Best of Andrew Chen's Blog
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Best of Andrew Chen's Blog
2006 - 2010
About the Book
Forward by Eric Ries, author of Lean Startup.
Authored by Andrew Chen.
This book is the best of Andrew Chen's blog, curated and formatted into a 984-page PDF that you can keep with you at all times.
About the Author
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Best of 2006
- Early nerd memories ;)
- Random notes on early adopters
- YouTube and Monetizing Social Networking
- Do hardcore Microsofties suck at startups?
- 5 ways I screwed up my first website
- Potential consumer business models
- The myth of (business) prodigy
- Taking a vacation is productive too!
- Cultural perspectives on failure and innovation
- Yelp: An example of a high-value advertising model
- Inventory glut in social media
- Winners don’t quit, and quitters don’t win…
- Geniuses versus very smart people
- Designing for other people versus designing for yourself
- Flash will dominate the media-sharing web
- Autmated models versus human experts
- Product versus Experience
- Simplicity and choices for users
- Splitting equity between partners
- Why BitTorrent Inc. is no sure bet!
- Best of 2007 Q1
- Only nerds ask: “Is the Web 2.0 bubble collapsing?”
- Why build a vertical ad network?
- Meeting people in Silicon Valley
- 10 tips for meeting people at industry events
- Eyeball companies versus revenue companies
- My second bad website :)
- 3 lessons from a web idea that didn’t go anywhere
- 10 ways to verify assumptions
- Why do people avoid checking their assumptions?
- How to do market research via LinkedIn :)
- Dolt versus DoIt
- Verifying startup assumptions, Part 2
- How to tell the difference between eyeball companies
- Web + Games = ?
- Game design tutorial at the GDC
- What’s broken about online dating?
- What’s broken with online travel?
- How do you find a badass co-founder?
- Best of 2007 Q2
- Eyeballs versus dollars: What should startups focus on?
- Quick thought on eyeballs versus dollars…
- 24 hours into Twitter
- How to build a product in 7 days
- The myth of the 7 day product
- What’s the #1 opportunity in online advertising?
- 10 obvious strategies to ruthlessly acquire users
- Where to find startup ideas for the “Average Joe”
- 7 ways to define an emotionally engaging product
- Entrepreneur-in-Residence in 3 flavors
- Is Google the next Wal-Mart?
- Widgets = ad networks
- Google: A tale of two graphs
- How to fool VCs into thinking you have traction, Part 1
- How to fool VCs into thinking you have traction, Part 2
- Level up for features instead of freemium?
- How to fool VCs into thinking you have traction, Part 3
- How do you find a badass co-founder, Part 2
- Rule of thumb: Is 1-9-90 really correct?
- Is Facebook killing dating sites?
- Adwords is not enough for success on the consumer web
- Cracking the code: Analyzing viral strategies
- Need a solid Web 2.0 business idea? Go upstream from a proven model
- Forget advertising - is virtual goods the killer revenue model for Web 2.0?
- How does the online ad gold rush impact your Web 2.0 site?
- How do you apply math to Web 2.0 websites?
- of invites sent out, per user on average
- of virally added users, per user on average
- of widgets outside
- of widget impressions
- Stop asking: “Does the world need another social network?”
- Your site will succeed or fail in the first 10 seconds
- Is your site really viral? Viral Branding versus Viral Action
- of invites sent out, per user on average
- of virally added users, per user on average
- Is a Facebook user the same as a regular user?
- How to fool VCs into thinking you have traction, Part 4
- What is your W2SAT* score? (*Web 2.0 Startup Aptitude Test)
- How much is a Facebook user worth, anyway?
- What every Web 2.0 entrepreneur should know about virtual goods
- Best of 2007 Q3
- Oh “SNAP” = Social Network Application
- What’s your viral loop? Understanding the engine of adoption
- Are people like lab rats? Using reward schedules to drive engagement
- Reward schedules in HotOrNot
- Viral marketing is not a marketing strategy
- Social network convergence and private/public networks
- Yahoo’s Mash: Analysis of viral marketing technique
- Great article on different types of “Platforms”
- 5 things that make your social network monetize like crap
- Best of 2007 Q4
- Couple quotes on Facebook in Wired, Fortune, and NYT
- WSJ article describing the difficulty of monetizing UGC
- Ad networks: Winner-take-all or Everyone-wins?
- Technology always changes, but people always stay the same
- Why bloggers and press don’t matter for user acquisition
- Do you ever say, “MySpace is sooo ugly?” This blog’s for you…
- Why your friends list get polluted over time
- Is your website a leaky bucket? 4 scenarios for user retention
- 5 ways to break past the San Francisco echo-chamber
- Best of 2008 Q1
- Public and private spaces, and why YouTube comments are so awful
- Are your SEO efforts working, or failing?
- Quick professional update, and what an Entrepreneur-in-Residence actually does ;-)
- How will continued social media growth affect overall online ad CPMs in 2008?
- Does Facebook reflect your true friendships? How about e-mail?
- How does internet ad spend compare to other media?
- Take the driver’s seat on web stats, don’t be a passive observer
- 10 signs you’re a product fanatic
- Not everything can be free!
- For-profit app developers versus For-attention app developers
- Quantitative approaches to consumer internet
- The design of social spaces
- Reader Question: Are there new opportunities in social networking?
- Reader question: About college…
- Facebook and Platforms conference: Graphing Social Patterns (San Diego) recap
- Facebook viral marketing: When and why do apps “jump the shark?”
- Reader question: Does Facebook + performance ad network = awesome?
- Rethinking Facebook’s “Daily Active Users”
- Google’s second click versus Facebook’s second click
- Reader question: What’s the difference between “Viral Marketing” and “Word of Mouth?”
- Bridging your traffic engine with your revenue engine
- Best of 2008 Q2
- Faceoff between Facebook app analytics startups
- How NOT to calculate ad revenue
- Your ad-supported Web 2.0 site is actually a B2B enterprise in disguise
- 5 factors that determine your advertising CPM rates
- Viral coefficient: What it does and does NOT measure
- iGoogle start pages: Vertical integration of the first, second, and Nth click
- Moving to SF and joining the tech community - Lessons from my first year
- Viral marketing, activation, and retention metrics - commentary on Dave McClure’s Web 2.0 presentation
- Vertical ad networks: What are they, and why did Cox just buy Adify for $300MM?
- Facebook Apps: Why they’re focused on fun instead of utility
- Lessons from the casino industry on engagement metrics and lifetime value
- Social network marketing: Getting from zero to critical mass
- Social network death spiral: How Metcalfe’s Law can work against you
- What’s the value of a user on your site? Why it’s hard to calculate lifetime value for social network audiences
- User retention: Why depending on notification-driven retention sucks
- Data Portability Is The Social Network Data You’re Hoarding Treasure Or Trash
- Users, customers, or audience - what do you call the people that visit your site?
- 5 steps towards building a metrics-driven business
- Social Gaming Summit: Recap and observations
- Social gaming design - Bartle types versus Web 2.0 participation pyramid
- Where are all the video startups? Maybe Content=King, online and offline
- MySpace versus Facebook: Analysis of both traffic and ad revenue, using Google Trends
- Best of 2008 Q3
- Obama and McCain: How political marketing has evolved from offline to online
- What are you really trying to measure?
- From analog dollars to digital pennies: The crisis in traditional media
- Yahoo’s BOSS program doesn’t go far enough: Why not open up Yahoo search traffic?
- Online advertising during a recession: 5 key trends for ad-based startups
- Are Web 2.0 startups wasting their time with Web 2.0 early adopters?
- Recency Frequency and Monetization (RFM): Optimizing your notifications strategy
- Virtual economy for notification “credits” on Facebook apps
- omg I’m just a startup, I can’t do those fancy analytics!
- 7 ideas for billion dollar companies in the online ads
- How to start a professional blog: 10 tips for new bloggers
- Virtual goods: Who will be the Amazon.com of virtual item sales?
- Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds
- Counting your big pile of Benjamins: 5 startup tips for maximizing ad revenue
- Prosper.com and peer-to-peer lending in the economic downturn
- Remnant ads and the advertisers who love them
- Gaming versus gambling ARPUs
- How to measure if users love your product using cohorts and revisit rates
- Open mobile platforms and Facebook developer refugees
- The first 6 steps to homegrowing basic startup analytics
- Best of 2008 Q4
- Go-to-market strategies for vertical social products
- 4 major cultural differences between Games people and Web people
- Virtual items design: Build it yourself or use UGC?
- How to generate awesome test candidates for A/B testing
- Slate on split testing in the McCain and Obama campaign (robo-calling versus text messaging)
- Ad-based versus direct monetization: Which one is better for you?
- What would Facebook look like if it sold out to ads? Click here to see…
- How to calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups relying on freemium, subscription, or virtual items biz models
- Freemium business model case study: AdultFriendFinder ARPU, churn, and conversion rates
- Best of 2009 H1
- How to create a profitable Freemium startup (spreadsheet model included!)
- Warren Buffett’s bio “The Snowball” and lessons for startups
- Which startup’s collapse will end the Web 2.0 era?
- Twitter’s public/private space design, aka “How to find girls on Twitter”
- 5 warning signs: Does A/B testing lead to crappy products?
- Free To Freemium: 5 Lessons Learned From yousendit.com
- App monetization: Gambit launches, funnel metrics, and ARPU vs “CPM”
- Friends versus Followers: Twitter’s elegant design for grouping contacts
- “Stealing MySpace” and my personal experience monetizing MySpace ads
- 3 key ideas from a recent Freemium dinner conversation
- Talk to your target customer in 4 easy steps
- I want more tools to reach my readers, not monetize them!
- How do you do concrete interviews for non-technical people?
- Creating value versus optimizing revenue
- Benefit-Driven Metrics: Measure the lives you save, not the life preservers you sell
- Why you should make it easy for users to quit your product
- Why metrics-driven startups overlook brand value
- Matt Humphrey of Bumba Labs on User Retention Curves
- Best of 2009 H2
- Built to Fail: How companies like Google, IDEO, and 37signals build failure-tolerant systems for anything!
- Social design explosion: Polls, quizzes, reviews, forums, chat, blogs, videos, comments, oh my!
- Does Silicon Valley noise detract from long-term value creation?
- What if interviews poorly predict job performance? What if dating poorly predicts marital happiness?
- iLike, Lookery, Google Voice: Recent platform lessons from app developers
- How desktop apps beat websites at building large active userbases
- BBS door games: Social Gaming innovation from the 1980s
- Building the initial team for seed stage startups
- Why low-fidelity prototyping kicks butt for customer-driven design
- How to keep visual design consistent while A/B testing like crazy
- Whenever ad networks talk about their “targeting” remember the Netflix prize
- 5 crucial stages in designing your viral loop
- How helpful is venture capital experience to building startups?
- Building lifestyle companies versus VC-backable startups: Is it walk before you run?
- How social gaming offers create value for everyone (not just Facebook, Zynga, and Offerpal)
- How Facebook could clean up the offers industry
- Are social gaming offers scamming users? A detailed analysis of Techcrunch’s Scamville article
- What I’m reading: Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg
- The question that got me to leave Seattle for greener startup pastures
- Adding design to an agile development process
- Product design debt versus Technical debt
- Does every startup need a Steve Jobs?
- Update on the Steve Jobs post from an Apple alum (Updated again!)
- Minimum Desirable Product
- Best of 2010
- What I’m reading: Interaction design, Riddles, and more
- Notes on customer acquisition and viral marketing from First Round Capital CEO Summit
- Minimum Desirable Product and Lean Startups (slides included!)
- Best of 2011
- Retention metrics roundup of articles and links
- Quora stats: 150% growth in January, 160k monthly actives, 18k daily actives (lower bound estimate via Facebook app data)
- Bonus stats: Instagram up 40% in Jan, 300k MAU, 35k DAU (lower bound estimate based on Facebook app activity)
- Stanford CS major seeks sales/marketing monkey
- Quora: What is considered a significant number of users for a free consumer internet product?
- Quora: What are the best metrics for measuring user engagement?
- Quora: How did MySpace, with a smart team of people, do such a bad UI/UX job with the new design?
- 2011 Blogging Roadmap: “Zero to product/market fit”
- Designing for distribution with Eric+Eric (YC 2011, Mochi Media)
- When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit?
- Why it’s smart for consumer startups to grow first and make money later
- When Does Paid Acquisition Work for SaaS Startups?
- “Anyone can start a Groupon!” and other startup myths
- How to use A/B testing for better product design
- Simple is Marketable
- Don’t compete on features
- Linkedin acquires Connected – congrats to my sister Ada!
- All of 2012
- Why you’ll always think your product is shit
- Ask me anything!
- Top tweets recently on startups, tech, and more
- How sheep-like behavior breeds innovation in Silicon Valley
- Why I doubted Facebook could build a billion dollar business, and what I learned from being horribly wrong
- Quora: Will CPE (Cost Per Engagement) advertising ever take off?
- Visual Basic, PHP, Rails. Is Node.js next?
- The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs
- Google+ and the curse of instant distribution
- Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing
- How do I learn to be a growth hacker? Work for one of these guys :)
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