Category: Startups

Marketing Startups

ROI vs. VOI: Smart Marketers Look Beyond the Numbers

Amanda NatividadBy Amanda Natividad
Most of us default to Return on Investment (ROI) for measuring marketing success. It’s the tried-and-true metric that quantifies financial returns. Money in, money out. But we all know the messy reality of attribution. The prospects who subscribe and unsubscribe from our newsletters, who toss us a LinkedIn like now and then, who eventually Google us one day because they…
Personal Startups

Snackbar Studio Raised $2.15M Using SparkToro’s Funding Model (and we’re open sourcing the docs)

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Since SparkToro’s founding in 2018, I’ve been been passionately loud about our unique funding model (becase it’s a really good idea.) The model focuses on chill work, sustainability over growth-at-any-cost, and offers investors and founders a lower-risk way to benefit from long-term, profitable operation. Several companies and funds have used our structure to raise money since, including accelerator program TinySeed…
Hiring Marketing Startups Tactics Team

Stop Making Your Team Own Tasks. Let Them Own Programs Instead.

Amanda NatividadBy Amanda Natividad
In a given week, I would write product descriptions, digital ad copy, pithy social media posts, a couple blog posts, and the abandoned cart email campaign. I loved having a variety of writing responsibilities. But there was a big problem: if I took a sick day, it would slow down the rest of my team.  Product, customer acquisition, social media,…
Personal SparkToro Startups Team

The Chill Work Manifesto

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
Shortly after Amanda Natividad joined SparkToro, she coined the term “Chill Work” to describe the unusually patient, mature, laid-back approach we take to building this business. And for the last three years, it’s become a bigger and bigger part of how I think about not only this company, but everything I do professionally. Today, I want to share a documentary…
Marketing Startups Tactics

How One Media Placement Led to 1,600 Customers — And How You Can Do It Too

Amanda NatividadBy Amanda Natividad
“But, customer acquisition isn’t how you measure the success of public relations.” I didn’t have formal PR or marketing training and still, I knew it was a ridiculous KPI. This was during my time at direct-to-consumer (DTC) healthy snack startup NatureBox. We were a series A startup, a lean team that needed to grow our business quickly. It just wasn’t…
Product SparkToro Startups Team

SparkToro Year 3 Retrospective: Investor Payback, Systemic Challenges, and V2 on the Way

Rand FishkinBy Rand Fishkin
3 Years ago, SparkToro launched in the midst of a world-changing pandemic. In 2021 and 2022 I wrote updates about this business’ journey, both because I love to transparently share the adventure, and because we’re passionate about spreading the model SparkToro’s used to fund, grow, and bring value to customers. Let’s continue that tradition today 😊 Here’s the good news:…

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