the most realistic, scalable channel. But it is essential that I have contingency plans if the first approach doesn’t work.

I do agree that most entrepreneurs just list every potential marketing driver and have no coherent plan of attack to test these drivers. If someone tries to execute all potential acquisition drivers simultaneously, they are almost guaranteed to fail.

Thanks for putting this presentation online (Dave and Andrew). I was bummed I didn’t get a chance to attend the presentation (too busy planning Xobni’s fast approaching launch). Great commentary Andrew.

that said, when you’re getting started it may be difficult to know in advance which one that is going to be.

so there’s a bit of creative & informed guessing combined with metrics that is needed, as well as some patience in testing & developing multiple channels to see what works (or can be tweaked to work), before you get to a semi-steady state with one channel driving most of your traffic.

long-term, the exercise probably looks like 1) maintain & optimize your primary acquisition channel, 2) test & explore new channels that 3) might eventually result in a new primary channel, or 4) at least account for 5-15% of overall volume.

but it’s almost invariably true that one channel works better than others & drives most of the volume.

(corollary: this is also why larger companies that have discovered their primary channel can tolerate a lot of stupid decisions & incompetent people, as long as they don’t fuck up that primary channel

Business have different needs in terms of marketing and retention also has different masks. It maybe your a retailer and you need a different retention strategy from a software developer.

Offline interaction may be important vs only online interaction. These issues vary from business to business.

I liked your comments though and will be visiting again.

Thanks

John

A quick q- you mentioned that a firm has to do one thing very well and not spread thier “acquisition” strategies to thin…

But dont these work together… for e.g. a Good SEO strategy acts like ramps for the viral loops to work. So, dont you have to be good at both?

in particular, i’m realizing we need to add in your points about cohort analysis to the retention discussion… i mentioned that to Hiten & i know you & i have talked about it in the past, but your post on that specific topic is really helpful. i’ll incorporate that in future iterations, and point back to your stuff.

again, appreciate all the suggestions & additional comments! (and in the future, i’ll be drafting you for the extended 1-day conference version of Startup Metrics