Social Media for Startups: Lessons Learned.

Few months ago I was asked to present this topic to a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. They really wanted to hear from someone who did run startups, knows inside-out their issues, can relate to their concerns. Yes, I quit PwC in 2000 right before becoming a partner to get my hands dirty with early stage startups. Partnership at that time sounded like an early retirement option to me, I wanted fire, energy, excitement. I got it all! As a VP of Sales and Business Development for a startup company in 2002 I had to make all the important decisions: who to sell, what to sell, how… And those years were tough – “dead” years in terms of business… But it was a great time for us to learn how to operate in tough business environment, how to get rid of small company syndrome, think big, sell big.

Here is a set of slides I will be using as a framework for discussions on whether social media channels should be used by startup companies [even small and medium businesses] for sales, marketing, customer service, support.

During this workshop we’ll go into more details, review characteristics of each channel, and discuss strategies, real life examples.

If you have any questions you can post them here or email them to me and I will cover them during our upcoming workshop.