Positioning Your Startup to Conquer Your Archenemy: The Ultimate Branding Exercise

I was recently advising a client in an incredibly competitive industry – think hundreds of millions raised, huge players in every major market, multi-billion dollar valuations… Suffice it to say, it’s a pretty crowded space they’re trying to break into. To make matters worse, they weren’t all that differentiated… their USP was weak. Which was...

The “Asshole Test” Hack to Win at Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is one of my favorite promotional strategies. Nothing beats a tried and true recommendation from someone you know, like and respect. And that’s what influencers are – at least the ones that don’t whore themselves out to the highest bidder and flaunt any and every product on Instagram… The truth about influencer marketing...

The 89 Business Terms Every Startup Founder and CEO Should Know

Starting a business can be incredibly overwhelming. There’s so much to do, so much to learn and every day seems to hold new challenges that you and you alone need to solve in order to survive. It’s a steep learning curve.That is why I put together this glossary of the most common business terms and...

9 Ways to Engineer Viral Products and Word of Mouth Marketing

Designing virality and word of mouth marketing into your product When it comes to producing hockey stick growth and exploding valuations, virality and word of mouth are the holy grail. A product that markets itself without spending a dime on customer acquisition (CAC)… That is the stuff of legends that every company strives for, but...

The Most Scalable Marketing Method that Builds Lasting Business Moats

Two things matter when building a business: 1) acquiring customers, and 2) retaining them (and/or your dominant position). Everything else is icing on the cake. Today we’re discussing both, and how to build your business from the beginning for a flywheel of success. In a word: Authenticity Authentic…? Seem counterintuitive? It is. The thing is,...

Marketing Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt and Positivity for Profit

Guess who was in the pet emergency room Thanksgiving morning… this guy. Turns out, raisins can be deadly to dogs — something about liver failure. So, a slice of cinnamon raisin bread later, a race to the clinic, hearts pounding. (And if I sound a little cynical, it wasn’t my dog, and I don’t think she was...

Stealing Starbuck’s Strategy for Viral Growth and Customer Retention

Designing addictive products Three-to-four-million people buy Starbucks coffee every day. And in the US alone, there are more than 250M cups of coffee (of any brand) purchased on a daily basis. That’s a lot of freaking caffeine. And it doesn’t even include homebrew… But it wasn’t always so. Habits are hard to build and harder...