Moog's Viewpoints

Five digital marketing tips for small businesses at the Crain's Small Business Forum

This morning I am on a panel at the Crain's Small Business Forum in Chicago talking about how small businesses can use digital marketing generally and social media specifically to build their businesses.  I thought it made sense to use this blog to help think through what I was going to say, write it down and be able to refer people to it in the future.  

First, if you are like me and you always want to know more about the person providing the advice and what real experience they have, feel free to check out my Linked In profile. I have spent the last 15 years of my professional career building businesses that leveraged the power of the Internet.   Three years ago we took CoolSavings private and I founded Viewpoints Network so I am speaking both as a provider of social technologies but more importantly as a business owner who uses all range of digital technologies.

So without further ado....

Five digital marketing tips for small businesses

Five lessons learned as an early stage entrepreneur

In my 16 year career (uggg, I must be getting old!), I spent 4 years at Microsoft in business development and then joined a start up (CoolSavings) as the VP of Sales and worked there for ten years, the last five as the CEO.  I ran CoolSavings as a public company with 150+ employees and while revenue exploded from $21 million to $80 million.  Then we took it private and I left to pursue my dream of starting from scratch, as the say -  tablua rasa or with a blank slate.  Now almost exactly two years later from absolutely nothing two years ago, Viewpoints Network has 12 full time employees, 750,000+ monthly users and as they say, the world is our oyster.   Allll right, I hear you, get to the point.  What are five lessons learned about starting an early stage start up?   

Why I Love Software As a Service

Six months ago I left my position as CEO of Q Interactive an Interactive Marketing Services company that I helped start ten years ago.  I ran it as a public company for the last five years and we took it private in December 2005.  We had 160 employees and last year reported revenue growth of 78% to $68 million.  Within two weeks of leaving in late July, I started a new company called Viewpoints Network and four weeks later had secured the first round of funding for $4.8 million.  This post is some of the nuts and bolts lessons I have learned about how to take advantage of the numerous new companies who offer their services as a “Software as A Service”.

First a little bit of background.  After having raised $100 million to launch and grow my previous company, I wanted to take a more measured approach this time.  I have come to appreciate and value very lean and efficient businesses that “stick to their knitting” and focus on improving their unique value add.  Therefore, I intended to keep the company very small (less than 15 people) for as long as I could.