Going from $0 to $500k in 1 Year with no VC Money When we started building Flow, it was to scratch an itch. We were frustrated with having to use three different apps to manage our daily workflow, so we decided to build a solution ourselves. It took three of us nine months to go from napkin to reality. We were close, efficient, and most importantly, cheap. We broke all the rules. Here’s how we took Flow from zero to half-a-million in under a year without a cent of VC money… We scratched our own itch. Starting from a personal need meant we had a leg-up from day one. We grew organically. Often when startups get a big injection of cash, their first move is to go on a hiring spree. We kept our team down to three until right before launch so we could make quick decisions and keep communication straightforward. There are now 10 of us working on Flow full-time, and since we’ve hired organically, our bottom line is growing along with our headcount. We slept in our beds, not under our desks. We self-funded. Enjoyed this?
Les stars avant/après les retouches Photoshop | Le Blog de Gregory Moine Vous le savez: les photos de magazines sont toutes retouchées. Vas y que je t’enlève un bourrelet, un bouton disgracieux, ou encore des rides naissantes… Et quand c’est un star qui passe au scalpel virtuel, c’est fait avec encore plus de minutie… (Comprendre: c’est un peu exagéré). Déplacez votre souris sur les photos pour voir l’avant/après retouche Photoshop. (trouvé sur Ellf.ru) Maintenant, cliquez ici pour découvrir les STARS AVANT/APRES LES MERVEILLES DU MAQUILLAGE ICI D’autres articles bien marrants sont disponibles sur le site, faites un tour sur l’index des articles ou cliquez sur un des thèmes a droite -> Merci pour votre visite!
ESCP Europe Alumni Association : Réseau, Actualités, Evolution Professionnelle, Annuaire, Solidarité Nexenture, éditrice de la solution de Réseau Social d'Entreprise My Live Company Côme DE SEREYS (2009) a fondé avec son associé Maxime Vignon (ENS Informatique et Télécom) la société Nexenture, éditrice de la solution de Réseau Social d'Entreprise My Live Company. Le logiciel commercialisé en mode SaaS connaît un grand succès auprès des entreprises rhônalpines. Après 18 mois de Recherche et Développement, et une levée de fonds de 150.000 euros auprès de Business Angels lyonnais, la solution My Live Company compte déjà 2.000 utilisateurs. Les prises de contact se multiplient, et une trentaine de plateformes devraient être installées d'ici la fin de l'année 2012. My Live Company répond aux nouveaux usages de communication et offre aux entreprises des solutions de collaboration et de management performantes dans un contexte de mobilité accrue. Parmi les différents métiers ciblés par My Live Company, les forces de ventes. Nous souhaitons à Côme beaucoup de succès dans cette entreprise !
Why We Pin It? Takeaway Lessons from Pinterest Pinterest is now the third largest social network. It's ahead of both Linkedin and Google+, as measured by number of users, according to a new report from Experian. Its rapid success has led to a proliferation of clones. Will any of them come anywhere close to garnering the same attention? If they do, it won’t be because they just copycatted Pinterest, it will be because they understood and integrated the same formula for success. Let’s take a closer look at 6 key factors driving the success of one of today’s largest social networks: 1) Continuous Involvement – Most social networks have you create a profile and once you’re done filling out your basic sign-up data that’s literally the end of the engagement process. 2) Self Expression – On the surface Pinterest appears to be just about pining individual pictures to boards. 3) Social Feedback Loop – Pinterest creates a positive feedback loop where if you post something great it can easily go viral. Connect: Authored by: David Urmann
How Famous Companies Got Their Names Ever wondered about how famous brands got their names from? Here are a couple of explanations. Via Wolkwer Inc. Awesome Stuff to Buy | Find Cool Shit to Buy How To Create A Minimum Viable Product Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Emre Sokullu, founder and chief architect of GROU.PS There’s been a lot of talk on the concept of minimum viable product lately, but not much has been written on how to actually implement one. Having gone through the process of developing one of the earliest social software mashups (GROU.PS) in PHP six years ago, and LoveBucks, a node.js Javascript app that is the Facebook “Like” Button for online content monetization (both alone), I want to describe to you a little bit what has really changed in web application development in recent years and the beauty of minimum viable product. 1. Build it on Facebook Platform Don’t build your membership stack from scratch, let Facebook Connect handle it. 2. If your product starts life as a web app, chances are you may not be able to create a mobile experience from day one. 3. 4. Bootstrap.js depends on jQuery. 5. 6. 7. 8. Don’t use pages, tour sites, or heavy javascript demos to explain your product. 9. 10.
Mobile marketing does not mean mobile advertising Ebay recently decided to stop advertising inside its own apps claiming that “they didn’t need the money” and that it was “spoiling the user experience”. Now there’s a brand that are ahead of the game and realise that the short term benefit of quick revenues could outweigh the long term benefits of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Many brands and media agencies seem to think that a mobile marketing strategy just involves advertising. The surge in mobile spend is largely put down to advertising on facebook and google display platforms but good mobile marketing goes beyond mere advertising and if facebook want to really maximise their mobile revenues they will need to do more than just sell adverts to achieve that and interact with brands. Coca Cola recently created a really cool campaign for Coca Cola for example that involved users sending a Coca Cola as a present via Google Maps on their mobile. strangers across the world through a video/text message exchange.
Early Adopter Recruiting Startup BetaBait Helps Users Show Their Love For Apps BetaBait, the startup that helps new apps and services find beta testers, is introducing new features today that should give those testers more control of the experience — and give BetaBait more opportunity to make money. BetaBait doesn’t quite serve the same function as a service like LaunchRock — it’s less about managing the beta testing process and more about finding the users you need for those tests. So it’s to cultivating an audience of early adopters, who either receive an email with a list of new startups looking for testers or search the site for products that interest them. The company offers startups a chance to receive a more prominent placement on the email by sponsoring it. Co-founder Cody Barbierri (who is an occasional writer for VentureBeat, and who I used to edit during my time there) tells me that BetaBait just released a number of new features that help it become more than a “simple email service.”
7 Disruptive Innovations That Turned Their Markets Upside Down [INFOGRAPHIC] Who are the movers, the shakers, the companies that affect profound change? And what products do they bring to market that disrupt all others, making other companies completely re-think their strategies? Let's take a look at seven of those products whose competitors wish had never existed. That's what we'll find out with this infographic by professional networking site Focus.com. Besides those usual suspects, there are a few surprises in the group, too — products that lowered prices, approached their markets in unheard-of ways, even created new markets — and changed the world. Infographic courtesy Focus.com