Comments on: Our Startup’s Wins, Fails and Lessons From the Last 6 Months

By: Shannon Lewis

Shannon Lewis — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 13:48:39 +0000

A company I previously worked for had the philosophy of “always be hiring for people who will help you down the line, even if you don’t need them right now”. I think this is a great strategy as long as you truly can afford it now. I think folks tend justify it by saying something like.. if our growth continues at this pace, we can afford to hire this person next quarter, but I don’t want to lose him/her so I will hire now. Or if we close this big deal we can afford it, so we will hire now. This could be disastrous if not planned correctly. Need to be very truthful with regards to the company’s ability to afford this person. Folks need to have a certain safety net in terms of covering payroll. For some it might be 3 months for other it might be more like a year of salary in the bank. Each company needs to figure out what their comfort zone is.

By: Mathew

Mathew — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 17:53:31 +0000

Hi Alex,

Been following Groove for a while now and yes, we finally caved and signed up on a paid plan 🙂 Question for you though, as a startup ourselves, I’m wondering how your journey was from zero content to such a high quality stream of content now?

What was the process like? How does your content strategy look and how has it evolved over time? What are some actionable strategies to start creating quality content if we’re constraint by time and budget?

For us, we’ve been thinking about partnering with influencers in our space to come guest blog on our site, and they would also share with their followers, and in return we help drive traffic to them to grow their following too, or we pay $ per post. Sounds like a plan?

Any golden nuggets of wisdom?

Thanks Alex!

By: Shawn Leslie

Shawn Leslie — Fri, 09 Jan 2015 16:35:07 +0000

Thanks Alex. I can draw a lot of parallels to our company now to where you were six months ago. I’m curious: how has your new product video impacted signup conversion? It’s a great video, and also a major component of your homepage, so I’d love to know it’s impact.

By: Laszlo Alt

Laszlo Alt — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 21:00:44 +0000

I often find companies leading away from their core values/features that they originally set out to build in a product. Jack-of-all-trade products do not work and I’m finding ones that do may have a winning streak for a few years and eventually drop off the face of the earth

By: J. Michael Probert

J. Michael Probert — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 17:46:51 +0000

Awesome to see your results! We’ve been honing our focus on identifying the levers and their results. I’m working on a product which only has 1 developer right now that works remote; any tips on talking to the bosses about expanding the team? As always, wonderful insights. Thanks for sharing.

By: getinvited

getinvited — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:27:26 +0000

As always, so much of this hits home Alex! Really enjoyed reading this and learning about your process. We need to hear about the wins and the fails to understand the whole journey! Keep up the great work!

By: Jesse Phillips

Jesse Phillips — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:14:56 +0000

Thanks for sharing Gary’s video with this post. Hiring ahead of the curve seems wise when (like you both said) you can swing it financially. How often do you assess the need for job expansion or does it come organically when needs are foreseen?

Thanks!

By: Francisco Presencia

Francisco Presencia — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:12:27 +0000

I downloaded several articles as pdfs like 2 weeks ago for offline reading. It’s great seeing that you make the ebook available (:

By: Ryan Angilly

Ryan Angilly — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 15:49:46 +0000

Hey Alex,

Have you ever shared your process around creating content: how you get ideas, who is involved, how many hours/week are spent writing, how many drafts, etc…. I’m always impressed at how thoughtful and well-done your stuff is from a content marketing perspective. Would love to learn more about how you do it.