Startup Tips: How I grew a waiting list of 20,000+ at Mint.com Part I

Recently I got a question asking "I was curious what methods you used to build a 20k pre-beta email list, and what were the conversion rates for those emails?"` I love Mint.com and if you are not using them for your personal finance then bleh. Anyways, I think for many new startups the largest challenge...

The Power of your Marketing Message

Have you ever heard people bad mouth marketing? Saying it doesn't work. It's not a science. It's ineffective, etc. etc. Here's an exercise you can do yourself or have your unbelieving friend do to settle this once and for all. First of all, the credit goes to the late marketing genius Gary Halbert for this...

Noah will Soon be Homeless

Some of you may know that I live with my parents. Recently, I was evicted and have 30 days to leave the premises. Okay, it was not that ominous but they said it was time the bird left the nest. I guess at 25 I need to get my own place. I had an idea...

The Ultimate List of Eponyms Examples: Brands that OWN the Market

There are so many products where the name of it is what the market calls it. You know like when you say I want a Kleenex. You actually want a Tissue but Kimberly-Clark did a great job getting us to call it Kleenex instead. Here's a list of eponyms and examples of eponyms. This list...

Marketing Research Tip:Airports, Libraries and The Apple Store

Right now, I am waiting in the Jeju airport to fly back to Seoul. Fortunately, they have internet terminals that are free to use. One quick idea if you are interested in learning more about popular culture and what is hot on the web: Check out the history section on the web browsers at public...

It's all in the Details

I went to this great Vietnamese fusion restaurant for business 2 weeks ago and something occurred to me in the bathroom. It is all about the details. In many restaurants fancy or not there is so much emphasis on the menu, atmosphere, employees and other things. What about the bathroom? It is something that everyone...