Thumb: The Start-up Marketer’s Secret Weapon

The other day, I was browsing the recommended apps on the Google Play store, and came across an interesting one called Thumb. Intrigued by the name I clicked through to see that it was hailed as “one of the most addictive” new apps out there. Curious, I installed it and got started “thumbing” things. The functionality of the app is simple, and the description is even simpler:

In seconds, Thumb brings you fast, fun opinions from other folks just like you.

Working with multiple start-ups, my mind immediately jumped to the marketing possibilities presented by this tag-line. For the huge price of zero, this app seemed to offer a simple, fast, and effective solution to preliminary market research.

After browsing the questions posed by other Thumb users, it was clear that their minds were not set on market research, but rather on questions like, “Does this dress makes me look fat?”

Philadelphia Startup Weekend: First Time Expectations

Philadelphia Startup Weekend will be my first time experiencing the phenomenon that is a Startup Weekend. I’ve heard great things about the nationally recognized events that occur every so often in various cities across the country, and I’m finally getting a chance to participate in one!

It never occurred to me that I might even be able to contribute to one, until looking into the registration process I found a role that sounded perfect for my skills/interests: NON-TECHNICAL, or as Startup Weekend describes the role:

Idea generators, business thinkers, marketers, in short, anyone with a non-technical background who loves crafting ideas and can mold things .

If you follow startups at all, there is always a huge emphasis, and sense of “hipness”, placed on coding, hacking, building, and disrupting, all things about which I know very little. I’m not some coder that runs on Red Bull and candy through 24-hour hackathons on a regular basis. So, I was excited to see a role available for someone like me who has a willingness and enthusiasm to jump in and help where needed (non-technically, of course).

I’m intrigued by the chance for success that can come out of this one weekend. And I was surprised to learn that a couple (now) very successful businesses launched during previous Startup Weekends in Philadelphia.

Launchrock and Cloudmine are two examples of Philly based companies that launched and grew from a Startup Weekend, and there are also a couple of other success stories mentioned on Quora. Coincidentally, a startup I help, Casepops, is using Launchrock as their primary landing page while preparing their initial product release! A startup helping startups start up. Nice, right?

I’m expecting the weekend will be fun and an amazing learning experience, if nothing else. I’m not going in with expectations to automatically join a successful company, but hey, that would be great too! If it’s not too late, I think you can still join in and register for Philly Startup Weekend.

I’ll post my impressions after the weekend!

Pittsburgh Start-ups

I recently started helping an emerging start-up from Pittsburgh, PA called Casepops. Sadly, I can’t reveal what exactly they’re creating yet. But, it does have a lot to do with smart design, innovation, and creativity, and I’m excited to be a part of their initial product launch.

Working with them while in Philadelphia has been a great experience too. Though I’ve yet to visit the team in their hometown, I’ve learned a lot about Pittsburgh and its seemingly amazing ecosystem for start-ups.

Part of the awesome start-up culture can be attributed to Carnegie Mellon‘s entrepreneurial and technical programs, but a big influence is the area’s Alpha Lab. Many of the area’s most successful companies (ModCloth, for example) came out of Alpha Lab’s program.

Anyways, I became familiar with a bunch of these start-ups while writing a blog post for Casepops. After writing my post, Pittsburgh Startups: Re-imagining Shoes, Car Buying, Insurance, and Waiting in Line, I couldn’t help but feel excited for the start-up culture in Pittsburgh!

Reaching $30 Billion Potential: Facebook Commerce

In light of Facebook’s recent IPO announcement, I think it will be interesting to see how the Facebook community adopts social commerce, the third party developers, and apps that help make the platform as valuable as it is perceived to be.

Wine? Flowers? Diapers? How are you going to get a cut of the burgeoning Facebook commerce market?

Have you heard? Facebook commerce is predicted to reach an astounding $30 billion in global sales of physical goods in the next five years. That’s a lot. And while Facebook commerce numbers currently sit at about $5 billion in sales of physical goods, according to Booz and Company, the industry is poised for considerable growth. So, who is going to step up to the plate and start selling?