Archive for May, 2011
Posted on May 31, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
7 recent QR Code marketing examples by major brands, music artist and publications
Sometimes I just chuckle and just shake my head when I see tweets or hear complaints and rants about how QR Codes suck, or don’t use QR Codes for this or that and my personal favorite, NFC is better than QR Codes, especially when it comes from “thought leaders” or a super savvy “social media guys/gals”. I chuckle because there’s a huge educational curve for QR Codes to go main stream in the USA but they have taken off and proven valuable as when have seen over the years in Japan/China with all of their smart technology. Personally I think the biggest problem for some marketers is that no one person can claim to “own” the QR Code space and you can’t put QR Codes in a box to say, QR Codes are only good for one thing because QR Codes have various use cases. See 101 Ideas for Using QR Codes.
Also using QR Codes for marketing/promotion in any type of campaign requires more than just thinking of tweets and things to say to make you sound cool. Using QR Codes requires thinking about the time and location of where a QR Code may be seen offline. It requires working with various teams about creating smart, fast, valuable mobile content. It requires thinking about mobile users, social users and offline users along with existing marketing efforts. It requires thinking about in-dept /instant mobile analytics. Thus is one of the reasons I think we have seen a lot of bad QR Code examples so far.
During my recent travels and keeping an eye on QR Code usage in the wile I came across a few smart ways major brands, music artist and publications are using QR Codes. Below are a few photos and examples after I scanned some of the QR Codes with my iPhone app.
1. 2011 Ford Explorer magazine QR Code with Kevin Hart.
After you scan the QR Code you’re sent to a mobile content/video page.
2. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport QR Code ad
After you scan the QR Code you’re sent to an airport mobile directory page.
3. Download load the Delta app QR Code print ad:
4. American Heart Association QR Code Kroger sign
After you scan the QR Code you’re sent to the American Heart Association local information mobile site.
5. deliver magazine QR Code
(note the qr code is on the back but I photoshopped it on the front)
After you scan the deliver QR Code you’re sent to a mobile deliver website
6. Download the Redbox app using QR Codes
7. Starbucks, Lady Gaga, Srch QR Code Digital scavenger hunt
More on this later but check out the Starbucks qr code frappuccino scan video below via QR Codes Anywhere blog.
To sum it up out of the seven QR Code marketing examples we have.
Scan the QR Code to download a mobile app (2x)
Scan the QR Code to see a promotional video and learn more information about a product.
Scan the QR Code for additional magazine or location or venue information
Scan the QR Code to start a digital scavenger hunt
Note if you’re looking for a fast QR Code reader/scanner iPhone app try my app here.
What are some other creative ways you have seen QR Codes being used recently?
Posted on May 30, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
For startups, age, gender and if you have a cofounder matters
Findings from a survey of 300 founders helped answer three leading questions – are co-founders more successful than single founders, does age matter, and are repeat founders more likely to be successful than first time founders. Age and gender are two hotly debated subjects in the startup world right now.
Not surprisingly perhaps, 84%-89% of successful startups tend to be spearheaded by co-founders, rather than single founders. Facebook is a notable example of a “suite” of successful co-founders while Zynga is an example of a single founder.
The data seems to suggest that younger founders do disproportionately better, especially in late stage startups. Of startups with an actual or potential exit valuation of $25+ million, 47% of the founders are younger than 30 years vs. 67% for startups with exit valuation of $500+ million.
Similarly, repeat founders do disproportionately better in startups with $500+ million in exit valuation – 90% founders in this category are repeat founders. Notable examples are of course Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame. Sean is currently on startup#5.
Posted on May 30, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
For startups, age, gender and if you have a cofounder matters
Findings from a survey of 300 founders helped answer three leading questions – are co-founders more successful than single founders, does age matter, and are repeat founders more likely to be successful than first time founders. Age and gender are two hotly debated subjects in the startup world right now.
Not surprisingly perhaps, 84%-89% of successful startups tend to be spearheaded by co-founders, rather than single founders. Facebook is a notable example of a “suite” of successful co-founders while Zynga is an example of a single founder.
The data seems to suggest that younger founders do disproportionately better, especially in late stage startups. Of startups with an actual or potential exit valuation of $25+ million, 47% of the founders are younger than 30 years vs. 67% for startups with exit valuation of $500+ million.
Similarly, repeat founders do disproportionately better in startups with $500+ million in exit valuation – 90% founders in this category are repeat founders. Notable examples are of course Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame. Sean is currently on startup#5.
via What Makes A Startup Successful? – PSFK.
Posted on May 30, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
The Startup Genome Report – infographic
If you’re a startup or a single entrepreneur you need to take a look at the infographic by kissmetrics in partnership with blackbox where they collected data from over 650 startups for The Startup Genome Report. Take a look bellow.
1. Founders that learn are more successful: Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.
2. Startups that pivot once or twice times raise 2.5x more money, have 3.6x better user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale prematurely than startups that pivot more than 2 times or not at all.
3. Many investors invest 2-3x more capital than necessary in startups that haven’t reached problem solution fit yet. They also over-invest in solo founders and founding teams without technical cofounders despite indicators that show that these teams have a much lower probability of success.
4. Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company’s operational performance. But the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money. (However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A)
5. Solo founders take 3.6x longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of 2 and they are 2.3x less likely to pivot.
6. Business-heavy founding teams are 6.2x more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups.
7. Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x more likely to successfully scale with product-centric startups with no network effects than with product-centric startups that have network effects.
8. Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business founder raise 30% more money, have 2.9x more user growth and are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-heavy founding teams.
9. Most successful founders are driven by impact rather than experience or money.
10. Founders overestimate the value of IP before product market fit by 255%.
11. Startups need 2-3 times longer to validate their market than most founders expect. This underestimation creates the pressure to scale prematurely.
12. Startups that haven’t raised money over-estimate their market size by 100x and often misinterpret their market as new.
13. Premature scaling is the most common reason for startups to perform worse. They tend to lose the battle early on by getting ahead of themselves.
14. B2C vs. B2B is not a meaningful segmentation of Internet startups anymore because the Internet has changed the rules of business. We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team.Check out the full report here for more details.
Posted on May 26, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
Tagged, Google, InteractiveOne and More Line Up to Sponsor NewME Accelerator #BOOM
Originally posted on BlackWeb 2.0 by Angela Benton
Important Note: You may see Angela and I say #BOOM consistently in the coming weeks and throughout the summer, it’s our version of the fist bump, lol 
We are just a couple of weeks out at this point and we are still in awe about the amount of support that we’ve gotten not only from speakers and mentors but also from the people who are financially and resourcefully helping to make this historic program happen. When we first conceptualized even putting something like this together we knew it was a huge idea, and to be frank I was hesitant at first mainly because I knew it was such a BIG idea and BIG ideas need a lot of support to make happen. As soon as we started reaching out to people about the program any hesitation that I’d had in the past just plain disappeared.
It takes so much more than money to make something like this happen. It takes time, resources, physical space, knowledge that’s willing to be shared and so much more. Throughout the summer we are going to be streaming and tweeting as much as possible (you’ll see it all from a forth coming page designed to pull everything in one place) so that you can be included in the experience as much as possible. From there you’ll be able to see the level of involvement from the people who are supporting this program. It’s so much more than just a sponsorship.
That said a heartfelt thanks to our sponsors partners who are helping make this a reality:
- InteractiveOne
- Tagged
- Gunderson Dettmer
- Syncom Venture Partners
- Kapor Capital
- Bronze Investments
- Justin.tv
Posted on May 20, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton
The Geosocial Universe 2.0 via JESS3™ – infographics
Geosocial is huge trend that continues to entertain us all. As we all know, things change incredibly quickly in the world of the internet, so we decided to update our infographic The Geosocial Universe a few months short of the one year anniversary of its first iteration
via JESS3 Labs – The Geosocial Universe 2.0 | JESS3™.
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About
Wayne Sutton helps individuals, startups and businesses succeed in understanding how to communicate on the social web via web development, user experience, brand strategy and marketing (Mobile and Social).
Wayne Sutton is an Entrepreneur, Advisor and Partner of NewMe Accelerator.
Ph: 919-816-2230
@: wayne@socialwayne.comSubmit
