Coffee Notes (July 20, 2010)

Attendees

  • Gregarious N (Lil’Grams)
  • Darius
  • Nick O (Health Startup)
  • Justin K
  • Derek (Tweqs.com)
  • Tristan (Startup Square)
  • Laura (Bike Trips Through Italy)
  • Sumeet J (CMEA Capital / WorkingPoint)
  • Dan S (Assist.ly)

Power of LinkedIn

  • Power of LinkedIn - since there’s less attention there’s an opportunity to be heard (Sumeet)
  • Find the right groups that may be relevant - there are like 50k groups there (Sumeet)
  • Unfortunately, the process is very manual and time consuming - no way to necessarily automate
  • Custom offer makes the process trackable

Leverging Meetup

  • Can directly contact members for groups your a member of (Tristan)
  • Limited to sending 12 messages a day (Tristan)
  • Look for groups open to sponsorships as a possible contact point (Greg)

Shopify

  • Make a temp site so digital downloads would be possible (Nick)
  • Small traction initially (Nick)
  • Created a video in Keynote and added some audio (Nick)
  • Worked local connections as well, better success (Nick)

Get Outside

  • Practice your pitch with real people (Greg)
  • They’ll ask you the questions you need to know the answers to (Greg)
  • If you need to stand up, try and make it clear how you are a participant in the community (Sumeet)
  • It’s a great way to define who the customer is (Nick)
  • Go there being genuine (Derek)
  • Going to events is not the most scalable solution, unfortunately (Derek)

Other Techniques

  • Sponsor key sites your customers visit (Justin)
  • Contact the top posters on a site (Justin)
  • Work the forums
  • Sponsorships for key people in your space (Derek)
  • Content Creation - make it specific to them or you won’t get a lot of feedback (Derek)