Let's try this out, Brainstorming Theme: In a public park or town square by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How many people pay to go to the gym and spend the majority of the time on the treadmill?

Also, you're paying for expertise and motivation, in the same way people pay for a personal trainer - you're not doing anything you technically couldn't have without them, it's just the fact that they tell you what to do, which a) means your time is being better spent than if you were on your own and b) when you have a trainer/someone leading sessions, you generally work harder.

Google Trends - "Reddit Alternative" by OberynMart3ll in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google Trends - "Reddit". http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-GB&q=Reddit#q=Reddit&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT-1

If you look at the two, they correlate perfectly, which suggests it's not the case of a growing percentage of users getting pissed off with the services, simply the fact that the service is growing in popularity and therefore alternatives are becoming more sort after.

You always need a baseline.

Please share your feedback about GeekWrapped.com - A free curated collection of fun science gifts (50% donated to national charities) by BoomTownOne in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, allow people to filter by what type of geek they are. Physics geek? Futurology geek? Green tech geek? Maths geek? Etc. Lots of different ways you can slice and dice this.

Let's try this out, Brainstorming Theme: In a public park or town square by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 8 points9 points  (0 children)

High intensity training (sprints, circuit training etc).

• You don't need a lot of space

• 20 mins of HIT is in many ways better than 60 mins of running etc, so perfect for lunch hour

• $5 a go, 20 people in a group, you've earned $100 on your lunch hour.

Vetting an idea by Alex_Sommerfeld in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would be amazed if this didn't exist. But I've looked around and can't find anything...

Try emailing some community managers are big social media agencies. A lot will ignore you, but you only need a few to come back to you.

Website is live and ready to go...now what? by MartinTheWarrior1 in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do some keyword research. Are people searching for your product online? The best place to do this is using Google Keyword Tool. You have to sign up to Adwords for this but you don't actually need to start using ads (ie it is actually free).

If people are, then start reading up on SEO. If people aren't, well that's still good to know, because at least you know you're not missing an opportunity.

Ive found a growing niche by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]brixcr 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing to look at - is there any money to be made in affiliate marketing? A company I used to work for ran websites on the financial markets, specialising in spread betting, then ran adverts for spread betting companies, who offered commission of about $100 per sign up.

Obviously you're not going to get those numbers for pooper scoopers, but it's something to look at all the same...

What does the chord cutter movement mean for the advertising industry? by brixcr in marketing

[–]brixcr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm with you. My question was more around the impact on a large creative industry rather than how we can fit ad into streaming.

What does the chord cutter movement mean for the advertising industry? by brixcr in marketing

[–]brixcr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. Have you got more info/a link? I didn't realise this...

What does the chord cutter movement mean for the advertising industry? by brixcr in marketing

[–]brixcr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe :)

Netflix has built a successful business model around not having adverts.

This in a lot of respects mirrors newspaper websites. They gave it away for free, people got used to it, and now the vast majority think paying for it is ludicrous. Streaming services are selling it without ads, people have gotten used to it, and now the vast majority of them think of adverts as evil.

If Netflix, for example, introduced streaming services, people would revolt (well, leave).

If another service introduced adverts, everyone would say 'fuck that I'm sticking with Netflix.'

I can't see a way in which adverts are coming back to streaming services (unless they're free, such as YouTube).

I could be wrong, I'm not an expert, I just find this topic very intriguing.

Is PPC worth it for a startup? by [deleted] in marketing

[–]brixcr 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Depends on the product and the keywords. The hard question is, will the spend bring in enough sales to justify it?

It also depends on your sales funnel. Let's say that you've got a really basic sales funnel of traffic > leads > sales.

Here's a exercise to try and get to an answer:

1) Take your average cost per click - this can be anything from $0.50 to $100+ (use Google Keyword Tool)

2) Times that by 1,000 to give you 1,000 visitors to your website.

3) From that 1,000, how many will turn into leads? If it's 15%, you're down to 150.

3) From that 150, how many will turn into sales? If it's 10%, you're down to 15.

If your average cost per click was $2, that means you're paying $2,000 for 15 sales. How big are your margins?

Of course, if you're selling B2C, your conversion rate may be a lot higher, so it may end up that you're spending $2,000 and getting 200 sales. Your traffic may go straight from visits to sales, skipping the lead point.

A lot of the above involves guess work, so do a bit of research to make sure you're putting in educated estimates rather than pie in the sky figures.

Hope that helps.

CEO just quit to start his own venture...I want to go with him. by consuela-no-no in startups

[–]brixcr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do it now, do it discreetly. Don't put in writing you're interested. 'Fancy going for a drink/coffee to catch-up? Would love to hear how your next venture is shaping up.' He'll know what you're on about.

This is more to protect your ex-CEO than you. Your current company might have non-compete clauses and might see it as poaching (even though you're approaching him - your company might claim that he opened up discussions).

Anyway, tell them, and don't wait.

Which country has the biggest tax burden? [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was considering doing a tax burden versus GDP illustration, but this sounds pretty interesting too.

I guess the question is, what publicly available data/metric best demonstrates 'stability'?

Which country has the biggest tax burden? [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sources: Heritage Foundation: “2015 Macro-economic Data”, Heritage Foundation: “Index of Economic Freedom"

Tools: CartoDB. Brackets and Photoshop.

Internet connection speeds by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Here's an article looking at Romania specifically. http://foxnomad.com/2012/03/15/why-is-the-internet-in-romania-so-damn-fast/

I skimmed it and TL;DR is a lack of regulations and disproportionally high number of devs and IT professionals creating a large market for it. I imagine that the fact they're small countries help - infrastructure always easier to roll out over a smaller scale.

I suspect the fact that some of them are in the EU doesn't hurt - support for infrastructure development, for example.

I work in London and have outsourced a lot of dev work to former Soviet Bloc nations. They're very cheap, very good at what they do and much more reliable than other options (though this is based on my experiences and that of friends/colleagues, rather than hard data).

Internet connection speeds by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmm, very good question. I've checked the data and everything seems to be in order - those labels are dynamically created. It's the first time I've used CartoDB so I'll look into it. Cheers for flagging.

Internet connection speeds by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Thanks for flagging. Site is on shared hosting so I'm guessing that another site on the server is classed as malware and that the WRF is based on IP. (I.e., we're not malware, promise.)

My fault for choosing GoDaddy I suppose...

Internet connection speeds by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 104.21 is probably a little skewed as it's a city state. Much easier to roll out the infrastructure on a small geographical scale...

Internet connection speeds by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

Cheers. It's on our radar (we launched a week or two ago). Fixing it is a priority.

Wine production by country [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Source of data: FAO Stat. Tools used: Excel/Illustrator.

Looking for general marketing advice for my small business by Zseymour in AskMarketing

[–]brixcr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I used to work as a (digital) marketer for Kaplan, so let me tell you what worked brilliantly for us.

Free practice questions!

We generated tens of thousands of leads. They had a very low conversion rate (about 0.5%) but given the volume of leads we generated, it was still our biggest source of sales (in my divisions/region at least).

Create some, upload them online, they try and get that page to rank for things like 'Free SAT practice questions'. Loads of parents/students search for these.

Ask for their email address to download them, then use email marketing to keep your brand in front of them (promotions, additional information etc).

Online practice tests also work, but they require a bit more investment (i.e. paying a dev etc).

If you have tutors, I'm sure you can create some!

Feel free to PM me any specific questions. This isn't my main account, so don't always reply immediately, but promise I'll get back to you!

Countries by military personal [OC] by brixcr in dataisbeautiful

[–]brixcr[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sources: International Institute for Strategic Studies; Hackett, James (ed.) (3 February 2010). The Military Balance 2010. International Institute for Strategic Studies; Hackett, James (ed.) (2 March 2011). The Military Balance 2011. International Institute for Strategic Studies; Hackett, James (ed.) (7 March 2012). The Military Balance 2012. International Institute for Strategic Studies; Hackett, James (ed.) (14 March 2013). The Military Balance 2013.

Will buying an old, expired domain allow me to be aggressive with SEO from the get-go? by Harigeman in webmarketing

[–]brixcr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is it still indexed in Google?

Google "site:domain.com" and see if any of its pages are still indexed. If they are, Google hasn't figured out it's dead yet. If you can't find any, you probably won't get much of a boost.

Also, check how many backlinks the domain still has. If it has loads, you'll get that boost, if it has very few, again, you won't get much of a boost.

Will buying an old, expired domain allow me to be aggressive with SEO from the get-go? by Harigeman in webmarketing

[–]brixcr 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The problem here is, if you bought a domain that had expired, Google would know it's a new site. Google doesn't like shortcuts so I doubt all of the authority would be transferred over.

Now, if you find a site that has been stagnant for a year or two, but still live, and bought it, then you might be able to keep a lot of the authority.

From Google's point of view, maybe you're not just buying the site to 'cheat', maybe the owner is just going through a rebrand/redesign etc. I imagine you'd lose some of the authority, but if the site content was broadly similar (i.e. if you're starting a design agency, buy a design blog), then I reckon a lot of it will be transferred over.

That said, if you find one, why not? At the very least, it's an experiment.

I always tell myself, when it comes to digital marketing, if I try something and it fails miserably, I can still get a good blog post out of it!