Erik Christiansen - Surfbreakrentals.com | Webchalet.com | Justuno.com

How to get Facebook Likes: One Tip,That’s It!

socialerik — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:50:39 +0000

How many blog post have you read with a title like “Top 5 ways to get Facebook Likes”? There’s nothing unique about the content, it’s one social marketer copying one another without providing much real insight or creative thinking. It’s about time we had something new to add to the mix and here it is:

1) “Social Offers” Instant rewards for a Facebook Like, Tweet or Google +1. Embed a free widget directly on your website and start converting visitors to Get Facebook Likes.

Why this works:
a) Users “like” you or become fans for one main reason: Discounts & Special offers.
When polled, 80% of Facebook fans stated the content they most desire is discounts or promotions.

b) 27% of website visitors seek out coupons when shopping online. Online shoppers are becoming more and more savvy everyday. Just start asking your friends, family, customers “Do you ever google for a coupon before checking out?”.

c) Hypothesis: Website visitors would be willing to Facebook Like, Tweet or +1 for a coupon code, free download or free trial while shopping a website.
Original Findings: 57,865 said YES (they didn’t just say yes, they used the test widgets we embeded)

D) All of the above. (Extra Benefits)
-Improve Cart Abandonment Rates: Did you know that 44% of users don’t check out because shipping is too high? And that the second largest group leaving your site is for price-comparing? PRESENT AN OFFER WHILE USERS SHOP ON YOUR SITE to incentivise them to check out!

-Advertise to your Customers’ Social Networks: Social leads are the highest quality potential customers, everybody knows that!

- Reduce Unnecessary Affiliate and Daily-Deal Fees: Why pay a middle-man to advertise to your customers? One flat monthly fee for as many Offers as you would like, and for as many Likes as you can earn!

Buy or Not to Buy Facebook Fans

socialerik — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:00:04 +0000

Did you know you can buy facebook fans? Yes, it’s no different than childhood, you can still buy friends. However, just like childhood, these friends (Facebook Likes, Fans, Twitter Followers) have no real loyalty or long term value to you and your business. Focusing on gaining and developing strong relationships with real fans and followers is where you need to focus your time and energy. However, just like childhood, there’s an element of value in your early years of business in which having a few extra friends may help out. Here’s our take on buying fans or followers:

1) Social Proof (Ad defined by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof)
Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychologicalphenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation. This effect is prominent in ambiguous social situations where people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior, and is driven by the assumption that surrounding people possess more knowledge about the situation.

First impressions are important, and first time visitors to your website can quickly gauge how “established” or “respected” your site is based off your Facebook fan count. It’s nothing too scientific, just think about your own personal experience in regards to this. It’s similar to when you walk by a restaurant, if it’s packed you assume it’s really good.

The breakdown: We recommend that users buy Facebook Fans just in the very very beginning purely in regards to “Social Proof”.

Vinod Khosla @Rocketspace

socialerik — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:44:16 +0000

Notes from Vinod Khosla (Sun) talk 4/4/2012 – Rocket-Space.com
Khosla Ventures - http://www.khoslaventures.com/

Fail=
-way to iterate to the right answer
-as long as not major consequences
-adjust as you discover

At what moment do you say not going to work:
-most of the time it’s because they decided on a path and stuck with it. failed on how, maybe need different tactics.

Lot’s tried facebook before, where they failed
-Vision, iterate as often as you can to get to your vision. ”ultimate surf travel resource”. Try different way there.

People can solve most problems.

Necessity is ultimiate drive,.
Get creative when life depends on it…

If market right, and people right. Plan doesn’t matter…
“Sometimes it’s a disadvantage to have a plan”

What i get out of a plan, but the quality of thinking. Use the plan to judge the entrepreneur.

Never looked at rate of return calculation.

Plans are important:
1) quality of thinking
2) see if looked at risk in the space
If you don’t question yourself and plan, wrong type of entreprenuer.

Help entr. to ask hard questions, challenge them.

BOARD MEMBERS/MEETINGS
Seldom attends board member meetings, waste of time. you can’t just report. What are the 1, 2, 3 most important questions until next phase and brainstorm around them.

Boards shouldn’t work on things. VC come in 4-6weeks, don’t know enought about what your doing.
-don’t know all the intracacies that you do.
-They should ask you hard questions, push the thinking, but leave the decision up to the entreprenuer.

VC”S has nothing to do with money. Should help them to build a bigger better company. Extend the thinking and range of the entr. The SOURCE of the money is more important.
Jack Dorsey went with them because always pushing him think, to characterize risk before running into them.

What power do these entreprenuers have? Tough going around to VC’s.
As entr. hard to know what you don’t know and know what you don’t know.
-stuff they figure out they don’t know, hardest part is to decide what advice to follow.
-Who do you ask? Who’s opinion on what topic? The most important thing is determine who’s opinion to take…

Ask 2-3 people (diff background people), get diff. answers and determine best answers.

Gene pool engineering: look at the papers on site.
How do you engineer the gene pool to maximize oportunities and minimize the impact risk. Force to look at opportunities and risk.
Hire into that risk, what companies worked on solving those risk.
(What are our risk?)
What if other companies in space:
Awesome people
Different value proposition
Better User acquisition strategy
“Fast follower”

Dynamic of questioning is essential.
If visible failures you will
More experiments, more ideas can come to life.

What about High demand for engineers:
Vinod was asked to sit down with a candidate as favor to portfolio company. Helps bring talent in.

“Don’t make same mistakes twice, just find new ones to make”
Most people as screw up get more conservative…

Get more experienced, less experimental they get…natural.

Hard to find the right people to do this right…

Passion for a vision!
Facebook: with the IPO open up angel investors. people will go out and chase passion. Finally do something they enjoy.

VC’S make decisions based off:
3 to 4 things they fall in love in.
They tell partners”Here’s what I liked about it.”
Why should you invest?
These reasons will result in a big company.
Address the reasons “why they won’t invest” (here’s the risk)
Greed and Fear (losing)
Your Greed:
Your Fear:
Are you realistic? are you naive?
Investors don’t like hype.

90% brain plan why right, not wrong…
practical genious book

At what point do you bring in a ceo?
Pros vs Cons: as founder lots of ideas. Missing the Process… ( I am missing the processes)
Dynamic of challenging all your assumptions (lean start up)

(Strengths: Strategy and Product)

Managed conflict is ok, need biases

Startup:
Only the paranoid survive- Book http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/0385482582
Paranoa and vision and optimism= skitzofrantic….
What are all the things that can go wrong…whats the best thing.

Job of founders not about building company, but managing risk… when hire people it add’s risk. When add features, slows you down to risk. Everything you do reduces vs increases risk. (Minimal viable product=big fan of this.

SEO Audit: “Increase Facebook Fans” at Page 2

socialerik — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:23:21 +0000

Fighting through the mess of websites that sell false facebook fans, the little social media widget of Justuno is crawling it’s way up to the top to position number 18 for the phrase “increase facebook fans“. We’re also keeping an eye on spot ”Gain Facebook Fans” which is showing on the radar in position 42.
Over all goal is to separate ourselves from the category of sites that offer short term, poor quality fans for purchase and stand out on top as the premier provider of Facebook fans for businesses.

How to be a productive startup CEO

socialerik — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:34:49 +0000

I just spent the day doing something I’ve never done before; I scheduled and planned out each hour of my day. My plan was to take smaller chunks of time and go from there. At the start of each hour I set my goals and worked towards them. If I didn’t complete a task it rolled over to the next.

Why I did this:
-When I start thinking about everything I could be doing it gives me anxiety.
-No day is the same for me.
-I lack structure
-I have to fill a lot of roles and get distracted easily.
-Standard planning simply doesn’t work.
-At the end of the day I often feel like the day got away from me and I haven’t gotten much done.
-Thought: test a new method where I’d be scheduling hourly work sessions and keeping track of what actually gets done.
-Attempt to track where my time goes, to see how to improve.
-Validate that I actually get stuff done…

Here’s how it went:
7:30-8:30am:

Goal:
Stretch, Coffee, Breakfast, Shower, Complete to do list/work outline for Travis tonight as he will be doing a lot of work on Justuno.

Actual:
-Travis outline almost done
-Stretch: yes
-Coffee: yes
-Breakfast: on grill
-1/5 physical therapy: yes
-Tapped sprained or broken hand…

8:30-9:30
Goal:
-Finish Justuno to do list
-Eat breakfast
-2/5 physical therapy
-Review email: surfbreak, justuno, personal

Actual:
-Email reminder to T to send codes to appsumo
-Switched from online npr stream to ronn ownes 810 kgo
-Reviewed all email: responded to Justuno cs and set up 15 minute call w Matt @ surfbreakrentals.
-Sent off this email outline for tonights Justuno work session:

This is the email/outline I created and sent:
Stuff for tonight…not 100% but hopefully will help to be most efficient with your time. (in order of priority)

1) Pricing Page:
-Gain up to 1,000 Fans per month. $29 “Starter”
-Gain up to 5,000 Fans per month $59 “Rock Star”
-Remove middle plan
-Possibly run enterprise along the bottom in just text…

2) Support Link:
-Let’s link the top “Support” link to this thread instead of the getsatisfaction shit.

http://community.justuno.com/forums/topic/21/-/view/post_id/22

3) Tour Page:

-Add case study (attached)
-Link up logos (remove deals2have.com, premierusa)
-Add
http://www.candieapple.com http://www.tranquilitymattress.com/ http://www.programr.com/ http://www.jrobertsclothing.com/
invoicera, Custom insall (click 30day trial: http://www.covestorm.com/pricing)

-above the logos maybe have an arrow pointing to the button on right side?
-embed a custom button to show as an example (might be too much?)

4) Re embed our justuno widget code (moves button to right side)

5) Sign Up

-add new buttons. (old email from erik)
-add “Step 1, 2, 3″ next “Create account & Get Embed Code” Or Step 1: Create Widget Step 2: Create Account & Get Embded Code. ?

6) Create Account Page:

-This text needs updating: remove the plan?

-Selected: Free 30 Day Trial

$29 per month or $249 per year afterwards

7) “Developer” page

-Provide custom embed buttons (searched for 15 minutes to find a great site that has custom button templates. Will ask Ken again)

Social Engine Community Integration Completed

-Match up header: link logo back to justuno.com, add in normal nav.

9) Custom appsumo landing page. (Discuss…)

Sample: http://www.contactually.com/special/appsumo

10) New authorize account linked in

11) Tech Support:

-http://www.gardenbeet.com/ - Felicity needs help installing on prestacart

-language translation- mathaui

-Send appsumo coupon codes

12) Things to consider: 30 Day Free trial concept.

-Offer “FREE: First 50 Fans or Followers” instead?

9:30-10:30
Goal:
-Twitter catch up for Surfbreak, Justuno: follow new followers. Check new followers for opportunities to connect (DONE for sbr)
-Justuno: follow new clients
-Review hootsuite (DONE- defiantly a good tool)
-Check in with Ken for work session today (DONE)
-Review new code push to Surfbreak (DONE)
-physical thereapy 2/5 & 3/5 (forgot 2/5 last time) (DONE)

10:30-11:30:
-pt 4/5
-review remainder of day plan
-email jon for fight match sat. (DONE)
-30 minutes on hoot suite
-review nda for yapstone
-go to rocketspace?

Actual:
-Dishes
-2 words w friends moves
-realized hootsuites free plan is more limited than it says
-reviewed cell service. 23 days left. switching to verizon next month.
- Responded to reallybigdeal.com for details on upcoming deal/launch of their site.
-Using Ipad next to computer to monitor all email in boxes. i like this.

11:30-12:30
Goals:
- Justuno community prep for upcoming appsumo traffic. Define what content is needed and begin filling.
-Surfbreakrentals meeting outline for tonight.
-Food?

Actual:
-Bug reported on surf regions: cleaned up puerto rico region: http://www.surfbreakrentals.com/regions/puerto_rico
-Photoshop outline for appsumo landing page
-Phone call w Travis on tues eve development list

12:30-1:30:
-Food
-Remainder of day goals/plans: see where I’ll be focusing.

Actual:
-Ate lunch/went for walk for a view of the bay.
-Created major milestones outline for Surfbreakrentals meeting tonight. Rough Summary: 1) Community integration 2) Payment Integration 3) Basic website design/functionality updates planned.

1:30-2:30
Goal:
-Reach out to designers for WebChalet.com Site redesign.
-Update Justuno community
Actual:
-Messages sent to top two designers of choice.
-Transferring over old Justuno forums and updated category names for aesthetics, usability and seo
-Move to couch to work horizontal and relieve back.

2:30-3:30
Goal:
-Focus on moving over Justuno content.
-If finish, bring in updated content from internetretailer & mashable

Achieved:
-Making progress. Moving over content still.

3:30-4:30
-Move over Justuno content to community

Achieved:
-Forum content transferred and ready for Appsumo deal.
-Integrating Facebook connect

4:30-5:30
Need a break…

Achieved:
-rest
-personal calls
-shower

5:45-6:30
Goals:
-Finalize meeting time and place for surfbreakrentals tonight.
-Find button design site for travis
-Final notes for meeting
-Clean apt. for meeting here
-Espresso…

Achieved:
-Meeting set my place at 7
-Apt cleaned
-Espresso down

6:30-7:30
Goals:
-Icons for travis
-Facebook connect working on Justuno
-Connect with Ken

Achieved:
-Icons
-Facebook not functioning perfect..turning off.
-No word from Ken.

7:30-9:30
Goals:

Surfbreakrentals.com partner meeting.
Achieved:
Great meeting, stayed on point and achieved goals.

9:30-10:30
Goals:
Run through small site items and task.
Eat

10:30-11:30
-Follow up on Travis progress with Justuno
-Follow up with Ken’s progress with Surfbreak

Achieved:
-Lagunitas IPA
-Skype review with Ken. Lined up 10am tomorrow at the Rocket.

11:27: Finishing up this blog post. All in all this has been one of my most productive days in a while. I think I’ll try this tomorrow as well and go from there…erik

A Year in Orbit with RocketSpace

socialerik — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:46:38 +0000

Wow, already one year at RocketSpace. It’s amazing how fast time flys when moving at the speed of Startup. As Duncan’s first tenant, it’s been an incredible experience watching the Rocket come to life. While flipping through the photos on my iphone and reflecting back on the year, I’m reminded that the greatest value add of RocketSpace has nothing to do with business, but life as a whole. The environment Duncan has created brings some of the worlds wildest and brightest personalities under one roof, the end result is a collection of memories and unique friendships that I can’t imagine having missed. It’s no different than when you return from exotic travels and say to yourself, “Man, I can’t believe I could have gone through life without experiencing that place”.

As a whole, Rocket Space has provided me with something that is hard to quantify; inspiration. I joined the Rocket at a time when I needed it the most. Getting out of bed each day was a challenge while recovering from a broken neck and back. Many days the only thing that motivated me to to get out of bed was knowing that the energy inside the walls of RocketSpace was there. From this, my startups benefited greatly.

Attached are a few photo’s that survived on my iphone from the first few months of the rocket…the first client, first keg, first startup crawl. Good luck in 2012! – erik

Duncan gets his first paying client: 1/15/2011

Duncan and Mike in the daily/nightly trenches building desk/chairs. Yes, most desk and chairs you sit in today those two constructed by them usually over beers through the night.

Somewhere behind the scenes you’ll find Mike buried in wires:

The social life with the Twins & Startup Crawls…(Yes, Justin is setting up Franzia boat races)

Need a more refined site design for wc & justuno, sites we’re using for ideas.

socialerik — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:20:47 +0000

A few to start as we gather websites we feel have a refined, polished look.

http://disqus.com/

http://www.balsamiq.com

http://www.pagemodo.com

https://path.com/

http://central.ly/page/home

http://www.shopify.com

How to Videos: Increase Facebook Fans/Likes

socialerik — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:05:42 +0000

Today was a busy day creating videos of our top clients who every day are able to increase Facebook fans/likes, google plus and tweets with our social commerce widget from Justuno. Here’s a few highlights of successful installs. (Special shout out to Justin Beere for audio support)

10dollarmall.com – 3% Off Entire order if you like, +1 or tweet

DHstyles.com – $30 Off if you like, +1 or tweet

Programr.com – Free Java Class if you like, +1 or tweet

How To Videos: Create a widget to increase facebook fans/Likes, Google Plus & Tweets

Once the widget is live on your website, you can edit the content in real time within your Justuno account.

Pricing Models: Yammer freemium

socialerik — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:48:24 +0000

(an email i just sent travis)
Here’s one thought based off yammer:
https://www.yammer.com/about/pricing

Here’s what we’re thinking for Justuno:
FREE – up to 50 likes,g+ or tweets per month
$79 Month – up to 1,000 likes, g+ or tweets per month
$199 Month – Unlimited

Design notes: buttons for your website

socialerik — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:53:50 +0000

Good resource that we used on surfbreakrentals.com and for the promo buttons that clients embed next to their “enter your promo code here” with Justuno:
I just had to track it down in an old skype call, so saving for future use:
http://www.button-download.com/