Do you remember Flash and Dreamweaver? The keynote speaker will be Marc Canter, the founder of Macromedia, the graphics and web development software company that, relatively recently, was acquired by Adobe.  Although the purchase of Macromedia should have left Marc set for life, and able to sit on the beach all day drinking mai tais, he has a new passion: building digital cities. This 30 year software development guru and tech entrepreneur, is now the CEO of Digital City Mechanics.

Michelle Messina Silicon Valley comes to Jamaica

Also featured on the agenda will be Michelle Messina, Vice-President of International Business Development of the Silicon Valley-based Guidewire Group, which… provides startups, their supporters, and those who do business with them with the tools, data, networks and programs they need to discover, monitor, benchmark, compare, and promote early-stage companies…

These international guests will complement a powerful crop of young tech entrepreneurs from across the region who are making their mark at home and further afield.  For the most part, they will be sharing their experience, for example, how they became successful, along with discussing the various funding options that are available.

What is Caribbean BETA ?
It’s the first of its kind, one day  Tech Entrepreneurship conference that’s about driving startup businesses, jobs and innovation in Jamaica and across the Caribbean. It will be on Friday, November 25th 2011 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica. See Conference Agenda for details.

It’s about the business of spawning successful Caribbean Tech Startups.

It’s the event where the smartest Caribbean minds in technology around the world, come to show and tell what they’re doing to change the world, to learn from experts, be inspired and get connected to talent, funding and opportunities.

It brings together the industry pioneers and fresh faces, thought leaders and technology giants from Caribbean and around the world. The event will include inspiring keynotes and workshops, refreshing panels and a BETA PitchFest contest with focus on hot sectors like mobile/web apps, social networking, multimedia content and gaming.

Last week Thursday, Kingston BETA kicked off the first in its series of bimonthly events in Kingston, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel with “SHOW ME THE MONEY” will be an interactive panel-led discussion  on How Jamaican and Caribbean technology/internet entrepreneurs can develop profitable business models for their ideas and startups. Our 3 guest panelists were O’Neal Campbell- Discountsja.com ( Jamaica’s Groupon.com), Alex Morrissey Songwrita/Jamaicansmusic.com and Marc Gayle- Compversions.com.

Marc Gayle kicked off the discussions with his presentation called “Ideas are Cheap:

by Marc Gayle

You hardly ever hear of a startup that just goes *poof* one day and suddenly implodes. The more common occurrence are a series of bad decisions by management and/or the founders. This also applies to larger companies too. One of the things I have encountered while building Comp Versions is that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of you. Especially when it is now common mantra to get something out as quickly as possible.

Even more especially when you have to be learning programming as you go along, are doing it by yourself and bootstrapping – talk about bad odds. Although I have completed a major milestone (the majority of the Rails back-end is done), I have now started the front-end. More

by Marc Gayle

I hereby suggest that we, as the web development community, from herein going forward ban all references to uniques, pageviews and hits. The only metric that really matters to the creation of a viable web company is revenues – but more specifically profits. Not just revenues & profits, but revenues & profits per month. It’s not about making $1M in one month and nothing for the next 20 years (although, if that’s your MO, kudos to you). It’s about building a sustainable business that generates steady monthly revenues and profits. More

Is your great idea good enough? Can it grow in this slow economy? Can it become profitable, and return on any investments it requires?

Well, there’s no way to know until you try, right? Hardly. There are some ways to prepare yourself, test your idea, and improve it before you actually found a company around it. We’ve compiled the best examples from recent Inc. articles and Inc.com guides of tips for the very early steps of building a start-up.

1. Scope out your industry.

Or, if you’re just starting to think about entrepreneurship in general, find the best industry to fit your style and talents. For example, this year’s burgeoning industries include interactive technology (from mobile app design to tech-savvy translation), wellness (healthy beverages), and little luxuries, such as baked goods. When you start honing in on a specialty area, seek out counselors and talk to industry veterans. You can go to SCORE, the SBA, the Women’s Economic Development Agency, or scores more. The Internet, your local library, the U.S. Census Bureau, business schools, industry associations, can be invaluable sources of information and contacts. For instance, you might approach business schools in your area to see if one of their marketing classes will take on your business as a test project. You could potentially get some valuable market research results at no cost.

More

by Jason L Baptiste

I move forward the only direction
Cant be scared to fail in Search of perfection

-Jay-Z, On To The Next One

I’m going to go and replace 3 years with a “short time frame”. Some things to focus on:

Market opportunity- A million dollars is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely changing the business (ie- failing).

Inequality of information- Find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Having this inequality of information can give you, your first piece of leverage.

Leverage skills you know- You can go into new fields such as say Finance, but make sure you’re leveraging something you already know such as technology and/or product. Someone wanted to start a documentary with me. I said that would be fun, but it would be my first documentary regardless of what happened. There was a glass ceiling due to that. If I do something leveraging a skill I know, I’m already ahead of the game.

Look in obscure places- We’re often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don’t make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy.  One example would be email newsletters, which I’ve profiled before.

Surround yourself with smart people- Smart people whom are successful usually got there by doing the same and have an innate desire to help those do the same. It’s the ecosystem that’s currently happening with the paypal mafia and can be traced all the way back to fairchild semiconductor.

Charge for something- Building a consumer property dependent upon advertising has easily made many millionaires, but it isn’t the surest path. It takes a lot of time and scale, which due to cashflow issues will require large outside investment probably before you are a millionaire. Build something that you can charge for.  That’s how business has worked for thousands of years prior to the 1990s.  Make something, charge for it, repeat it.  DHH explains this really well at Startup School 08.

More

1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble

More

There’s always talk about the end game in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. Hollywood has even made a movie about the founding of Facebook that glamorizes startup life instead of showing what it really is: a day in day out marathon of work with very little glamor. We rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face and the journey that this entails. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By knowing the harsh realities that lie ahead, you can be prepared when they come about so you can solider on. Here are some of the harsh realities that come with the territory of being an entrepreneur.

Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong

The first iteration or implementation of your idea will often be wrong. That’s not because you’re not smart, not doing the right things, or some other reason to come down hard on yourself. As it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers and requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were. In the end, that just leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

More

by Jason L Baptiste

Earlier this week there was a post about an entrepreneur losing 4 million dollars in sales due to his reliance upon Google as their primary sales+distribution channel. The same problem faces Demand Media with their IPO, Zynga with diversifying beyond Facebook, and many other startups that are primarily platform plays dependent upon the mercy of the platform overlords. As an entrepreneur I find it very important to have a large diversified distribution channel for customer acquisition. The goal of this article is to outline the plethora of distribution channels that exist for startups.

Public Relations
Public Relations is a strong distribution channel due to its low cost and repeatable nature. PR certainly has a human capital cost, but can be fairly easy to execute with the right story. It can also be highly segmented ie- verticals, industries, and audiences. It can also help bring forth social proof. As seen on CNN, TechCrunch, and the New York Times will always be a seller.

Organic Search Traffic
Organic search traffic is the gift that keeps on giving. It can go away due to an algorithm tweak by Google or a simple drop in rankings. For the most part, the traffic generated by organic search traffic will stay generally the same. It may increase due to a demand for the product you’re offering, seasonality,etc. Optimizing for organic search is also a smart move as it can benefit future content that is created. Once you’re “trusted” by Google, it can help with new content you produce. Organic search traffic has a “cost” in terms of time, proper optimization, human capital,etc. but the cash outlay is much much smaller than paid search traffic.

Content Marketing
I believe content marketing is the future of customer acquisition and a cost effective, scaleable, and brandable way to acquire customers. One method of content marketing might include educational and analytical blog posts on topics related to your market. Another method might include putting together infographics and white papers that also educate your prospective customers.  Content marketing can be further enhanced with Organic Search Traffic and Social Media Marketing. Make sure you are capturing as many email addresses as possible when educating your audience for lead prospecting. Here’s why I feel content marketing is important
The content should be: educational, actionable, and full of utility. A reader should learn something and be prompted to do something they could not before.

Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs can be major drivers of distribution for certain products. Information products tend to do the best here, but they can be effective for all types of commerce. There are hundreds of affiliate networks to sign-up with as well as running your own. The key to many of these networks for larger scale companies is not the software itself, but the affiliates and affiliate managers. In order to attract top tier affiliates also be prepared to be flexible on your terms. Smaller affiliates will be okay with net30 payouts, but top tier affiliates may want direct wire transfers with weekly payments.

Lead Gen Programs
I can’t find the exact link, but I distinctly remember Tony Wright, Founder of RescueTime saying, “The internet was made for lead gen”. The lifeblood of any company is generating new leads and new potential customers. Once you’ve experienced it, you will be a fiend for it. Lead Gen programs allow you to pay for each qualified lead brought your way. A lead can usually be in the form of email addresses and names. If the numbers are calculated right, it can be gold

Events and Conferences
Events and Conferences are great ways to not only generate some auxiliary revenue, but they are a great way to gather + educate your prospective customers. Simple meetups with refreshments that gather your customers is one way to go about things. Another more grandiose way of going about things is throwing your own conference. Alain from Fair Software did this with Founder’s Conference . Other examples include FastCompany article

3rd Party Social Platforms
I find 3rd party social platforms to be different than a basic Twitter or Facebook implementation. 3rd party social platform usage examples include games from Zynga or Geni.com integrating as an app inside Facebook.com. Another example would be HubSpot with TwitterGrader. Integrating social platforms inside your destination is one thing, but making stand alone apps inside of sites such as Facebook is a whole other form of distribution.

Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing examples include personal RFPs and using Twitter for permission based promotions. A personal RFP might look something like “I need good WordPress hosting”. From this message a representative from WpEngine might reach out. Companies such as DELL have done millions of dollars in sales via Twitter with deals. Other companies including local businesses and tech startups use social media marketing as another permission based marketing channel.

Mobile Platform Distribution
Pandora increased it’s usage exponentially after the app store appeared. It almost doubled their growth overnight Don’t just think iPhone either, though that is probably the best place to start. The best companies such as Dropbox or Evernote have mobile applications across all different platforms. Android, blackberry, WinPhone7, iPad, and mobile web are all important. Every user counts and app stores are a chance to reach new users.

APIs
APIs are the new business development for the 21st century. Integrating with other companies used to require a lot of time, negotiations, and often money. Now? It just requires an API key and some imagination. Not all APIs allow for commercial access and some have a limit, but that’s a problem that can be dealt with. Dropbox just introduced their API and I’ve seen it popping up in almost every work related iPad app. I’m not sure what effect this has had on sales, but I’m almost certain it will be a big one. If I wasn’t already a Dropbox user, I would certainly check their service out.

Paid Online Advertising
Online advertising can come in three flavors: CPM, CPC, and CPA. CPM is your traditional pay per 1,000 impressions on a website. I’m not a huge fan of this and usually think it’s quite a spray+pray approach. It can be very useful when applied to the right niches and audience. CPC ads let you pay per click. This is primarily how Google makes money. You search with an intent, they show sponsored ads, and you end up clicking on one of those ads. The problem with CPC ads on Google and other sites comes in the form of click fraud. Lastly, CPA ads are billed on a Cost Per Acquisition basis. You pay the advertiser everytime a customer acquisition mechanism takes place. That usually includes a purchase, but it could also be a registration of some sort. My advice on online advertising if you are going to do it is this:

* Heavily track the funnel coming from online advertising so you know what does and doesn’t convert.
* Try to put custom landing pages in place.
* Go as niche as possible when buying ads. Find your audience. Buysellads, influads, thedeck, and federated media are great places to find very niche ads.
* Make sure the economics make sense. You can reduce anything down to cost per acquisition. ie- Buying 100,000 impressions at $2 CPM. If the lifetime value of your customer is $10, you will break even at 1 purchase per 5,000 impressions and be profitable at anything under.

Direct Sales
A direct sales channel can be very important in B2B plays where the cost of having a direct salesperson exceeds the lifetime value of the aggregate customers they can exceed. To many in the startup world, it might seem absurd to have a direct sales team, but in enterprise and b2b sales, it’s a viable channel when done right.

Business Development + Cross Sales Joint Ventures
Business development deals with similar companies that have the same customer base yet are not competitors are insanely lucrative for both sides, especially you. Find a business development partner that has the same customer base as yourself, but larger in size. By working with you they provide their customers new value and make more money as a super affiliate of sorts. Your benefit? Credibility and increased profits.

Referral Programs
Referral Programs are slightly different than affiliate programs. Referral programs are less about traditional affiliate channels and more about using your existing customers to spread word about your product. The reward can be cash, but it often comes in the form of in-app rewards. For example- Dropbox gives you 250MB for every user that signs up from your referrals. They also employ a two sided referral that rewarded the user that signed up with more storage. Gilt also has a referral program, but the reward is in cash when the user you refer makes their first purchase. Think about it like this: User X invites User Y. User Y now makes $75 purchase. User X now receives $25 free, but makes a $75 purchase themselves due to the referral reward. ($75+$75-$25)== Net win of $125 due to the reward loop even while giving away $25. This doesn’t take into account the lifetime value of User Y either.

Traditional Media
People still subscribe to cable, read newspapers, and listen to radio. If you’re trying to reach normals, not just early adopters, and establish some credibility, then traditional media is still a huge channel. Honest truth it’s bigger when it comes to PR and even ad dollars. Hard to believe, but it’s true. The problem comes down to the large up front spend that traditional media entails and the lack of true analytics that exist. If possible, I would do unique URL tracking and call tracking by building a simple app with Twilio.

New products and add-ons to existing customers
Once you have a large enough customer base, the goal should be about increasing the Lifetime Value of that customer by offering new products that make sense. Look at 37 Signals, their first products such as Basecamp and Backpack did really well. They used their existing customer base to expand their profit pools with new relevant products such as Highrise and Campfire. Don’t be afraid to look to your own customers as a source of distribution.

One distribution channel will most likely outweigh another – that’s fine. What isn’t fine is being able to answer yes to the question of: “If I lost distribution channel x, would my startup fail?” One last thing to make sure you evaluate as an entrepreneur is the customer acquisition costs and their quarterly increase/decrease. A growing, but cost ineffective distribution channel can be equally fatal. The equivalent of startup gold is a distribution channel that grows with a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) that is a very low number or zero (think viral). I will investigate these metrics more in depth in my next post “Metrics Every Startup Should Know”.
How many of these distribution channels can you check off as a startup?
If I forgot anything leave it in the comments below.