The Awesome Truth About Pivots

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JM3 THE AWESOME TRUTH ABOUT PIVOTS

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JM3 john manoogian III @jm3 JM3.NET

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JM3 FOUNDER: SOCIAL TECH COMPANY

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JM3 WE HELP APP DEVELOPERS MAKE $

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JM3 (the signal we leave as we move through the public internet)

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JM3 SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY

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JM3 WORKING + LEARNING CRAFT

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GENERAL ASSEMBLY JM3 TEACHING

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JM3 NIGHT JOB @ GA

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JM3 1 TERMINOLOGY * DISCLAIMER

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JM3 Entrepreneur Founder 2

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JM3 Small Businesses Startups 3

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JM3 “Valley-style” startups 4

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JM3 2010

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JM3 South Park in San Francisco

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JM3

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JM3

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JM3 CTR Click-through Rates THE DEBATE:

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JM3 plus 1: social analytics app

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JM3 YOU PLUS 1

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JM3 OPEN, UBIQUITOUS, WILD WEST MESSAGING For public social data, we used Twitter.

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JM3 plus 1 found you and sent you a link you clicked or you didn’t

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JM3 CTR 17%

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JM3 Normal: 0.1% – 0.01% A 17% CTR is unprecedented

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JM3 opportunity to pivot

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DECISION TIME FOR PLUS 1 JM3

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JM3 customer discovery system to promote our one product: our app, +1. 4 we had created a

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JM3 THE 10% CTR PIVOT (part 1: the “zoom out” business model pivot)

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JM3 ruby, rails, ec2 everyone / long-tail social analytics ruby, rails, ec2 everyone / long-tail relevant ads… pivot!

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JM3

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JM3 Ads are problematic in the echo chamber mono-culture of the computing industry, #tasteless

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JM3 Facebook: 84% REVENUE FROM ADS

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JM3 Google: 97% REVENUE FROM ADS

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JM3 Twitter: WHO KNOWS?!? (private co; guess 90%) REVENUE FROM ADS

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JM3 All in denial! Ad Shame …

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JM3 Debunking Pivots

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JM3 widely misunderstood What it’s not: running out of money, then changing your business

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JM3 The Big “Secret”: Successful Startups Pivot

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JM3 Flickr from MMORPG to photo-sharing site 1

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JM3 Heroku from in-browser code editing platform to “PAAS” 2

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JM3 3 from location based checkin site to !ltered photos Instagram

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JM3 Paypal from emailed payments from beaming money to Palm Pilots 4

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JM3 PLUS 1 From

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JM3 PIVOT #1, FROM SOCIAL ANALYTICS TO:

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JM3 SOCIAL ADS FOR THE LONG-TAIL (WE THOUGHT…)

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JM3 *REAL; WE ATE THESE.

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2000 CUSTOMERS JM3 (BUT THE ECONOMICS STANK)

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JM3 who buys social ads?

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JM3

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JM3 who buys any ads?

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JM3 you don’t buy social ads

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JM3 ad companies buy ads.

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JM3 WTF? Madison Avenue buys ads? But Madison Avenue MAKES ads. Right?!?!

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JM3 Long Tail Madison Avenue The confusing economics of ads: Media (Holding) Companies buy most media, much like Eskimos buying ice

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JM3 THE B2B PIVOT (from long-tail to media co’s on madison avenue)

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JM3 2 PIVOTS

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JM3 social analytics > ads

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JM3 long-tail > madison ave.

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JM3 4REALITY PIVOTS

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JM3 self-serve > full-serve +

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JM3 website > sales team +

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JM3 Are we still pivoting?

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JM3 2 PEOPLE

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JM3 5 CITIES

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JM3 2 $MILLION EXIT RATE

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JM3

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JM3 Know when to stop!

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JM3 WE STAYED GROUNDED IN WHAT WE LEARNED LEARNING = EASIER THAN PREDICTING THE FUTURE

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JM3 GOOD TEAMS SURVIVE STARTUPS

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JM3 The Michigan Ma!a

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JM3 Engineering + Design proud Michiganders 2

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JM3 BUILD A PLACE TO ENERGIZE YOUR BEST CONNECTIONS

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JM3 THANK U(P)!

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JM3 For more insanity follow @jm3 • email jm3@140proof.com All photos Creative Commons licensed