Most marketers consider an acquisition to be the most important metric, but is that true? — Customer Acquisition is considered to be one of the most important metrics for success. It makes sense too. The more customers you have, the better, right? However, in recent times, we have seen startups spending massive sums to acquire consumers only to go bust a few months (or years) later…

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Learn the tricks that made these companies so successful. Airbnb once crossed the valuation of $100 billion. Hotmail did more than $400 million. While they may sound like giant companies, they both started from nothing. Yet from that beginning, they achieved great heights. Your company or…

What we can learn from a seemingly unique business model — In 2007, designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were struggling to afford their rent. They came up with an idea to rent out their space to people who were coming to the city for the upcoming design conference. The easy option for them was to place an ad on Craiglist…

Although Microsoft relaunched Hotmail as Outlook in 2012, its success allowed MS to start with a huge user base — Once upon a time, only a few decades ago, we used to have landline phones to connect with our friends and family. Even those were not that available in all areas. Our other mode of communication was writing letters. In this era of instant messaging and email services, it’s hard…

Customer Acquisition Metrics is a metric you must track. — Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is one of the top 5 metrics you must track every month. Simply put, Customer Acquisition Cost is the amount of money you’d spend to make someone a paying consumer. The good news is, it’s very easy to calculate. …

0 to 700 million users in 14 years! — In 2005, Drew Houston (the founder of Dropbox) applied to get into Y Combinator companies with his first startup (Not dropbox). His application got rejected. Fast forward to 2018 — Houston’s Dropbox became Y Combinator’s first-ever startup to file for an IPO. He filed it for Dropbox. Since its beginning…

And what we can learn from them — In 2008, two friends Travis & Garrett met at an annual tech conference. The conference was the LeWeb, which The Economist describes as “where revolutionaries gather to plot the future” Both the friends were successful entrepreneurs by then who had sold separate startups they co-founded for hefty sums. …

Track how your marketing budget is bringing in customers. There’s a method to this madness — My friend and I started a startup almost a decade ago. We’d take customer feedback to design the ideal shirt. The core idea was sound — and the business was slowly growing. Unfortunately, that growth was not fast enough for us to devote more time. I saw an out. I…

Your existing customers are your biggest asset — Learn to Retain them and Make them loyal— Explained with Writing and Product Example — “It’s easier to love a brand when the brand loves you back” — Seth Godin I visit a grocery store regularly — they have my name, contact number, and purchase details. Every time, the guy at checkout asks for my membership number. He types the number in and does something with it. I have absolutely no idea what they use it for. …

Know how to use the most important metric for startup & data-driven marketers — I used to co-own a t-shirt selling company. We ran it for over a year and found moderate success in terms of revenue. As life became busier, I sold my share. My partners continued for a year before closing the shop. Revenue was growing at a moderate pace. We were…

YouTube Channel can be a lucrative side-hustle — But it demands a lot from you — YouTube is amazing! Both for viewers and content creators. Content creators never had an outlet like YouTube before. They can now create something on their own and reach thousands of people with that. If you want to create content, I strongly encourage that you start your channel. However, if you…

“Buy One Get One” or “Buy 2 & Get 50% Off”? — Akshay Rao, Professor of Marketing from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, found in a study that consumers prefer receiving something extra, instead of getting a discount. Even though the statements above mean the same thing, consumers tend to choose the first one. …

You might think they’ll help you grow, but the opposite will happen — Growing a YouTube Channel takes a lot of work. Scripting a video, getting the setup to record it, editing the video and sound, publishing it, and then promoting it — it’s a small-scale studio operation. After that, to get monetization, you need 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time…

Google, Clubhouse, Airline industry, Groupon, and e-commerce sites hack massive growth — Back in 2004, my cousin Anwar was flaunting his new email account. Emails are nothing to brag about, yet he was doing just that. He received an exclusive invite to use that new email service and that made him feel special. Anwar kept on mentioning how his one was better…

Explained with examples of Dropbox, Facebook, and Gmail — Growth hacking, also known as growth marketing, is a subset of marketing that deals with immediate growth using cost-effective tactics. Growth Hacking helps a company to grow its user base, generate more business from existing ones, increase its cart size and improve the company’s revenue. A little sidenote- Some people…

“Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half” — US retail magnate, John Wanamaker, famously made this quote on marketing to show how difficult it was to understand the return on marketing spend. His statement shows that marketing was uncertain. Marketing also got the rep that it was about gut feeling — because it was back then. In TV…

Customer Lifetime Value is one of the most important data points you must track for your business — Your startup spends $2 to bring in a new customer. Is it worth it to spend so much to maintain a customer? Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) helps you find that answer. Your first instinct would be to understand how much revenue that customer will be generating. That’s a good starting…