I tried a new slide at Ultra Light Starutps last week.  It got a big laugh and has generated a few email requests since then, so I decided to post it here.  It describes two very important aspects of how to participate in the interactive discussion format in a large room with a P/A system:

1. How to ask a question properly, without taking up too much of everyone’s time
2. How to use the microphone so everyone can hear you

Feel free to share as you wish.  If you’re feeling generous, include a link to ultralightstartups.com.

Ultralight Participation Guidelines

Enjoy!

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Event Summary

This event will cover:

SEO Basics

• Terms: SEO/SEM/PPC; keywords, pagerank; on-page vs. off-page; black hat vs. white hat; crawling, indexing & ranking
• Strategy: Defining objectives, ROI tracking/analytics, keyword and competitive research, research tools
• On-Site Tactics: Sitemaps, robots.txt files, page title/H1/H2/meta/URL, image alt tags, manual submission to search engines, internal linking
• Off-Site Tactics: Link building, social media, PR, backlinks via badges, widgets (html, iframes, javascript)
• Myths and Facts: Duplicate content, link sharing networks, indexing Javascript, AJAX and interactive content, speed as a ranking factor, keyword meta tags, the “Google sandbox”

SEO for New Websites

• Why is SEO for new websites different than for established websites?
• Thinking more like a consumer, and less like a marketer
• Strategies when using off-the-shelf platforms (e.g. WordPress, Drupal, etc)
• Strategies when building a site from scratch (e.g. php, Rails, .NET, etc)
• Top SEO must-do tips for new sites (see here, here, here, and here)
• Site launch – press releases, blog backlinks, social bookmarking

Advanced Topics in SEO

• Social Media and Real-time Search: How do social media and real-time content play into your SEO strategy?
• Content Types: Video, audio, images, products, locations, etc
• Innovations in Search Engines: Real-time/Twitter search, Bing, Google squared, Google social search, semantic search, mobile search, voice search

Moderator:

• Graham Lawlor, Founder of Ultra Light Startups and CEO of BrightMap

Panelists (alphabetic order):

• Seth Dotterer, Senior Director, Marketing at Conductor, Inc
• Christopher Hart, Director, Eastern Region Operations Bruce Clay Inc.
• Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit and Founder of SEMPO
• Dennis Yu, Founder and CEO of BlitzLocal

Panel Video

Presentation Slides

Main Presentation – SEO for New Websites

Panelists and Moderator Bios

Seth Dotterer

Seth is Senior Director of Marketing at Conductor, Inc. a leading provider of SEO measurement and optimization technology. Seth has helped companies from startups to the Fortune 100 on their marketing strategies and utilizing technology and metrics to increase sales and profitability. For over a decade, Dotterer has been obsessed with SEM/SEO and taking an analytical approach to online marketing for clients including Microsoft, Dell, and Circuit City. Before Google existed, Dotterer was running successful pay per click advertising on Goto.com (which later became Overture, which became Yahoo! Search Marketing).

Christopher Hart

Chris runs the New York office of Bruce Clay Inc., a leading global Internet marketing consulting firm that specializes in SEO and PPC. Chris manages client SEO projects and coordinates the company’s East Coast sales. He also teaches many of the company’s acclaimed SEOToolSet® Training and Certification courses, and has spoken at national search industry conferences. Before joining Bruce Clay, Inc., Chris worked for 12 years in the online B2B publishing industry, helping architect SEO-friendly best practices and publishing production processes.

Kevin Lee

Kevin is the Founder & CEO of Didit, a provider of search engine marketing strategy, analytics, and modelling producs and services. Kevin’s books include Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales and The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Search Advertising. A founding board member of SEMPO and its first elected Chairman he is also active on DMA and IAB Committees. Kevin has been quoted in The Wall St. Journal, Business Week, The New York Times, Bloomberg, CNET, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News among others and blogs at KevinLee.net.

Dennis Yu

Dennis is CEO of BlitzLocal.com, an online agency specializing in local lead gen via integrating Facebook advertising with social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, directory listings, web analytics, and call tracking. Clients include Quiznos, Equifax, Maggianos, Famous Daves, and other national retail and franchised outlets. Dennis is a 14 year veteran of online marketing via Yahoo! and American Airlines. He has spoken at SMX West, SMX Singapore, SMX Sydney, Affiliate Convention, the American Marketing Association, and other venues.

Graham Lawlor

Graham is the Founder of Ultra Light Startups, a networking group for technology entrepreneurs, and ofBrightMap, a business to business directory of companies. Since 2008, Ultra Light Startups has helped over 900 businesses and entrepreneurs build efficient online businesses. He is a frequent speaker at classes, business schools, panel discussions and events related to technology businesses and startups and has been quoted in publications such as BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC.

The February Ultra Light Startups Entrepreneur’s Forum will be on the topic of Designing Social Websites.  The panel will cover topics including:

• What is a social website? What makes a site social?
• Why people participate online. Why some social sites work and others don’t. The psychology of online social interaction.
• An overview of interactive design patterns for online social interaction. What works and what doesn’t. “Paving the cowpaths”
• Visual design that complements interactive design.
• Launch of a social site. Bootstrapping a community from zero users. Getting over the “sign-up hurdle”.
• Monitoring, analytics and design iteration for social interaction.

Our esteemed panel of user experience and information architecture experts include:

• Bryan Hamilton, Director of User Experience at Razorfish
• Dan Maccarone, Co-Founder, Hard Candy Shell
• Alex Rainert, Creative Director at kgbweb
• Christopher-Ian Reichel, Director, Product Development – Social Media at Viacom/MTVnetworks

For more information, panelist bios and registration instructions please see the Designing Social Websites event page.

Brian Kenny, CMO of Harvard Business School

Brian Kenny, the Chief Marketing Officer for Harvard Business School (HBS) was in New York City this week to discuss his professional journey into the world of social media. He says HBS is actually embracing the behavioral shift brought on by social media and that the school is going to great lengths to harness viral marketing opportunities.

HBS is using social media for a variety of endeavors including publicizing faculty work, reaching out to potential students, customer service and event promotion.

However, with any social media program, there is some risk involved. Kenny says at first, it was difficult for the university to understand that successful social media efforts involve giving up a certain amount of control.

There are going to be events that garner negative attention and there will be people who post negative comments. The goal is to be involved enough in the social media spectrum, so that you can steer negative attention or press into a more positive venue.

Turning a negative into a positive, is often the best way to deal with a bad situation that is generating unfavorable press.

Kenny also spoke about Buzz versus Risk making the following four points:

• Social Media is not just another marketing and communications channel
• Technology is not social, people are social
• Go to where the communities already exist
• Embrace the shift, but pay attention to your brand in the realm of social media

Dennis Mortensen is the only person to have appeared on two Ultra Light Startups panels (on Web Analytics and on Bootstrapping vs. Venture Funding) so it’s no secret that I’m a big fan. When he heard of our February event on Designing Social Websites he passed along this post of his from 2007. It’s an old one but offers timeless wisdom for anyone designing and operating a social site. Among his insights:

• Align your business objectives with your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
• On social sites, KPI’s usually relate to a) user engagement and b) advertising revenue
• Monitoring and acting on KPI’s will determine if you end up like Facebook (good) or like Friendster (bad)
• Any business should have no more than 5 KPI’s
• Create credible targets for your KPI’s using competitive intelligence

He then provides 7 social networking optimization opportunities

1. Segment users based on their community activity
2. Segmenting the Anonymous visitors to members conversion rate KPI
3. Perform single-page FORM Analysis
4. Create a custom report with the metric Time since last login KPI
5. Run an out of the box standard Action Participation report and add the User Engagement KPI
6. Total time spent on site KPI is more important than page views
7. Increase the quality of your Ad units per visit KPI by using External Data Sources

It’s a long post and there is a wealth of analysis to back up each of these points.  If you’re building a social site, definitely read this post.

I just ran across this post by Jason Calacanis from last August on On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company.  As could be expected, he’s got some great (and unconventional) tips.  He talks a lot about his experiences with his early company, Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, which could definitely be described as “Ultra Light”.  He later sold Weblogs Inc to AOL for $30 million and founded Mahalo.com, a top-200 internet property.  So you might be able to say he’s a master of Ultra Light PR.  His tips include:

1. Be the brand
2. Be everywhere
3. Always pick up the check–always.
4. Be a human being
5. How to bond with a journalist
6. How a CEO should e-mail a journalist
7. How a CEO should speak to a journalist
8. Invite people to “swing by” your office
9. Attach your brand to a movement
10. Embrace small media outlets

Seems like great advice, right?

InSITE is an organization of Columbia and NYU MBA and JD (law) students who help startup companies develop their business plans and seek funding.  InSITE leadership has presented at Ultra Light Startups meetings many times and a number of ULS members have been involved in their programs.  Their program follows the academic calendar – they take in a new batch of startups to work with at the beginning of every fall and spring semester.  The deadline for startups to apply for their spring semester program is coming up – on Jan 8.  I received this note today from Daniel Harman, the AVP of Companies at InSITE, regarding the program and application process, asking me to post it here.

I’m writing to remind you that the deadline for inSITE applications for the Spring 2010 semester are rapidly approaching. We need to have your materials by January 8th. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I have included the program summary below for your reference.

Best Regards and Happy Holidays!

Daniel Harman
AVP Companies – inSITE
MBA Class of 2011
Columbia Business School
(310) 940 – 6001
dharman11@gsb.columbia.edu

• InSITE is a selective fellowship of top MBA and Law students from Columbia and NYU, who have experience or interest in venture capital or entrepreneurship.  Each semester, InSITE Fellows provide New York-based entrepreneurs free consulting to help them raise financing.
• InSITE Fellows and entrepreneurs meet once a week to focus the company’s strategy and positioning and craft or improve the company’s VC pitch presentation. Presentation style, business plan, financial projections and overall business model are also reviewed if needed.
• The semester culminates with “pitch day” when the entrepreneurs are given an opportunity to present their new pitch to angel investors and venture capital affiliates which include leading funds such as Greenhill SAVP, DFJ Gotham, Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, FirstMark Capital, Contour Ventures, Investor Growth Capital, Milestone Venture Partners, Canaan Partners and RRE Ventures. Past InSITE company clients include Organic Motion, Vindigo, Flavorpill, RecycleBank, Enterprise Air and HopStop.
• We are in the process of accepting applications from New York based companies that are in need of InSITE’s core services. We are looking for energized entrepreneurs who are ready to make the time commitment to InSITE and are looking to raise funding through angel investors and/or venture capitalists.

Please forward this message to any companies that are looking for venture or angel funding.  For more information on InSITE or the application process, please check out http://tinyurl.com/yjje7mx.  All questions can be directed to vp.companies@insiteny.org.  We look forward to seeing the great companies in the New York community and helping you to achieve your goals.  The deadline for applications is January 8, 2010.

Ultra Light Startups is proud to be a Network Partner of Microsoft’s BizSpark program for startups.  BizSpark is hosting its first New York BizSparkCamp on Thursday and Friday January 28 and 29.  This is a BarCamp-style “un-conference” focusing on Windows Azure (Windows in the cloud). The program is free and features ½ day of training, 1 day of active prototype/development time, and ½ day for packaging/finishing and reporting out to a panel of judges for various prizes.  The benefits include:

• Chance to win cash prize of $5000
• Nomination for BizSpark One (an invitation only program) for high potential startups
• Learn and build new applications in the cloud or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications with help of on-site advisors
• Get entrepreneurs coaching from a panel of industry experts
• Generate marketing buzz for your brand
• Create opportunity to be highlighted at upcoming launch

If you’re interested in attending, just download and complete this application form and return to Sanjay Jain of Microsoft or Ultra Light Startups (a BizSpark Network Partner)

I hope to see you there!

Girlsrock.com presentation at Ultra Light Startups

The moderator:
Owen Davis, the Managing Director at NYC Seed.

The panelists:
• Art Chang – CEO of Tipping Point Partners
• Brian Cohen – President of iFluence PR and Board Member at New York Angels
• Mark Davis – IT Venture Capitalist at DFJ Gotham Ventures
• Dennis Mortensen - Director of Data Insights at Yahoo!

There were definitely opposing ideologies on the panel that made for a spirited debate at times this evening.

Mark Davis with DJF Gotham Ventures began the discussion by saying, “If you need a lot of money to start a small business, you probably shouldn’t do it.”

Davis has written multiple articles about when people should and should not start a business.

As to the bootstrapping versus venture funding question, Brian Cohen pointed out that many companies bootstrap at first and then seek venture funding once they really get the company rolling and gaining strength.

Mark Davis cautioned that it’s very important for new company owners to be careful and save more money than you think you need. “It’s important to plan ahead and save a little bit of capital. Then raise the money you need when you need it.”

Art Chang says most new company owners have to go through a learning process when starting a company and that the majority of angel investors want nothing more than to see them and their new ventures succeed.

Dennis Mortensen from Yahoo made it clear that he believes in Bootstrapping over Venture Funding. He says that venture funding is not always the smartest the thing to do with your new business.

One person in the audience asked Art Chang about the risk of angel investors stealing company ideas during presentations. Chang indicated that he thought the risk was very low saying, “Ideas are a dime a dozen – it’s all about execution and follow through of the person putting the company together.”

The next Ultra Light Startups event will be on the topic of “Bootstrapping vs. Venture Funding” (Thursday, December 3, in New York).  This topic is of great interest to me as I work out the financing for my own startup ideas.  On one hand, launching a startup is an expensive undertaking and not everyone has the savings to put towards these expenses.  On the other hand, seeking funding is a time consuming process which distracts from the important goal of building a business -  and there is certainly no guarantee that funding will be available, even if it is sought.

Panelist Mark Davis recently posted about Boostrapping vs. Venture Funding and the related topic of barriers to entry in Three Types Of Scalable IT Companies on his blog.

There are plenty of examples of successful startups in both camps.  In an attempt to work out any patterns that may help to create guidelines for which method is most appropriate in a given set of circumstances, I figured I would start to compile a list of some of the most prominent successes in each category.  Please feel free to nominate additional startups to add to either list.  Also, I’d love to hear any patterns that seem to emerge from these lists which can help guide the decision.

Bootstrapping Success Stories

• Placebase (via GigaOM)
• PlentyOfFish (via NYTimes and WSJ)
• MacRumors (via NYTimes)
• Blue Sky Factory (via EveryJoe part 1, 2, and 3)
• FreshBooks (via GigaOM)
• 37Signals (via TechCrunch)

Venture Funding Success Stories

• Google
• Amazon

Unknown

• Apple
• Microsoft