SparkToro Blog

Posts by Rand Fishkin:

Moz Startups

The Power of Support

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Sarah (Moz’s COO) and I snuck in a quick 10 minute sitdown today in between some other meetings. We do this pretty regularly – informal, non-calendared check-ins to chat about the big and little things we’re both handling. Sarah’s working on a potential acquisition and getting ready for our annual audit. I’m keeping an eye on a big release planned…
Seattle Startups

Seattle vs. The Valley

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
If you live in Seattle and work in or around the startup ecosystem, you’ll have heard the “why-can’t-we-be-more-like-the-valley” conversation plenty of times. The typical complaints are always the same: It’s easier to get funding in the Valley Rounds are better priced (meaning investors pay higher pre-money) There’s a stronger culture of true 24/7 focus The networking is better It’s easier…
Seattle

A New Blog and a New Challenge

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Over the past few years, I’ve been tremendously impressed by a handful of bloggers in the field of technology, startups and investing. In particular: Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures Mark Suster of GRP Partners Brad Feld of Foundry Group Three qualities about each have impressed and inspired me: 1) They’ve all had a dramatic impact on their local environment…
Startups

Making Email More Scalable

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
UPDATE: This experiment in productivity didn’t work; more details at the end. If you’ve been referred to this blog post in an email reply, first off, hello! and second, I’m sorry. If I were a less busy or more efficient person, I would have (and should have) responded to your request individually, rather than through this post. You deserve more…
Startups

Fear of Ignorance

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
This past week, I was interviewing a candidate for a VP role along with two of our engineering leads. Everyone in the room excluding myself was classically “technical” – they could write code, had experience solving hard software problems and a background in computer science. I wrote my last line of PHP in 2004, and it had to be rewritten…
Uncategorized

Inflection Points: Bravery vs. Foolishness

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Inflection points in startup life technically happen every day, but in my experience, there’s a difference between the once-a-week variety and the truly BIG decisions – to sell the company, to raise funding, to pivot on business models, to expand into a new location or new product. Sometimes these happen organically as a result of turning the flywheel, but on…
Uncategorized

Just Keep Going

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
In 1997 I was just graduating from high school and started to design small business websites using Microsoft Frontpage and a variety of amateurish HTML hacks. In 2001, I dropped out of college, two classes away from graduating to work full time at a tiny web consulting business with my Mom. That didn’t go very well.   From 2001-2003, we…
Uncategorized

Sometimes VC Just Ain’t Enough

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
We’ve gotten a lot of interest from venture capital, private equity and other types of investment firms lately at Moz. Nearly every week features a phone call or two to answer some of that inbound interest. I suspect it’s due to multiple factors, but the current, hot investment environment and  upward slope of the search marketing sector combined with some…

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