Your startup will fail or succeed based on your ability to profitably acquire, convert and monetize customers. The Startup Marketing Blog was created to help you avoid wasting time, effort and money as you tackle this challenge.

While few will admit it, even experienced marketers don’t know where to begin building a startup’s customer base.

After running marketing at two startups from launch to IPO filings I decided to focus 100% of my entrepreneurial energy trying to answer this key startup customer question: What are the initiatives needed to drive customer traction/growth at startups and when are they important?

Figuring this out has not been a solo journey. Many successful entrepreneurs have shared their insights with me. The most influential has been Steve Blank, who authored the fantastic book “The Four Steps to the Epiphany” based on his experience building multiple successful startups. I’ve also had the privilege of working directly with incredibly talented and scrappy CEOs and founders at Dropbox, Xobni, Eventbrite, Lookout, Grockit, , 20×200, Outright, Songkick and many others. Finally, I’ve led discussions about my finding in large group settings with entrepreneurs in San Francisco, Boston, Tokyo, London, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Instead of hoarding my startup marketing discoveries, I’m sharing them through this blog. It’s the only way to ensure that I keep evolving quickly – and there is still so much for us all to learn. My goal with every blog post is to map actionable recommendations to the big picture of your startup’s ultimate success. I only post articles when I believe you’ll get a good return on your time invested reading them. You are too busy to waste your time reading theory loaded with jargon. If you find me slipping into theory/jargon mode, please bust me on it via comments. Also, please share your experiences that validate or conflict with my findings.

This article on the Startup Pyramid provides the best overview of my findings to date.

Thanks for reading,

Sean Ellis