Posts related to technology category

My AI Second Brain Already Made Me $4,000

Vinay Patankar · 04 Mar, 2026 · Technology

Most people accept the first offer from their insurance company. I used to be one of them. My garage flooded last month. Six feet of water. Submerged my Tesla, completely bricked. Wetsuits, surfboards, electronics, furniture. Everything in storage, destroyed. The insurance company sent their offer. I was traveling. I had a few days to respond. The number looked reasonable enough. My instinct was to just sign it. That's the play, right? They know you're busy. They know you're not going to spend your weekend pulling receipts and researching comparable claims. So they send you a number that feels close enough, and you take it. I almost did. Instead I sent it to something I've been building for the last few weeks. An AI agent connected to all my personal data. My emails, my purchase history, my documents. I asked it: "Is this claim fair?" It told me no. Then it showed me why. It pulled comparable claims for similar losses. It found my original purchase receipts buried in Gmail going back years. Then it drafted a counter offer with all of that as supporting evidence. I read through it, hit send, and moved on with my day. The result was an extra $4,000. Not because I'm a great negotiator. Not because I spent hours on research. Because I had an agent that doesn't skip the fine print, doesn't lose track of old receipts, and doesn't just accept the first number because it's "close enough." Insurance companies have always had the information advantage. You're one person with a flooded garage and a lot on your plate. They do this thousands of times a day. Now you can have an agent that levels the playing field. For another Technology angle, read Evernote for Spreadsheets.

5 Ways to Improve Your Next Sales Outreach Campaign

Vinay Patankar · 25 Sep, 2018 · Sales-and-marketing-standard-operating-procedures · Technology

One of the best ways to improve your craft is to check out what your competition is doing. If you get to know what’s working for everyone else (or at least the success stories), you can avoid many pitfalls when it comes to your own company. So, when I set out to find out how we could improve our sales and marketing cadences around 6 months ago, I knew that I’d have to gather data. A lot of data. By the time I was finished, I’d signed up to 281 SaaS companies (including the Montclare SaaS 250 and some of the top startups in AngelList) using the details of a fake Vodafone employee and analyzed the 1,000+ emails and voicemails I received in return. While I won’t go over everything I learned right now (we’d be here for days) I will highlight five of the core takeaways I gathered to help you convert more of the leads you generate. If you want the rest of the data (including a Slideshare summary and copies of every email and voicemail I received), check out Inside SaaS Sales - a site we set up specifically to house this data. Otherwise, read on! ## #1. Send an email every day First up, you need to keep in regular contact with any potential lead who signs up. This both reminds them that you’re there and builds the connection they have with you. Although tactics obviously differed based on the company, the majority of companies (41%) sent us one email per day until they stopped contacting us. Other companies averaged out to sending one email per day, but instead took a staggered approach. A great example of this is Salesforce. Their team sent us two emails per day for the first two days, then one email for the following four days, and then one five days after that as one of their final touch points. This is a great way to strike while the iron’s hot (aka, when the lead first signs up), but to avoid drowning them in sales and marketing emails if they aren’t interested. ## #2. Don’t send the same kind of email two days in a row Although most companies sent us one email for every day of their sales cycle, it’s important to make the distinction between marketing and sales emails. Too many marketing emails and the lead’s attention could be split between offers or they may not have the drive to take action on your product (depending on your copy). However, too many sales emails and most people will also be put off. Doing this makes your sales efforts very impersonal, and they will feel like they’re not being valued as a potential customer. That’s why sales teams on average only sent one email every two days - the rest were marketing emails. ## #3. Leave a voicemail (if it’s worth it) Assess whether the lead’s value is enough to warrant the time and effort to reach out and call them. If so, it’s also worth your time to leave a voicemail if they’re unavailable or don’t answer. I’ll say straight-up that not every lead is worth following up on in this manner (the resource investment can be massive depending on the number of leads and size of your team). A massive 74% of companies analyzed didn’t leave voicemails, which gives a clear picture of the kind of investment we’re talking about. If you’re not sure whether voicemails are for you or not, compare the resources you have to the potential gain from the lead. Does your sales team have time for another call? How much would a call effectively cost in terms of time spent and the sales rep’s wages? What would such a call prevent them doing, and how valuable is that action? Also, don’t forget to look at how successful voicemails have been for you in the past to get an idea of how likely the gamble is to pay off. ## #4. Stick with leads you voicemail for longer If you have a lead that’s worth voicemailing, it’s also worth sticking with that lead for longer. This was shown by the sales cycle of companies who left voicemails being 160% longer than those who didn’t. In other words, if these companies left a voicemail, they kept trying to convert us for 1.6x as long. Now, I know that this data could be due to a number of reasons. It could just be that the companies who had the resources to leave voicemails just had a longer sales cycle. Maybe a few took special exception to us since we were a high-value lead. Either way, if you think that a lead is worth the investment to leave a voicemail after failing to call them, then chances are you have the resources to stick with that lead for longer. You’ve put the work in, so don’t throw it away at the slightest resistance! ## #5. Use (or at least consider) marketing automation Marketing automation is a fantastic way to save time and money - it lets you queue up your emails long before they ever go out and is an absolute must-have for any team looking to scale. Any kind of business process automation is vital for those looking to grow quickly without running a major risk of imploding. However, to back up the point, a massive 67% of companies used marketing automation to send their emails. An even more shocking 39% only used automation - there were no salespeople involved. In short, if you’re not using some kind of automation to take the strain off your team, you’re missing one of the biggest shared tricks in SaaS sales cycles. ## Don’t make the same mistakes as everyone else While all of these points are useful, if you only take one thing away from this post today, take away this. Don’t make mistakes that someone else has before you. It might sound simple, but this simple principle will take you a long way in almost anything you do. Whether you’re looking for a way to improve your sales cycle or you’re trying to build a blog, do your research beforehand and search for what others have to say on the subject. Someone out there will have published their own experience on the topic, and learning that takes you one step closer to success. Related read in Sales And Marketing Standard Operating Procedures: How Much Money Does the Facebook Ecosystem Produce?.

SaaS Email Marketing Tactics: How 281 Companies Automatically Nurture Leads

Vinay Patankar · 19 Dec, 2017 · Sales-and-marketing-standard-operating-procedures · Technology

The following is a guest post from Adam Henshall, content writer at Process Street. Email automation has become the standard approach for marketers all over the world. This summer we decided to ask how it is done best. There’s only so much you can learn from one person self-reporting their own successes, or only examining the cycles of one or two companies. We decided to go one step further. We began a research project where we examined the sales cycles of 281 top SaaS companies from AngelList to Zenefits. We published an overview of this study at the end of August and launched a micro-site (Inside SaaS Sales) along with PersistIQ where users can browse all our data and access all emails and voicemails which we received. We learned loads about how these companies structure their sales cadences; when they automate, how persistent they are, who is presented as point of contact, etc etc. In this article, I’m going to pull apart their use of automation in email marketing and dig down into the data to give a few examples of how companies do it in practice. ## How many emails do top companies send? Our analysis was of 1183 emails, so the volume was pretty high to begin with! But what do we find each company doing? Companies very rarely send one email before backing off. This kind of soft touch approach negates the purpose of running an email campaign of any sort. Yet, throughout our research, we found that some companies still take this approach. In fact, 25% of companies we studied only sent one email before backing away and leaving the customer alone. The majority clearly favor a more persistent method, but those readers who aren’t employing email automation can at least take solace in not being alone in that approach. This article is going to focus more on the 75% - the ones who make an effort to run a marketing campaign, and particularly those which choose to segments of that. The average company attempts to follow up for 9 days. Given a focus on midweek rather than weekend, this accounts for essentially 2 business weeks. Within this period, we’re looking at an average of one email a day. Companies typically send one email a day until the end of their cycle - which varies depending on the company. A business like Slack choose to hit a short sharp campaign with 3 outreach emails in quick succession. This is in keeping with the general trends across marketing drip campaigns which we found typically consists of three emails - a radically different approach to the more sales-oriented measures, particularly those utilizing a high touch sales method. We’ll look a little closer at Slack’s approach later on in the article. ## Should I be automating my email marketing? Automation has quickly become the hot game in town, but not every company is joining in just yet. We found that 65% of companies hand you over to an automated marketing campaign. This still leaves a number of companies without an automated approach, but it is clear that the movement is toward greater use of automation potential. It is important to note, however, that automation and non-automation are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we found that 53% of the emails we received were from automated campaigns rather than sales people, but often these would both come from the same company. If we take the example of Salesforce, we find that the automated emails are sent out and then followed up on by a real salesperson. If you look at this automated email below, you will see a clear attempt to provide generic value: Whereas, if you contrast that with this email afterwards, you’ll see a much more personal attempt at outreach from a dedicated sales person: This demonstrates the importance of remembering to keep a human touch where it is appropriate to your business. It isn’t necessary to automate every step. For a service like Salesforce which can charge its customers reasonably high amounts of money, it is clearly of value to them to build automated emails while also leveraging the personal attention given by a salesperson. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Use automation wisely. ## What email marketing providers are companies using? When companies did use marketing automation, they weren’t building it all from scratch themselves. Like you would, they searched the market to find existing tools they could use to improve their automated workflows to deliver value to their customers. What I found marginally surprising was that these companies tended to use the same tools that we all use, rather than some gold plated premium service. In order, the marketing automation services used by the companies studied were: 1. MailChimp - 48.82% 2. Marketo - 21.16% 3. HubSpot - 18.74% 4. Other - 5.33% 5. Eloqua - 3.77% 6. Tout - 3.26% 7. Sidekick - 3.26% 8. Pardot - 3.26% 9. Marketing Clout - 3.23% 10. Sable and Sendgrid - 2.17% As we can see, MailChimp dominate the list by some distance, seeing off both Marketo and HubSpot despite the two putting up a good fight. This is a resounding success for MailChimp and suggests that they’re a good option for small businesses who want to get started with marketing automation. I know from experience that the system is intuitive, so maybe it’s a good place to start. ## What tone of communication is most common? Running an email campaign is so much more than just lining up a workflow and clicking send. Like any other aspect of your product, you need to consider how it is structured, who it is aimed at, and what its purpose is. If we look again at the Salesforce example given above, we can learn a few small things from a tonal perspective. The automated email is personal and opens with a clear statement of Salesforce’s value, followed by a straight question directed at the reader. This keeps the email feeling personal despite the automation, and the statements are general enough to apply to anyone with as much as a passing interest in Salesforce and their service. Salesforce focuses on using clear and easy to understand language with a gentle sprinkling of statistics to help drive the value home. Across the board there was a trend toward clarity and an avoidance of overly technical jargon or typical sales-speak. One interesting thing we discovered in our study came from looking at whose name was attached to the emails. The Salesforce example has a generic team for the marketing email and “Strategic Accounts” for the more personal sales email. But that isn’t always the trend. We found, first and foremost, that sales campaigns through email tended to have two potential points of contact. One of those contacts often had “Sales” in their title, and these were likely the first to reach out. The use of higher positions was interesting, with CEO or Co-Founder being used to give the email more gravitas. I’m personally not sure how well this tactic works as it strikes me as possibly dishonest, but I’m sure some CEOs are hands on with their approach to certain emails - just I’m not sure why the CEO is taking the time out to email me personally… ## What is the purpose behind each email? A further consideration when looking at the content of the emails is the purpose of an email. Ignoring “verify your email” and other miscellaneous items, the purpose of an email was typically split into one of these three categories: - Encouraging you to use it more. - Upselling you to a premium service. - Describing technical capabilities. We’ve already seen examples of the last two from Salesforce. Describing technical capabilities was left to automation, while upselling was given to a real salesperson. My favorite example of the first approach comes from Slack: And a second, but this time with pizzazz: The emails are both short and sweet with a clear purpose. Slack have enough faith in their product that they know the most important first step of their customer journey is to get teams onboarded and using it. As such, this is their focus. Their sole focus. If you contrast this with a company like Epicor, who provide niche industrial services at high rates, you find Slack can stick to a few small emails rather than the high touch email and voicemail sales approach. ## Use an email marketing approach suited to your business So, there you have it. We’ve looked at how many emails you should send, when you should automate them, what provider you can use, what tone to employ, and what purpose you should put behind your email. But the key point is this: choose an email marketing strategy suited to your business’ needs. If you have a small number of very high value clients, don’t operate like Slack. Tailor your emails to your audience and your business objectives. With a little iteration and effort, you’ll have a campaign flourishing in no time! A strong follow-up in Sales And Marketing Standard Operating Procedures is Ebook Marketing: How to Generate 1,000 Leads Overnight.

A Look at The SaaS Stack in Our Tech Startup

Vinay Patankar · 07 Jun, 2016 · Featured · Technology

What keeps an innovative startup ticking over? At Process Street, we’re a huge fan of using the software other SaaS startups put out there in conjunction with the ever-dependable big names. Here are the 18 SaaS products we use at Process Street, and why we think they’re the best options out there. ## Analytics: Mixpanel, Google Analytics & Jetpack For analytics, we use 3 different products for slightly different purposes. Mixpanel is for in-app analytics. We use it to track trends, user engagement and sign-ups, getting an overall picture and week-by-week comparisons and helping us reduce churn by noticing patterns. Google Analytics is our go-to source for tracking conversions and referral traffic. This means we can measure the effectiveness of the content and the promotion separately. Jetpack is a WordPress plugin that simply tracks the views on pages. The only time we use it is to get a current view of page traffic since Google Analytics can take 24 hours to update, but Jetpack does it instantly. ## Project Management: Trello & Basecamp Trello is used by marketing, development, growth and support teams as the main home for tasks, attachments and status updates. During the employee onboarding process, we add new hires to the team boards and make a personal board for them which contains their first round of tasks and helps them get into the habit of using Trello. Basecamp is the tool of choice when collaborating with designers. When we had our site redesigned by Koombea, Basecamp was the ideal tool to neatly store resources and collaborate over designs until the iterations were moved into InVision to be prototyped. ## Personal Productivity: WorkFlowy & Evernote WorkFlowy — a tool for taking quick notes — is the best way we’ve found to make both simple notes and complex plans. Project proposals and plans go into WorkFlowy, where it’s easy to structure complex ideas because of the way the app’s designed: Evernote is where we keep everything from rough notes and screenshots to entire blog posts. With its Zapier integration, it also turns into a way to add text to any other app just by tagging the note. TaskPaper is a fancy text editor disguised as a to-do list app. Anyone who has kept their to-do items in a TextEdit file will like the added functionality, including tags, smart search syntax and projects. Other popular choices include Any.Do, Wunderlist and Todoist. 1Password is a password manager that keeps every password you use safely encrypted in a vault protected by a master password. It lives up to its name because one password is all you have to remember. While Chrome’s ‘remember this password’ feature is good enough, 1Password is usable cross-browser, OS and device. ## External Communication: Intercom & Close.io Intercom is our favorite customer support tool. All of our support conversations and in-app messages to users goes through Intercom. It’s easy to keep up with the tickets, loop in other departments and get notified when high-ticket customers reach out. Close.io is an awesome CRM. It’s built around search, meaning that you can create complex search queries and narrow down lists of hundreds of thousands to exactly what you’re looking for. We use it for sales and marketing outreach, as well as managing all content communications. ## Internal Communication: Slack & Appear.in While Trello is great for storing and organizing tasks, Slack is our main tool for internal communication. Its IRC-like interface makes it easy to chat with groups and individuals. Plus, the integrations with Slack, Intercom and the other tools we use. Appear.in is a permanent video chat room, which means you sign up and get a fixed URL your team can pop in and out of at any time. It’s much better for us than Skype, because you don’t need accounts or to initiate/end video calls at all. ## Workflow Management: Process Street Process Street is, of course, the tool we use for workflow automation, business process management, employee onboarding and content promotion. We break projects down into processes and assign these processes to teams and individuals. As they progress with the project and automate their workflows, we can easily get an overview by just looking at the Process Street dashboard. ## Email Marketing: MailChimp MailChimp is the home for all of our automated and one-off email campaigns. Every blog post email and product update goes through MailChimp, where we can track opens, clicks and trends. For me as a content creator, opens and clicks are a great signal that a topic has resonated with our readership. Since these readers came into our product and read our content, there are parallels across a few topics, like productivity and processes. ## Content Promotion: Mention & Buffer Mention scours the internet for brand mentions and backlinks, which means that when we’re linked to we get a notification and can then promote the post, both as a ‘thank you’ to the author and to maximize the exposure of a piece we’re being featured in. When we’re linked or mentioned, we then add the post to Buffer. Buffer lets you tweet the same link across multiple accounts (we have 12 linked up in there) in one click, and queues the posts up so they go out at the best time for your audience to see them. Content Writing: Google Docs & WordPress The Process Street blog is built on the perfect blog builder, WordPress. WordPress is ideal for drafting in a visual editor with a preview — much better than working with pure HTML. For guest posts, or collaborative work, we use Google Docs. In-line comments and suggestions make it great for working with writers as an editor. When you’re done you can copy a shareable link and forward it to the target publication for review. I haven’t found an easier way to collaborate and share articles. Alternote is an Evernote plugin that makes it bearable for content writing. Since I like to have all of my resources nearby, I can create a unique tag for each blog post, then use the Web Clipper to save sources with that tag. Here’s an example: Data Management: Airtable There’s probably over 100,000 records in our Airtable database. Everything from keywords to contacts lives there, and that makes it easy for us to reference and link together everything related to Process Street. We moved to Airtable after the frustration of managing data with Google Sheets set in. Spreadsheets littered between accounts, with random titles and dodgy permissions were making for a terrible data management experience. With Airtable — especially when you link it up to Zapier — you’ve got a far more efficient user experience. SEO: Ahrefs, Moz & SEO Spider Ahrefs an SEO powerhouse. You can use it to research keywords, monitor backlinks, and, what we love most about it — track every keyword a URL is ranking for. When we’re running campaigns to rank specific keywords, like we did with employee onboarding, Ahrefs provides the single best status update on that project within a few seconds of checking. Moz is a tool we only use for bulk keyword difficulty checks because Ahrefs is the better tool for us. In addition to keyword difficulty, I personally have Mozbar installed for Chrome which lets me quickly check Domain Authority (a rough guide as to how much weight a backlink holds from that domain). SEO Spider crawls URLs and looks for broken domains. Even with a free account, you can get 500 results from just pasting a domain in. You get to see how many 4xx errors are on that domain, and which links are broken. Then, you can start doing broken link building (as detailed in our marketing processes guide). File Management: Google Drive Google Drive is where I keep my Google Docs, graphic assets like SVGs, and upload any large file to share with my team. Its Trello integration means you can attach any file that’s already inside Drive, saving you from uploading it in multiple places. To see why we use Google Drive instead of Dropbox, check this comparison. App Integrations: Zapier Zapier connects every app I’ve listed here together. Impressive, right? Every app linked together means you can transfer data between them and automate a ton of boring work. For us, it’s a better version of IFTTT because it has more features. Here are some of my favorite examples, featuring apps like Evernote and OneNote: Copy Evernote Notes to OneNote Post Trello Activity to Slack Send a Slack Message for Checked-off Process Street Tasks Development: JIRA JIRA is the home of our planned features, user stories and dastardly bugs. Developers can add, track, prioritize and assign issues to their team, then feed that information to a live Slack channel. For example, whenever a new feature is pushed to the live server, a Slack channel gets updated with the feature’s new information and we can do a short write-up to announce it and test the feature to hunt bugs. When we’re linked or mentioned, we then add the post to Buffer. Buffer lets you tweet the same link across multiple accounts (we have 12 linked up in there) in one click, and queues the posts up so they go out at the best time for your audience to see them. ## Content Writing: Google Docs & WordPress The Process Street blog is built on the perfect blog builder, WordPress. WordPress is ideal for drafting in a visual editor with a preview — much better than working with pure HTML. For guest posts, or collaborative work, we use Google Docs. In-line comments and suggestions make it great for working with writers as an editor. When you’re done you can copy a sharable link and forward it to the target publication for review. I haven’t found an easier way to collaborate and share articles. Alternote is an Evernote plugin that makes it bearable for content writing. Since I like to have all of my resources nearby, I can create a unique tag for each blog post, then use the Web Clipper to save sources with that tag. Here’s an example: ## Data Management: Airtable There’s probably over 100,000 records in our Airtable database. Everything from keywords to contacts lives there, and that makes it easy for us to reference and link together everything related to Process Street. We moved to Airtable after the frustration of managing data with Google Sheets set in. Spreadsheets littered between accounts, with random titles and dodgy permissions were making for a terrible data management experience. With Airtable — especially when you link it up to Zapier — you’ve got a far more efficient user experience. ## SEO: Ahrefs, Moz & SEO Spider Ahrefs an SEO powerhouse. You can use it to research keywords, monitor backlinks, and, what we love most about it — track every keyword a URL is ranking for. When we’re running campaigns to rank specific keywords, like we did with employee onboarding, Ahrefs provides the single best status update on that project within a few seconds of checking. Moz is a tool we only use for bulk keyword difficulty checks because Ahrefs is the better tool for us. In addition to keyword difficulty, I personally have Mozbar installed for Chrome which lets me quickly check Domain Authority (a rough guide as to how much weight a backlink holds from that domain). SEO Spider crawls URLs and looks for broken domains. Even with a free account, you can get 500 results from just pasting a domain in. You get to see how many 4xx errors are on that domain, and which links are broken. Then, you can start doing broken link building (as detailed in our marketing processes guide). ## File Management: Google Drive Google Drive is where I keep my Google Docs, graphic assets like SVGs, and upload any large file to share with my team. Its Trello integration means you can attach any file that’s already inside Drive, saving you from uploading it in multiple places. To see why we use Google Drive instead of Dropbox, check this comparison. ## App Integrations: Zapier Zapier connects every app I’ve listed here together. Impressive, right? Every app linked together means you can transfer data between them and automate a ton of boring work. For us, it’s a better version of IFTTT because it has more features. Here are some of my favorite examples, featuring apps like Evernote and OneNote: - Copy Evernote Notes to OneNote - Post Trello Activity to Slack - Send a Slack Message for Checked-off Process Street Tasks ## Development: JIRA JIRA is the home of our planned features, user stories, and dastardly bugs. Developers can add, track, prioritize and assign issues to their team, then feed that information to a live Slack channel. For example, whenever a new feature is pushed to the live server, a Slack channel gets updated with the feature’s new information and we can do a short write-up to announce it and test the feature to hunt bugs. Related read in Featured: Looking for a Co-Founder for New Startup - UI/UX.

How to Integrate @Intercom Support Messages with Close.io #CRM

Vinay Patankar · 14 Jan, 2016 · Business · Business-process-management · Business-systematization · Sales-and-marketing-standard-operating-procedures · Technology

I have been wanting to sync my support system Intercom with the CRM we use at Process Street - Close.io (which I have written about before). The reason for this is when we are looking at a customer in the CRM we want to be able to see not only the sales emails but all the support conversations they were having too. This can be done quite easily with other Help Desk Tools or via the API but I wanted to build something quickly that didn't require developer time. I first setup a Zap using Intercom's "New Message" Zap that triggered an email to my inbox which then Synced using Close's 2 way email sync, which worked fine but only worked for the first message that was sent, it didn't track the whole conversation which can last for days and contain lots of valuable information for sales. This basically meant sales still had to open both Intercom and Close.io to get a full picture of the customer. ## Integrating All Intercom Support Tickets with Close ### Step 1: Create a Webhook Zap in Zapier and get Custom Webhook URL Create a new Zap in Zapier and add the Webhook integration, click next until you see the custom URL ### Step 2: Create a Webhook in Intercom Go to Settings -> Integrations and click "Add Webhook Integration" Here are the topics I am passing in the Webhook: New Message from a User Reply from a User Reply from a Teammate Note added to Conversation Conversation assigned to Teammate User Unsubscribed From Email User tagged User untagged New events ### Step 3: Configure rest of Zap in Zapier Here is a screenshot of my Zap click for full image. Here is the text export (I assume you need to swap out my ID numbers): Subject: \[Intercom {{6451100\\data\\item\\type}}\] {{6451100\\data\\item\\assignee\\name}} <> {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\_name}} Body: Email Subject: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\_subject}} Conversation Message {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\parts\\conversation\parts}} Conversation Link: {{6451100\\data\\item\\links\\conversation\_web}} Other Action Data: Data Item Assignee Name: {{6451100\\data\\item\\assignee\\name}} Data Item User Name: {{6451100\\data\\item\\user\\name}} Conversation Message Author Manaul Tag IDs: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\manual\tag\ids}} Conversation Message Attachments: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\attachments}} Conversation Message Author Created At: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\created\at}} Conversation Message Author IP: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\ip}} Data Item conversation Message Author Ua: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\ua}} Author Email Domain: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\email\domain}} Data Item conversation Message Author IP: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\author\\_ip}} Original Message Body: {{6451100\\data\\item\\conversation\message\\_body}} And that's it! This was just my first attempt, it will probably get cleaned up a little but at least the core data is being passed. If you have any tweaks' I'd love to hear them. If this Business topic resonated, continue with Abstract Income: How to Support an Abstract Lifestyle.

Start-up idea: Marketplace for mechanics to help buyers purchase used cars

Vinay Patankar · 18 Aug, 2015 · Business · Technology

I am thinking about a marketplace that would help buyers who know nothing about cars evaluate if a second hand car is a good buy or not. You could create a profile and post the 3-4 cars you are considering. Post details of their make, model, price and pictures or a video of the car and the engine. You could then post a bounty for a mechanic to help you out, with a reward of say $50 (or whatever you choose). Then similar to 99 designs, mechanics from all around the world could submit their reviews and advice on the cars. Giving you questions to ask, feedback on your pictures and prices, links to other cars or whatever you may need to help you make a decision. At the end of the process, you reward the most helpful mechanic the $50 prize. I imagine this would be a great way for mechanics from all around the world to earn some extra cash and an easy way for buyers to protect themselves from getting ripped off on a shitty car that could potentially cost them thousands. If you know of anything like this or are interested in building it let me know in the comments :) Check out my real startup here. You can see a few of my other startup ideas here, here and here, learn about why my first startup failed here. A strong follow-up in Business is Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores.

Vitoto Officially Shutting Down

Vinay Patankar · 31 May, 2015 · Business · Technology

2012 - San Francisco... Vitoto was a failure. It feels good to say that. There has been an air of uncertainty around the state of the company for the last few weeks, its nice to make a decision. Firstly, I am proud of myself for taking the shot. > "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." > \-- Wayne Gretzky I am also proud to have acquired my first startup failure. People in Silicon Valley respect failure, its almost like a badge of honor. Don't get me wrong, I would have much preferred a success, and I am really disappointed I was not able to generate a return for my investors, but I definitely left this experience with more than I started with so I'm not complaining. If you don't know, Vitoto was a startup I founded in July, 2012 that set out to create a collaborative video app for the iPhone. I came up with the idea while I was in Las Terrenes, Dominican Republic - I had been perpetually travelling for the previous 2.5 years while running my internet marketing company. I quickly raised some seed capital ($50k) and partnered with a Sydney team - Moroku - to build the MVP. After about 4 months of design and development (during which I traveled through the DR, USA, Thailand and Australia) we launched on the Apple App Store and I moved to San Francisco to start the funding gauntlet. 3 months, a plethora of emails, calls, meetups, pitches and half a startup accelerator later we are shutting down the doors. I want to keep this post as short as possible while both covering off why we are shutting the company down, and some of the key mistakes I believe we (I) made in this process. ## Why Vitoto is Shutting Down The short answer is: No money. Another short answer might be: Good idea, bad business. Below is the long: ## 0\. The Problem One of the key lessons I learned is that great startups have a blindingly obvious, ideally really large and painful problem that the company is trying to solve. Solving this problem should drive almost every decision in the startup. Vitoto did not have this. I mused on this in an earlier post. I tried to spin up problems that I could use in pitches and conversations like "its difficult for people to create collaborative videos" but I couldn't even convince myself, let alone anyone else. The problem just wasn't real enough. Next time: Next time I need a blindingly obvious, clear, defined, large, real problem that is being solved. No exceptions. > I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street ## 1\. The Team I have seen two types of successful startup teams here in Silicon Valley. 1\. Young teams who can survive on very minimal cash. These are teams of 2-5 people who have a blend of skills (technical, design, business) and can execute an entire startup between their core team. They are able to stretch $30k to 9 months as they all live in one house, work 15 hours a day, 7 days a week and survive on ramen noodles. 2\. Experienced, well funded teams. These are teams that are generally spear headed by an entrepreneur who has had a successful exit in the past. The entrepreneur goes around and recruits a bunch of his or her friends from their 6 figure jobs and convinces them to help create their next vision. Due to their strong track record and the experienced team formed, they are able to raise money before a single line of code is written. The money raised can be anywhere from $250k to $40 million. Both team styles have pros and cons, however, these two team structures seem to be the most successful. The Vitoto team fell somewhere in the middle. We had a great team, don't get me wrong, but there were some key elements in the structure that lead to the inevitable demise of Vitoto. The two key factors were: 1\. We had a team that was too experienced for the budget. 2\. We had no invested User Experience/Design specialist. Our team ran out of runway and could not develop new features into the product. The product was not getting the traction needed nor could we get the viral loop to work, this made the product unappealing to investors. We did not have enough money to support the team in executing the required UX tweaks and experiments, thus were unable to further develop the product to a point where it could get enough traction to attract investors. One key element here is that the Australian team was not able to deliver any code without money coming in. They have huge overheads and were unable to contribute time for pure equity. Next time: Next time I make sure I start or am part of a founding team that falls into one of the 2 above success categories. ## 2\. Lack of UX focus, planning and execution. The lack of UX focus was another key factor in the (lack of) success of Vitoto. The first element to this was that we had no dedicated UX specialist on the team. We did bring in outside expertise for the graphics design, and while the quality delivered was high, this put further constrain on the budget. The second element was that the team never properly sat down and brainstormed the UX. Quick decisions were made to get the MVP out the door and these had serious impacts on how the product was received by customers. Next time: Next time I will make sure that there is extensive planning, brainstorming, and user testing done on the UX of the product before any time or money is invested in actual coding. And I will make sure there is an invested UX specialist on the founding team. ## 3\. Resource Allocation When I budgeted my initial capital for the business, I budgeted to get an MVP out the door. While I understood there would need to be a marketing effort for the product, I didn't take into account the extent of tweaking that would need to be done to the product after the MVP to get it to a point of consistent user uptake. The UX is the most important marketing tool for an early stage startup. If people are not using your product, it doesn't matter how well you market it. I consistently had user feedback to add, remove or enhance features or experience. But continually found myself saying "it's on the road map but we don't have enough money to build it". A position I should have never been in. Next time: Next time I will make sure my initial funding can carry me to TRACTION not just the MVP. Traction (unless you're super lucky) is going to be a solid 6-12 months AFTER the MVP is released. So I will make sure I have enough to last that long before I dive in. ## 4\. Monetization strategy was loose. This is important, but not as important for consumer focused products. If you are building a consumer app without a clear monetization strategy, just make sure you have the runway as mentioned in point 3. You will either gain traction or you won't. If you gain traction you can figure out monetization, if you don't, well, you're dead in the water anyway. Next time: Next time I am not building a consumer product. B2B with a clear cut monetization strategy and a focus to start monetizing as early as possible. ## 5\. Product outside area of specialization Nobody in the team had built a successful consumer product before. We all had experience in the enterprise space, selling to businesses. We had no experience in consumer of video. We were not playing to our strengths. Next time: Next time I will play in a space I have lived in before. ## What's next? As I said at the beginning, this experience has definitely been a positive one. I can't even begin to describe how much I have learned. It felt like an accelerated university degree. I have gained a TONN of real world experience in the startup world, built a strong network in San Francisco and Silicon Valley and even have my next startup idea locked down. But for now, my visa to the US runs out in about a month so I will be leaving. My marketing company is still running strong and the focus is going to be on scaling that over the next 12 months. I am going to do a few stops in the US over the next few weeks, San Diego, Tempe, Pittsburg then I am going to head to Hong Kong to handle some banking and I want to visit my parents and little brother who are currently in Ningbo (a city in China near Shanghai). After that I am planning to move to Jaco in Costa Rica for at least 6 months. The words for the year are "Scale and Systems". Beyond building my business, I also want to focus on getting stronger in the gym, learning to surf properly and learning Spanish. I am also brewing the idea of doing another sneaky startup, working on team for this one so well see how that goes. What would you have done different? > I have been working on a new startup applying the lessons I learned from Vitoto. Check it out here: Process Street For another Business angle, read Vitoto Editing Features Launched.

How to Make Awesome Videos for Your Store (With AI)

Vinay Patankar · 21 May, 2015 · Blogging · Business · Technology

Back in 2016, I wrote the original version of this post. Making a decent video for your store cost $300 to $600 in software alone, took days of work, and still looked amateur. You needed a microphone, screen recording software, animation tools, and video editing skills. That world is gone. In 2026, AI can turn a single product photo into a full video ad. No script. No storyboard. No editing. One image, one click, one video, and the results are outperforming traditional production in many cases. This is a complete rewrite. Every tool, every technique, and every workflow is new. ## Why AI Video Changes Everything for Ecommerce The economics have flipped. A traditional product video shoot costs $5,000 to $30,000 per collection. AI catalog video generation does the same job for pennies per SKU. But cost isn't even the biggest advantage. It's speed and iteration. When I wrote the original post, I praised DIY video because startups pivot constantly and you can't afford to reshoot every time your product changes. AI solves this completely. Product image updated? Generate a new video in minutes. Here's what the data shows: - 20% higher on-site conversion when AI product videos replace static images - 150% conversion improvement over static images in Pic Copilot's testing - 350+ videos per hour using automated AI pipelines - $0.54 per video for consistent AI UGC with the same character across unlimited variations The ecommerce brands winning right now aren't choosing between "professional video" and "DIY video." They're choosing between "some videos" and "a video for every single SKU in the catalog." ## The Two Types of AI Video That Matter for Ecommerce Before diving into tools, understand the two dominant use cases: ### 1. Product Videos (Catalog-Scale) These are the videos that live on your product pages, Amazon listings, and Google Shopping. They show your product in motion: rotating, being used, in context. The workflow is simple. Upload product photos, AI generates a video. This is where the biggest ROI lives. Most ecommerce stores have zero video on their product pages. Adding AI-generated product videos across your entire catalog is the single highest-leverage move you can make right now. ### 2. AI UGC Ads (Performance Marketing) These are the TikTok-style, talking-head, "authentic" video ads that drive paid acquisition. AI now generates realistic UGC creators: consistent characters that can appear across hundreds of ad variations. One ecommerce advertiser tested AI ads vs human UGC with $100K in spend over 3 months on Facebook Ads. The results were close enough that AI's 100x cost advantage made it the clear winner for creative testing at scale. ## The Core Workflow: Image to Video The killer workflow in 2026 is image-to-video. Here's how it works: Step 1: Start with a clean product photo. White background, high resolution. If you're already selling online, you have these. Step 2: Choose your AI video tool. Feed it your product image. The AI handles motion, camera movement, lighting, and context. Step 3: Add a hook and CTA. Layer on text overlays, a voiceover (also AI-generated), and a call to action. Step 4: Generate variations. This is the real power. Generate 10, 50, or 500 variations for creative testing. Different angles, different hooks, different styles. That's it. No script writing, no storyboarding, no editing timeline. The entire process that used to take days now takes minutes. ## The AI Video Tool Landscape There's no single winner yet because the space is moving fast. Here's how the tools break down by use case: ### For Product Page Videos Claid.ai is the current industry standard for brand-safe, commercial-ready product videos. Best for fashion and ecommerce brands that need clean, professional catalog videos at scale. Handles product attributes well. Luma AI (Dream Machine) offers strong image-to-video generation. Good for hero product shots with cinematic camera motion. Works well for higher-end products where you want that premium feel. Kittl (Motion on Canvas) launched February 2026. It turns static designs into animated content. Good for product graphics and promotional materials that need motion. ### For AI UGC Ads MakeUGC is the most-discussed tool for AI UGC. Pair it with Google's VEO 3.1 Extend for longer clips. Users report generating 350+ performance-ready short-form ads per hour, fully automated. HeyGen is an AI avatar platform for talking-head videos. Reviews are mixed: some love the output quality, others find the avatars still fall into uncanny valley. Best for explainer-style content where a "presenter" walks through product benefits. Topview is a UGC AI agent that works with Sora 2. It takes viral video formats and recreates them with your product and brand. Good for riding trends without manual video production. ### For Full Pipeline Automation Runway is the Swiss Army knife of AI video. Image-to-video, video-to-video, motion brush for controlling specific elements. The most flexible tool if you want creative control. Pika is built for fast iteration, good for generating lots of short clips quickly. Strong at stylized motion. Google VEO 3.1 is currently the most capable model for realistic motion. Best results when paired with other tools (MakeUGC, n8n workflows) rather than used standalone. OpenAI Sora 2 is strong for cinematic, longer-form content. Being used for full ad production by some brands. ### For Automation at Scale n8n + AI Video is an open-source workflow automation approach. Several ecommerce operators have built pipelines that take a product URL or image, generate video through AI APIs, and publish directly to their store. ## AI Voiceovers: Forget the Microphone In the original post, I recommended buying a $180 Yeti Blue microphone and recording your own voiceover. That advice is obsolete. AI voice generation is now indistinguishable from human voiceover for product videos. Tools like ElevenLabs, PlayHT, and the built-in voice features in HeyGen and MakeUGC handle this automatically. The workflow: write your script (or have AI write it from your product description), select a voice style, generate. You get studio-quality audio in seconds. For UGC-style ads, the AI voice is already baked into the avatar generation. The character speaks naturally with lip-sync handled automatically. ## AI Music and Sound Design Same story as voiceover. AI handles this now. Tools like Suno and Udio generate custom background tracks in any style. But honestly, for ecommerce product videos, you usually want minimal or no music. The product and the hook do the work. If you do need music, most AI video platforms include royalty-free background tracks. Don't overthink this part. ## The Chinese Ecommerce Playbook Here's where things get wild. Chinese ecommerce brands are already running AI-powered livestream sales where: - An AI model holds the actual product on a green screen - AI generates the voice in real-time - AI lip-syncs the face - Everything composites live This is 24/7 automated live selling. The tech exists today. Western ecommerce hasn't caught up yet, but platforms like TikTok Shop are pushing in this direction. If you're in dropshipping or high-SKU ecommerce, watch this space closely. ## What AI Video Still Can't Do Well Let's be honest about the limitations: - Rigid geometry. Hard products with exact shapes (electronics, tools) can get distorted. - Reflective materials. Glass, metal, and shiny surfaces are still tricky. - Precise product details. Size, texture, and material accuracy aren't reliable yet. - Brand consistency. Getting exact brand colors and styling requires careful prompting and often manual touchup. For products where precise detail matters (jewelry, electronics, technical products), AI video works best as a supplement to real photography, not a replacement. Use AI for the lifestyle/context shots and UGC ads, keep real photos for the detail shots. For fashion, beauty, food, and lifestyle products, AI video is ready to be your primary production method. ## Cost Breakdown: 2026 Edition ### Full AI Video Stack - Claid.ai: ~$49/mo (product page videos at catalog scale) - MakeUGC: ~$49/mo (AI UGC ad generation) - ElevenLabs: ~$22/mo (AI voiceover) - Runway: ~$28/mo (creative image-to-video) - Total: ~$148/mo for unlimited videos across all use cases ### Budget Stack - Kittl: Free tier (basic animated product graphics) - Google VEO (via AI Studio): Free tier (image-to-video generation) - CapCut: Free (editing and text overlays) - Total: $0 and good enough to start ### Compare to the Original Post In 2016, the budget setup was $144 for a few videos. In 2026, $0 to $148/month gets you unlimited videos across your entire catalog. And the quality is dramatically better. ## The Playbook: Where to Start If you're an ecommerce store owner reading this, here's what to do this week: 1. Pick your 5 best-selling products. Grab their hero images. 2. Generate product videos. Use any image-to-video tool (Runway, Luma, or VEO free tier). Upload the image, generate a 5-second product motion video. 3. Add them to your product pages. Even basic AI-generated motion outperforms static images. 4. Test one AI UGC ad. Take your top product, generate a UGC-style video ad with MakeUGC or HeyGen. Run it against your current creative on Meta or TikTok with $50. 5. Measure and scale. If conversions improve (they almost certainly will), roll out AI video across your full catalog. That's it. No $627 in software. No learning Adobe After Effects. No recording yourself in a quiet room with a $180 microphone. One product photo. One AI tool. One click. A video for every product in your store. The future of ecommerce is video-first, and AI just made that accessible to every store, regardless of budget or team size.

Ultimate Youtube Video Ranking Guide

Vinay Patankar · 21 May, 2015 · Blogging · Business · Technology

I've been using videos to market our startup Process Street for the last few months and have been getting some great results with video bringing in a steady flow of views, leads and customers. Now, you might already be aware that video is an important marketing tool in today's online world — that's why products like PowToon exist — but the way I use video might be a little different. See, I'm not using video in a traditional sense of putting it on my website and using it to convert customers or explain ideas (although I do that too), I'm using these videos as pieces of content to rank in Google to bring in organic search traffic. # Why Video is Awesome Creating videos in this way is similar to creating blog posts or landing pages for SEO, but with some important benefits. Firstly, YouTube videos rank well in Google. Like really well. Since YouTube is owned by Google, and is already an extremely high authority site, chances are that a piece of content you put on YouTube will rank higher than your own site, especially if your site is new and doesn't have much authority. Posting content on YouTube also lets your content be discovered when people search YouTube, which is the second biggest search engine in the world, bigger than both Bing and Yahoo. Moreover, optimizing your videos to rank in Google automatically optimizes them to rank in YouTube too, bringing an additional traffic stream you otherwise wouldn't've had. But what is really great about ranking in Google search is that it's search traffic, the best kind of traffic for a product like mine, which is solving a very specific pain point for businesses. This kind of traffic brings us customers from huge enterprises which I otherwise would have had a hard time identifying and marketing to. # How I Rank YouTube Videos In this post I will explain the process I use to optimize and rank my videos in Google. Here are a few examples of terms my videos are ranking for in Google: Standard Operating Procedure Software (Google Search|Video Link) Business Systemization (Google Search|Video Link) Sharepoint DMS alternative (Google Search|Video Link) The amazing thing about ranking videos for these kinds of keywords is that, even though they might not have a ton of traffic, they are VERY targeted visitors, people searching for that exact kind of product. I am not going to talk about how to make a video in this post. If you want to learn more about creating videos, I recently wrote a post on how to create a startup explainer video plus PowToon has a number of great tutorials on their blog. In this post I will show you how to optimize your videos and get them ranking for your target keywords. # On Page Optimization The first thing you should do before uploading your video is prepare you keywords, title and description. ## Keyword Research When ranking YouTube videos it's good practice to target multiple long tail keywords in the video. This will bring in more traffic as you rank for multiple terms with just one video. For example, this video I did on checklist software is ranking for Checklist Software, Checklist Software Tool and Checklist Template Software. You should find a keyword to target based on the content of your video. This is pretty easy: type a few variations into the AdWords Keyword Planner tool and find the one that ranks the highest. There are a few tricks you can do to find keywords that have low competition, but for the sake of this guide I am going to a assume you already know what keyword you want to rank for before you created the video. For our example, lets use "Tree Removal Miami" > Tree Removal Miami Once you have your primary keyword, it's time to get to work building a list of secondary keywords and constructing a title and description for your video. Below is a video I made for a friend teaching him the process of keyword research and constructing the title and description. In the video I walk through two example keywords "Tree Removal Miami" and "Electrician Miami". The video is an over the shoulder of me doing it, and runs about 30 minutes if you need a detailed explanation. (Spreadsheet from Video) ## Build Keyword List Take your primary keyword and put it into the AdWords tool, then pick 3-6 other keywords that have the highest search traffic and are related to your product. You can also use Uber Suggest to find the most common searched for terms after your keyword. This is the keyword list I came up with for Tree Removal Miami > tree removal miami tree removal cost miami tree removal service miami tree stump removal miami palm tree removal miami tree removal services miami emergency tree removal miami tree removal company miami tree removal miami FL tree removal cost miami FL tree removal service miami FL tree stump removal miami FL palm tree removal miami FL tree removal services miami FL emergency tree removal miami FL tree removal company miami FL ## Video Title Use the keyword list to construct the title. Weave in as many of the keywords as you can with the title still making sense and not looking like spam. > Tree Removal Service Miami FL | 555-555-5555 | Low Cost Emergency Tree Stump Removal Company ## Video Description The description should include ALL your keywords, woven into legible paragraphs that again don't look like spam. > Tree Removal Service Miami FL | 555-555-5555 > Low Cost Emergency Tree Stump Removal Company in Miami FL. Get lowest cost services on your emergency tree removal. > We guarantee the lowest tree removal cost in all of florida for tree stump removal. Contact us today for a free quote from the most reliable tree removal company in Miami FL. ## Video Tags For the video tags, just copy and paste in your keyword list. Easy. ## Advanced Optimization There are also a couple of advanced optimization techniques that I hear good things about. They are: - Transcript (adding a written transcript to your video can help the search engines crawl the video and give you higher rankings) - Annotations (again adding more text to the video helps with search) I haven't tested these myself yet but so far I have been able to get to the first page of Google for a number of terms just using the methods above of optimizing the Title, Description and Tags then doing the off page optimization steps outlined below. # Off Page Optimization - Backlinks Now your video is uploaded and optimized, it's time to start ranking it. Ranking a YouTube video is pretty similar to ranking any website where the main ranking determinant is the number of backlinks you have pointing towards that video. YouTube has another factor however and that is the number of websites that have actually embedded the video, making it slightly different to creating backlinks for traditional websites. Here is a list of YouTube ranking factors in order of importance: 1. Embeds 2. Links with Anchor Text 3. Links without Anchor Text 4. Social Signals Below are the strategies I use to rank my videos on YouTube. Keep in mind that these are not all the strategies that exist, and that there are many ways to get backlinks and embeds. ## Submit to Social Media Properties - Share on personal Google+ and company - Share on company Facebook page, like it, share it - Share it on twitter company account - Retweet on your own account ## Submit to Onlywire Onlywire is a service that lets you manage over 30 web 2.0 properties from one control panel. It's awesome to get a quick backlink shot of 20-30 links to any post or video you publish. Submitting your video to Onlywire won't move the needle much but it takes just a second to do and the more links the better. I use Onlywire quite a bit as I use it to build links to every Web 2.0 post, guest post, video, forum post, profile, etc. that I create. This is a really easy way to get a quick link boost. Plus you can pay someone on Fiverr to set it all up for just $5, an effective, cheap and automated way to do social bookmarking submissions. I talk about submitting to Onlywire a lot in the rest of this post. This is not a necessity though, merely a shortcut. There are other social tools to help you manage various social networks, or you can simply submit to them manually for free. However, Onlywire is the easiest tool I have found, and it's what I use in my business. ## Post on Site Create a blog post or landing page on your website. A general rule for a landing page is that it should have 300-500 words of unique content. The keyword should be included in the title and the body. The keyword should be linked to the YouTube video, the video should be embedded onto the page and you should also link out to an authority site. To beef up the page further, add the keyword into an h1 tag and as the alt text of an image. This formula should be followed when posting anywhere, including your site, other blogs you own, or Web 2.0 sites. Here is a quick checklist: - 300-500 words unique content - Keyword in title - Keyword in body - Keyword anchor text linked to video - Embed video - Authority link - H1 tag with keyword - Image with keyword in alt text Once you have published your post to your site, don't forget to promote it. Submit it to social bookmarking sites, Onlywire and across the web. If you are looking for more places to promote your content, try this checklist. ## Post on Blog Network Create a blog post on a personal blog or other site you own. If you don't own any other web properties, now might be a good time to create a blog. Having a second web property such as a blog is a great way to get additional exposure and backlinks for your videos. I have a few older blogs that are still around and have some decent authority so I use them to write posts and embed my videos in, like this one I did on standard operating procedure software. Once you have published your post to your blog using the same format as above, submit it to Onlywire. ## Submit to Profiles Company profiles and business directories are another great way to get embeds for your video. Depending on your niche you can embed your video onto your LinkedIn page, Angel List profile, or Yelp listing. These are great quick ways to not only get backlinks to your videos but also to generally increase your branding as a company. Remember to submit your profile pages to Onlywire to get some secondary link juice. ## Guest Post Write related guest posts for other sites and find meaningful ways to link or embed your videos into the guest post. This is one of the most powerful ways to get links to your videos. In fact, I am doing it right now with this post. Another example of a guest post where I embed and link to a number of my videos is this post I did for the Startup Chile blog. Remember to promote your guest posts too! Submit them to social bookmarking sites and Onlywire. If you want to learn more about guest posting, try these guides: Advanced Guest Posting 10 Resources to Make You The Best Guest Blogger Ever ## Create a Post on Your Web 2.0 Properties Another great way to get embeds, links and views for your videos is to publish them on your Web 2.0 sites like the ones listed below. Use the same format as when submitting to your blog or website. There are a lot of different Web 2.0 sites available, and it can take a bunch of time and resources to post on all of them, so I have broken them down into Tier 1 and Tier 2 sites. Start with the Tier 1 and, if you have the time, keep posting onto the Tier 2 sites. ### Tier 1 Wordpress.com Blogger.com Tumblr.com Medium.com ### Tier 2 LiveJournal.com Soup.io Webs.com Doomby.com Hpage.com Sosblogs.com Blog.com SnapPages.com Jigsy.com Beep.com Tripod.lycos.com Ucoz.com Jimdo.com Bravesites.com Newsvine.com Storify.com Over-blog.com Whether you are posting on Tier 1 or Tier 2, every time you create a new post, make sure to submit it to Onlywire. ## Keep on Linking As you continue to write content, do presentations, post on forums, etc., remember to keep linking back to your videos when you can. The more links you can get back to your videos the better they will rank over time, so keep on plugging them wherever you can. If you do the linking optimization tips above and actively work on generating links and embeds to your YouTube videos, they will rank in Google and bring in a targeted, free flow of traffic. Tell us about your YouTube ranking experiences in the comments below! Related read in Blogging: Start-Up Chile Application Video.

Start-Up Idea: TailSearch - Search for Retail Stores

Vinay Patankar · 17 Nov, 2014 · Business · Technology

One liner: TailSearch: Search for retail stores. User experience: - iPad / Touchscreen TV positioned at front and around the store with a search bar / filters to filter down all items in the store. - There is a real-time map of the store with all the items in the store, and as you filter down, they break down and show you the location in the store of the item so you can easily find what you are looking for. - You can filter down men/women, colors, style, type, size etc… select tags, type in search etc… - User can easily search for any item in the store and be guided straight to it. - User can also download an app to their own phone and use that as a map around stores. - User can also search for all stores in area using the tech to see if items are available in other stores, can search from any device. Store experience: - Store purchases “security tags” similar to the ones that beep now. Tags are smart tags with geo locators. - Store sets up a geo fence so no need for expensive alarm beepers. Tags beep when taken out of geo fence, also alert is sent to store / security. - Store set up iPads around the store so people can search, store also entered into wider search network. - Store scans barcodes of items and then attaches tag. Users can access that data through search. Monetization: 1. Selling security tags 2. Selling monthly recurring to store for software / support 3. Making advertising / affiliate commissions from wider search network 4. Transition into POS and merchanting, take a commission on all sales. Opportunities: - Could crowd fund the product since its hardware (maybe? as its b2b) - Clear acquisition targets (Google/Amazon/eBay) Costs: Lots of hardware bullshit to deal with Selling won’t be easy Medium-High switching barriers exist For another Business angle, read Start-up idea: Marketplace for mechanics to help buyers purchase used cars.

Best 5 Talks from #500Distro

Vinay Patankar · 28 Aug, 2014 · Business · Technology

If you are interested in getting traffic for your startup, you should definitely watch the videos from the recent 500 Distro. 500 Distro is a conference where they gathered some of the greatest minds in customer acquisition, retention and growth hacking to do 20 min sprint presentations on a number of different topics. Below are my favourite 5 talks from the day. For another Business angle, read Tools to Build you a New Life.

Startup Explainer Video How To

Vinay Patankar · 31 Jul, 2014 · Business · Technology

If you are looking to make a startup explainer video, make sure to check out this guest post I did on the Startup Chile blog: How to Make a Startup Explainer Video It's a detailed post covering what we did to make our startup explainer video for Process Street on Knowledge Management for Small Business. You can check out the video below, or visit the above post to see the details of how we made it. Related read in Business: Start-Up Chile Application Video.