by I don’t like to use the phrase “growth hacking” to describe the work required to perfect your marketing campaigns and systems. In reality, successful marketers are constantly iterating, measuring and testing their efforts to minimize waste and maximize ROI.
Finding new ways to get people into a sales funnel isn’t like repurposing a pair of sunglasses for a phone stand or repurposing an old ketchup bottle to make splash-free pancakes. In fact, growth hacking consists of testing new ideas on an ongoing basis.
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“If each test can lead to a 1% improvement, you’re well on your way to 100% improvement after 100 tests,” writes Jonathan Martinez, a self-proclaimed “marketing nerd” who has led development at Uber, Postmates, and Harmonic Chime. .
The best way to find marketing hacks is to use “rigorous experimentation frameworks to run countless A/B tests,” he advises. This article includes a RICE (approach, impact, confidence and effort) score spreadsheet, along with his thoughts on the acquisition and activation development offense.
“It’s important to remember that there is no such thing as development hacking. Instead, you should be thinking about how you can run 100 tests to move the needle forward.”
Thanks so much for reading,
Walter Thompson
Editorial Director, TechCrunch+
@your protagonist
TechCrunch Disrupt 2022: Taking the BS out of your TAM
Every founder should understand the sector in which they intend to compete, but calculating the Total Addressable Market (TAM) is a daunting process, especially for first-timers.
In reality, TAM is simply a planning tool that gives potential investors a better understanding of a company’s upside potential.
Next week at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, I’ll be hosting a panel discussion with three investors to find out how they think about TAM and what they’re looking for during a pitch:
- Kara Nortman, managing director, Upfront Ventures
- Aydin Senkut, founder and managing partner, Felicis Ventures
- Deena Shakir, Partner, Lux Capital
I’ll ask them to share tactics and strategies for finding TAM, how to calculate it for new products and services, and reveal some of the red flags most often seen by novice entrepreneurs.
Be sure to bring warm layers if you’re visiting SF for Disrupt — and if you can’t make it, I hope you’ll join us online.
5 Key IP Issues for AI Startups
Image Credits: Talaj (opens in new window) / Getty Images
No one in their right mind would leave a briefcase of cash behind at a restaurant, but entrepreneurs who don’t protect the IP derived from their AI innovations are just as careless.
“Technology disclosure, whether planned at a conference or partner meeting, or unplanned and accidental, can result in forfeiture of patent rights,” warn Eric L. Sophir and Matthew Horton, both IP attorneys at Foley & Lardner LLP.
In this highly detailed explanation, the duo uses plain language to help readers understand what types of innovation can be patented and why “conventional contractual agreements may be obsolete.”
Is the RPA market problematic?
Image Credits: NicoElNino/Getty Images
The growth rate for robotic process automation (RPA) startups has slowed since the start of the recession. As proof, consider Automation Anywhere, which recently closed a $200 million loan instead of raising a new round of funding.
“RPA vendors’ sales teams tout the many benefits of RPA, such as freeing up staff to do more meaningful work and revamping legacy IT infrastructure,” writes Kyle Wiggers.
“But what they don’t mention is that implementing an RPA solution often proves challenging.”
Could corporations be good matchmakers for startups and VCs?
Image Credits: Kinsei-TGS/Getty Images
When it launched an initiative to connect startups using its software with VC funding, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince “was initially hoping for $100 million to $250 million in commitments, just to have something substantial to announce,” the company said. Rebecca Szkutak.
Last week, Cloudflare unveiled a $1.25 billion funding program that will incentivize companies to leverage its serverless computing platform (and gain AWS market share).
“Companies that enter this program, regardless of whether they pitch to VCs, get a lot of software features for a year for free,” which could be a real boon for some bootstrapped companies.
