6 Free Recruiting Tactics for Startups
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Recruiting, WooMeIt’s been a couple of weeks since the last post. My lack of activity is mostly attributed to my head being down in the Mac, learning everything there is to know about Woo Media and the Web 2.0 space, not to mention working on the million tasks needed to be completed, yesterday, to move our company in the right direction. Between taking calls with PR agencies and developing the marketing plan for the www.woome.com site later this year, I have been spending a lot of time ramping up the marketing team.
We are intending to focus much of our marketing effort in California for the launch and since I am currently working out of the home office in Los Angeles, it seems to make sense to go out an get the best and brightest from the local schools here in LA. I am in pursuit of a young, hungry, smart, passionate, entrepreneurial type who simply knows how to execute, to fill my #1 priority position for the moment. The Marketing Manager will report to me directly and become immersed in everything there is to know about online and offline marketing. Sure, having some experience previously at an internet company would be nice, however, as I have found over my career, its far more important to find good people than it is to find someone with domain expertise. In this case I believe that to be even more true, since social marketing is in such a nascent place, the methods of marketing continue to evolve virtually everyday so whatever domain expertise someone might have today would no doubt be somewhat irrelevant next week. I need someone aboard this marketing team to be able to “figure it out” regardless of how, when and why the game changes. Below is a link to the Marketing Manager positions
As you can imagine, costs are a significant concern for our “little” startup and we are all, across the board, doing whatever we can to minimize our operational costs without sacrifice to the quality of our work. This is of particular importance when it comes to recruiting. After running an IT staffing firm for nearly 6 years, I know far to well how expensive fees are for a recruiting. Using a recruiting firm to fill a junior / mid-level marketing positions could cost up to $20K, important $$ I would rather have at my disposal for launching marketing campaigns to grow Woome.com’s user base.
As it turns out, with all of the recently developed and even some older recruiting techniques and tools now available, depending on the position, there are few reasons today for a startup company to pay recruiting fees for hiring members of its operating team, unless of course, the specific position are in high demand. With that, I have included the list below of the tools I have used over the past couple of weeks to hire Woo Media’s Marketing Manager and will no doubt continue to use to keep our recruiting costs down and personnel quality up!
• Linkedin – I have used this tool extensively during my deal making days at Shopzilla. I had received lots of job notifications from my Linkedin network in the past and felt it was time to utilize the “job notification service” for my own purposes of hiring. NO FEE to use and you get to send job descriptions to up to 200 contacts within your network. The power of the network shines through using this tool.
• UCLA Career Center – I have circumvented other recruiting tools like Monster. Hotjobs and Career Builder in favor of going direct with local university systems. I know how expensive and ineffective the aforementioned tools are and felt that going directly to the university was an easier way to get this job description in front of the candidates that I am most looking for. Also, not a bad idea to start building a reputation directly with the university for future hiring needs as well which are no doubt on the radar over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, USC is working with Monster to manage their job postings for their students. I think this is a big mistake since young, innovative companies like Woo Media don’t have the funds to post on Monster, limiting the kinds of position for USC students to those of larger, more traditional companies that have deep pockets
• Facebook – I tried out a marketplace listing at Facebook for all of $2. You can target the schools that you want to include the posting for, but since this seemed to be “buggy” when I posted, I went ahead and included in the Los Angeles network. Not much traction from this post thus far.
• MySpace - I tried out a classifieds listing on mySpace. Total cost, $0!! Now I see first hand why the newspapers are struggling. Hard to compete when online offers the same classified listing for FREE. No way that I know to segment and target by university so went ahead so like Facebook, included in classified for Los Angeles.
• Shopzilla Email – as I have written about often on the blog, Shopzilla is filled with some of the most talented, young professionals that I have ever come into contact with. The energy and smarts that just about everyone exudes at Shopzilla is second to none. So, what better way to find candidates with similar attributes for the Marketing Associate position at Woo Media then by reaching out to all of my younger former colleagues requesting that they send the job description to those within their own personal networks they felt were as good as them, if not better. (I am explicitly NOT recruiting current Shopzilla employees, only reaching out to my former colleagues to tap into their highly targeted networks.
• Targeted Email – Of course, this recruiting tactic has been around, for a long time, essentially, since email came into existence. However, sending out a job description to your own personal network directly to those people that you know have great access to the type of people you are looking to hire is one of the BEST ways to create the viral exposure of positions that ultimately lead to highly qualified candidates,
This campaign only began earlier this week, with many of these tactics only having launched a couple of days ago, therefore, it would be difficult to provide an assessment of success / failure for each method so far. However, once I have hired on my two Marketing Associates, I will be sure to add further insight to the blog.
Total recruiting costs to Woo Media, to date $2.
Sphere: Related ContentDream Job with Stealth Mode Venture Backed Startup
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Startup Company, Entrepreneur Story, Job SearchOk, so I have been a bit incognito for the past couple of weeks. I apologize for the limited number of posts. However, I am happy to report that its all been for a very good reason. Unbeknownst to most of my readers, I have been in active negotiation with a stealth mode consumer Internet startup named Woo Media for the past few weeks and only recently accepted the position of VP Marketing and Business Development. In this capacity, I will be responsible for all consumer acquisition, search engine optimization (seo), seach engine marketing (sem), social network marketing, offline marketing, partnerships, etc for this Web 3.0 (I don’t know if I should even be calling it that, but so be it!) consumer Internet company.
Though I cannot discuss any of the details surrounding the company at this time, In my mind, Woo Media has all of the makings of the next big thing in consumer internet, with a compelling user proposition, laser focus on an underserved consumer niche, 1st rate product / engineering team, tier one angel investors / advisors, deep seeded relationships with meaningful prospective media partners and a CEO that is as tenacious as any I have ever known. This is an exciting opportunity for me in every capacity and one that I had to take after vetting through the more than 40 startup opportunities that I have looked at over the past couple of months.
I understand that some of my readers may be disappointed about me not having created my own company, long considered the epitome of “real” entrepreneurship. To you, rest assured that this opportunity with Woo Media is as entrepreneurial a situation as I could have ever asked for. Entrepreneurship can take on many forms. To some, it’s about becoming a core member of an early stage VC backed company. To others, entrepreneurship is about starting a business all on your own. In my mind, both would be considered incredibly entrepreneurial ventures as both paths seek to create something that never existed before, turning an idea and concept into a sustainable business. Both paths will no doubt experience the same ups and downs that are part of building a business. And, both paths require a strong stomach to be able to survive the long journey. I am taking a leap of faith here, albeit, a calculated risk, in pursuit of the entrepreneurial Holy Grail. That is, creating a game changing consumer Internet application that will stand the test of time, providing value to users and $$$ to our investors. What more could any entrepreneur dream of?????
So, what does this mean for the “Tales of an Entrepreneur Wannabe” blog? It means that my posts will now most likely focus on the day-to-day issues associated with any consumer Internet startup. From marketing strategy changes to employee hiring issues. Blog entries will begin to focus more on documenting the highs and lows of creating a business from the perspective of a core management team member of a venture backed Internet startup. You will see far fewer posts about what it takes to get hired at a start up and more posts relevant to the operational issues of our little company
However, nothing has changed with regard to this blog’s focus on my path to entrepreneurial glory. In fact, things have only become more interesting, with a tangible company that will now serve as the backdrop of my “tales.” No doubt, other entrepreneurial opportunities will present themselves over the coming week and months beyond Woo Media that I intend to participate in and I will be sure to share these experiences with my readership as they come. However, as it stands today, I will be fully dedicated to the Woo Media cause and have never been more excited about joining a team and a company in my career.
Sphere: Related ContentWeb 2.0 Marketing Experiment - 2x Traffic in 2 Weeks!
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Online Marketing, Blog Update, Internet TidbitsSince I am so new to this blogging thing, I took it upon myself over the past month to learn all that I could about marketing the LaBruinBear.com blog to the Internet community at large. Sure, I am incredibly familiar with all of the “old school” SEO and SEM tools available. I even sent out a “spammy” email, introducing the blog to virtually everyone I have ever known. But this Web 2.0 thing is a completely nascent space and definitely outside of my area of expertise. So, for the past few weeks I have had my head down reading blogs written by the preeminent Web 2.0 marketers in the space, trying to figure out the best way to grow my readership with the newly available Web 2.0 tools.
My goal is simple. Double my readership every 2 weeks by ANY MEANS NECESSARY, while monitoring and tracking each of the techniques and tools used to determine which ones are most effective. Though I will not be dedicating much blogging time to this little test (unless requested by all of you, my core audience), I will keep you posted from time to time on how my little marketing test is tracking. Perhaps with a summary at the end of the month with the results of all of my marketing tests. As it stands today, I am averaging approximately 50 UV’s per day and 25 RSS subscribers (which has actually been growing steadily over the past 2 weeks, but still much lower than anticipated). Though I am not overly confidant with using Alexa as my measuring stick for this test, Alexa is used as a measure for marketers to determine the “interestingness” of a blogging site. So, I have included my baseline Alexa ranking below I am currently the 1,402,885 most popular site online!! Lets see what we can do to improve that over the next week.
As luck would have it, I recently “Stumbled Upon” an incredibly innovative entrepreneur, name Terence Chang, who has devised a plan to increase the traffic to his blog, in short order, by creating a small, harmless script that enables his viewers to create a positive review of his blog on StumbleUpon and subsequently an Alexa redirect within a single click. MAGIC!
So, if you believe in the entrepreneurial cause and want to be part of my Web 2.0 marketing experiment, please click on the ‘Stumble Upon” image below and write a positive review of the “Tales of an entrepreneur wannabe” blog ( I am assuming of course that you will provide something favorable, since you are my core audience, though I am not trying to influence you in any way ;-). As soon as I see a meaningful change in the traffic counts as a result of my most loyal readership following these instructions, I will be sure to report back to you and give you all a BIG virtual pat you on the back for a job well.
FYI, Stumble Upon is a remarkably addictive service that provides a unique web surfing experience. You do not have to have a bachelor’s degree in search engine keywords to enjoy yourself and find interesting sites that you never knew existed.
With that, CLICK AWAY!!!!!!
LaBruinBear.com with NEW Design! Check it out!
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Blog UpdateGiven some unforseen problems with the previous WordPress theme, I have gone ahead and loaded a new theme by the same designer. Easier on the eyes to say the least and far more organized. Also, you might notice that I finally have more than 2 blog categories!! YEAH!! With the new theme loaded, my categories are finally working!!!! Let me know your thoughts on the new design.
Steven
Sphere: Related ContentProduct Wiki’s Erik Kalviainen- A Startup Story
Published by bruinbear on Tagged Entrepreneur Story, Internet TidbitsDuring my tenure as the director of business development for Shopzilla, I served as the single external conduit for the company to the Internet community at large for partnership opportunities. Nearly 75% of the phone calls, emails and other forms of inquiries I received were from Internet entrepreneurs seeking out partnerships with Shopzilla to monetize their shopping relevant content. Of all the entrepreneurs who reached out to me, there were really only a few that I felt warranted thorough due diligence and ultimately, my internal support, based on the companies business model, consumer value proposition, and overall company prospects. Product Wiki, with Erik Kalviainen at the helm, struck me as one of those companies.
You see, Shopzilla was not seeking out partnerships with companies that had “potential.” Rather, my marching orders were to solicit prospective partnerships that delivered value to the company, day 1. I always felt that this was a dangerous, short sided attitude since Shopzilla had never really “cracked the nut” of consumer shopping habits online. Sure, we might have been kicking out a whole lot of cash, but did we really know what online shoppers wanted? My guess was that someday, somewhere a new form of shopping platform would be created and when that day came about, I wanted to be sure that Shopzilla was the company helping to fuel its growth. Our management team disagreed.
That’s where Product Wiki came into play: A company building a shopping application, for the consumer, by the consumers. Applying the Wiki concept to the product shopping category was a virtual “no brainer” in my book. It played into all of the Internet drivers at the time, SEO and SEM and was positioned well to benefit from the new Web 2.0 drivers, including user generated content and social networking. In my mind, Product Wiki had at least a better chance than many others, to become the next big thing in shopping. I served as Product Wiki’s internal Shopzilla advocate, hoping that I could convince Shopzilla’s management team to work with Erik and his team. They balked. Erik partnered with Shopping.com, we parted ways, that is, until I sent out my mass email regarding my entrepreneurial mission.
After receiving Erik’s overwhelmingly positive response about my plans to embark on a full time search for my next entrepreneurial opportunity, I thought it would be a good idea to have Erik tell his story of entrepreneurship to my small readership, to hopefully serve as a point of both inspiration and a good old fashioned reality check. Erik has delivered and below is Erik’s story of his own entrepreneurial adventure with Product Wiki.
Sphere: Related Content“Hi Steven,
Sorry for the late, reply. We’ve been busier this last week than I expected.
Other than the iPhone release, it’s kind of a slow Friday here, so I thought I’d share my story with you in the spirit of your entrepreneurial quest.
I would say my path of entrepreneurship is more of a story of inevitability than of an internal burning desire “to be my own boss”. The decision to start ProductWiki (along with my wife, and brother-in-law) was as much motivated by the passionate belief in the need for the service, as much as it was because of any particular personality traits we possess. Mind you, I’m a very self-directed person, and don’t particularly like being “managed”. Both of these factors were instrumental in making the decision to give up a Silicon Valley engineer’s salary, moving back to Canada and starving for a while tackling the ProductWiki project head-on.
We started ProductWiki officially in June of 2005 and launched by November of the same year. Soon after we began our work, we began to hear the buzz around the concept of “Web 2.0” (this was before TechCrunch was popular after all). Little did we realize that our journey of creating the wiki version of Consumer Reports would coincide with a huge movement that would ultimately lead to hundreds (if not thousands) of fledgling Internet startups peppering the Internet landscape? While we were inspired by the spirit of the then-small(er) Wikipedia and del.icio.us, we didn’t realize that we were at the beginning of what would become Bubble 2.0.
In the early days, other more experienced entrepreneurs would give us advice to expect that our technology, operations, and philosophy would drastically change over the lifetime of the business, and I remember stubbornly thinking that we wouldn’t. I believed that we were the exception. I was wrong.
When I think back to earlier periods in our story, I can’t help but feel like I want to go back and tell my past-self everything I’ve learned along the way to avoid making the inevitable mistakes and skip to the “good stuff”. I then realize that it was those very mistakes that provided me with the insight to recognize the good stuff in the first place.
ProductWiki has changed a lot since those early days, but our essential vision has remained the same. While the unexpected competition and absurdity that came with Web 2.0 has changed the game, our resolve remains as strong as ever. Many of the superficial, copycat, and just plain silly businesses will fail, but out of their ashes will remain those few companies that possess the right combination of innovation, vision, patience, and hard work. With the barriers-to-entry all but removed for Web-based businesses, those are the qualities that will determine success.
And good coffee.
-Erik”