Writing by Matt Collins in Entrepreneurship, collected in chronological order.
One of the interesting things about online marketplaces is their inherent network effects. They’re hard to get going (not least because of the chicken-and-egg problem) but — if successful — can become very valuable as it’s hard for other businesses to compete. As a result of this defensibility, online marketplaces have been popular with VCs. […]
How do you find and hire a CTO for your business? As a business owner you might be looking to find a CTO for a number of reasons: You have an established business and are looking for someone with the experience to help you use technology more effectively and strategically. You’re looking to raise money […]
If you’re interested in how to start a successful marketplace, Matt Mickiewicz is a man to study. Matt has previously started two successful marketplaces: Flippa and 99designs. His latest business, Hired.com, is a job marketplace which — after just three years — is doing tens of millions of dollars in annual sales and has raised over $70 million in funding. […]
What makes some online marketplaces billion dollar successes and others costly failures? Uber and Airbnb are forging ahead relentlessly. Yet Homejoy, having raised $40 million in funding, ended up shutting down. Why? How much is down to execution and luck, and how much to fundamental differences between the industries they chose to play in or their precise business […]
How do you build an online marketplace from scratch? Thumbtack, an online marketplace for local services, yesterday announced a $100M funding round led by Google Ventures. Building a local services marketplace is a notoriously difficult problem that has beaten many entrepreneurs. So how did Thumbtack get where they are? What tactics are behind their apparent success? The founder of […]
What churn rate can you expect for your subscription box business? What’s a good churn rate? What’s a bad churn rate? If you haven’t yet launched, what number should you put in your business plan? I wrote in a previous post about typical subscription e-commerce retention rates and how, when considering launching a subscription box businesses, your assumptions about retention […]
You have a WordPress blog or website. You want some changes made to it, so you need to find someone who can help. But who? One effective way to find a WordPress developer is through a freelancing website like oDesk or Elance. But finding the right person can be very time-consuming and error-prone. How do […]
I always like hearing how entrepreneurs have managed to launch marketplace businesses. TechCrunch recently posted this interview with Michael Karnjanaprakorn of Skillshare, a platform for online education, about how they seeded and grew their marketplace. He described two main phases in a marketplace’s journey: Phase 1: Seeding Where you “Roll up your sleeves up and […]
What’s a typical retention rate for a subscription commerce business? If you’re trying to model a potential new subscription box business, or just wondering how profitable an existing business is, retention rate is a key variable. What retention rate should you assume? The answer, of course, is “it depends.” But you need something to plug […]
It’s 11.38pm as I’m starting to write this, so I’ll keep it brief. The latest startup interview from Grovo came out today. It’s with David Tisch who runs the TechStars incubator in New York. David sees lots of startups from an early stage, so has an interesting vantage point on things. Here’s a quick rundown […]
I told you about an interesting interview with the Bonobos founder last week on a site called Grovo. Well, Grovo’s next interview with a founder of a successful Internet company is now available and it’s another good one. This week’s interview is with Ben Lerer, the co-founder and CEO of Thrillist, a daily email city […]
I came across an online education website called Grovo this evening. Perhaps you’ve heard of it already? Grovo has lined up a series of what promise to be interesting interviews with successful figures in the world of online business. Their first interview (and only one for now) is with Andy Dunn, one of the co-founders […]
I want to like Google. They have all those free services: search, Gmail, Analytics… what’s not to like with those? And I’ve been a customer of Google’s for a long time, too – spending money on their AdWords ads since February 2007. Google does a lot of good things and I’m sure most people who work […]
You’ve started your business, but money’s tight. You haven’t got much cash to play with. Here are 23 tactics you can use to be frugal and save money: 1. Use Lean Startup Methodology Credit: quinet under Creative Commons license Make sure you’re building something people want and will pay for. Don’t spend time and money building it […]
People sometimes ask me if I’ve found having an MBA helpful in starting businesses. So is it? If you’re thinking of starting a business, here are seven reasons why you might not want to do an MBA first: MBA Costs are Potential Startup Capital: Doing an MBA is expensive. If you’ll be putting your own money […]
If you’re setting up a web-based business in London, there are lots of resources that can come in handy once you know about them. I thought I’d share some of my favourites here in case there a few you don’t yet know about. This is a selection of everything from interesting events to attend and […]
Are you thinking of setting up a two-sided marketplace business? It’s a hard thing to do, so you’re going to need all the help you can get. Why not learn from how other people have managed it successfully in the past? One challenge of creating this kind of marketplace is that you’re going to have to […]
Patrick over at Micro ISV on a Shoestring has a fantastic post summarising lessons learnt at the recent Business of Software 2010 Conference. He goes through highlights of a number of talks and it’s good reading for anyone in the business of selling software. Here’s one nugget I found particularly interesting that’s potentially handy for […]
I was just making a payment via PayPal and discovered that PayPal have a new checkout page. Here it is with the payment via PayPal option showing (this is the default for people who already have a PayPal account): As before, those who don’t have a PayPal account are instead prompted for credit card details: […]
I spend a lot of time with people who know a lot about the web. They’re either building online businesses or they’re 30-something friends who live in London and who use the internet frequently in their day-to-day lives. That’s why I found it interesting recently to work with someone who’s outside of that circle, to […]
130 assorted programmers, designers and business folk; 6 eager teams; one crazily ambitious goal. Launch48 was back. The goal? Launch a web startup in under 48 hours. I attended the first Launch48 event back in February. It was great fun and a fantastic way to meet people with entrepreneurial flair. That time, the local voucher […]
I recently spent some time comparing current e-commerce platforms (a.k.a. shopping carts). It’s a complicated area, so I thought I’d share my findings here in case they can be useful to others. These are my opinions and analysis based on my own research and experimentation and are biased towards sites targeting a UK market. First […]
Here’s a great slide deck from Dave McClure on startup metrics. If you’re doing a web startup, these slides are a great summary of a lot of the stuff you should be thinking about (IMHO). Check out slides 9 and 12 in particular. The appendix at the end has some further details on some of […]
I’ve been researching some new business ideas lately and it struck me how rarely people seem to discuss quick and cheap ways of testing the critical assumptions upon which business models are based. Often we’re keen to play with Excel, but less keen to check that the numbers we’re typing in are grounded in reality. […]
Making Stuff Happen in 48 Hours The last couple of days I was involved in another “build a website in 48 hours” event. This time, it was Launch48, organised by a couple of friends of mine, Ian Broom and Adil Mohammed. Thanks to lots of great work from Ian and Adil, some generous sponsors who […]
John Buckman, founder and CEO of Magnatune.com (and founder of BookMooch), gave a really interesting talk on how to be successful as an Internet entrepreneur at Loic Le Meur’s recent LeWeb08 conference in Paris. He had a lot of good, practical tips about what he sees as the ‘right’ approach to entrepreneurship. His presentation is […]
This is a great slideshow (with audio) on how to use metrics to drive the development of your web app. Designing and Optimizing the DNA of a Killer App by Dan Olsen – Startonomics View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: software consumer)
Can Sales of Desktop Apps Predict Successful Web Apps? Attending FOWA a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about web apps in general. With the move from desktop to web-hosted software, I’m wondering if what’s selling now in desktop versions will be a good predictor for what people will pay for in web app […]
This data has been out for a few months now, but for anyone whose business depends on advertising, it’s worth a second look. It’s from the World Advertising Research Center’s Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2008. UK Advertising Expenditure at current prices, 2007 Advertising Medium Total advertising expenditure £ millions Year-on-year % change Press 7,716 -1.6% Television […]
According to their own press release, HelloMetro has been awarded a trademark from the US patent office for use of the term ‘Hyperlocal’. In a comment on Search Engine Watch, their CEO explains that their use describes their service of “advertising/providing information on the goods and services of others that are of local interest”. Astonishing! […]
photo credit: wit Here’s a nice article on selling expensive, niche software.
photo credit: mattbuck4950 Out-Law had an interesting article yesterday about how Ryanair is taking a Dutch fare comparison website to court in Ireland for screenscraping. If I understand rightly, Ryanair’s case hinges on whether or not the terms of use of their website count as a contract; they say they do whereas the scrapers argue […]
photo credit: alexliivet It’s time to put your thinking cap on. The UK government’s Power of Information Taskforce last week launched a £20,000 competition for good ideas about how to use a raft of public information. Alongside the launch, the government is making available a number of new sets of data and APIs, including a […]
photo credit: Urbankudos “Nine out of 10 say rules should govern social sites” According to Bobby Johnson in yesterday’s Guardian (Facebook Information Should be Regulated, Survey Says), “89% of those surveyed by the Press Complaints Commission said there should be a set of widely accepted rules to help prevent personal information – such as private […]
photo credit: sowri Here’s a neat idea… these guys are selling words from a dictionary.
Credit: Robert Scoble So you’ve got a great idea for a killer Web startup but you’re not a techie yourself? You’re looking for a technical business partner or CTO; someone who understands business but can pull the technical side of things together and make your ideas real? This kind of person can be hard to […]
HireGuru is a new site I’ve been working on. It is a directory of UK hire companies with details of companies hiring out things from sumo suits to helicopters.
I spent this last weekend with a group of 30 or so web developers, designers and entrepreneurs that I’d never met before as part of something called London Startup Weekend. The idea was something that had already been tried out in the US, but was a first for the UK: to get a bunch of […]
Half way through discussing my online takeaway idea with a friend, what should show up on Dragons’ Den, but two guys with a different online menu idea! We couldn’t believe it! hungryhouse.co.uk are similar to just-eat.co.uk and succeeding in getting £100,000 of funding from the Dragons in exchange for 50% of their company (although with […]
Is it just me, or is PayPal’s European customer service laughably bad? I wrote to them on 10th October about a problem I’d been having. Thankfully, I didn’t really need a reply from them as my issue was resolved. I say thankfully, because it took them until just now (16th November) to send me a […]
Alright, it’s time to talk about a new idea I’ve been looking at and have been putting through some initial market testing. It’s quite simple, really: put takeaway menus online. I’m planning to scan as many menus as possible and put them all on a website so that whenever you’re hungry you can find the […]
Localmouth was feeling a bit empty. To help counter that problem I’ve hooked up a number of information feeds from other websites. Localmouth now pulls in listings for local news, events, property, jobs and personal ads. I’ve also added a Google map of the local area. Here’s how the new local homepage looks.