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These guys are being so hospitable! Check 'em out at coloft.com

quoted from Revisiting a Start-Up

Last year I wrote about visiting Startup Incubator DreamIT ventures (5 Questions for a Start-up accelerator), and about meeting the team from Posting.  At the time, Postling told me they wanted to help "a small business with limited time and resources manage their social media presences."

Since we left the Postling team, they’ve launched their product, taken feedback from the market and shifted their product to better match the needs they heard in the market. As part of this shift, they also raised money from investors via the AngelList (which was covered last month in 5 Questions for an Angel Investor.)

I spoke with Dave Lifson, CEO and Co-Founder of Posting, to learn about their new investment and their new direction.

HG: What is the new mission for Posting?

Dave Lifson: We are creating a dashboard for local businesses that brings together the best social media tools in the business, and teaches them how to use those tools most effectively. The whole goal is to drive more people to your door.

HG: Give me an example.

DL: There's a building management company using our tools. They have 45 buildings, each has it's own social media accounts. One woman manages all of this outreach and listening. Using Postling, she is managing all the comments on Facebook pages for each of the building communities.

For other small businesses, we think Postling can help them save time, seeing comments and their presences in one place instead of going from site to site.

HG: What are some future features your customers would like to see?

DL: We’re now letting them track Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Citisearch, and post to these sites plus WordPress and Tumblr. We believe there are 100's of great tools available for small businesses. We plan on taking the best ones and integrating them into Postling, creating a one-stop-shop for busy small business owners who don't have time to learn how to use 100 different sites.

HG: What can other startups learn from your experience of creating a product, then shifting to a new direction?

DL: Listen to your customers and don't be afraid to try things that might fail. Early stage startups are not arrows flying straight to a target, but instead are bloodhounds hunting for the right trail. I blogged about creating the 3.0 version of our product and how we got there.

HG: How did you learn what the market needed from you?

DL: It was taking us 4 months to close a sale, as the PR firms and agencies we were targeting simply weren't able to make decisions quickly. The space was highly competitive and commoditizing quickly – more and more tools were being offered for free, and the companies who wanted to pay for a tool were in such high demand they could ask for all kinds of customizations. And when you give in to customizations, you stop being a startup… We also heard from VCs that, while they loved the founding team, they also didn't see what was so special about us. Yes, we had some features other players didn't, but features can be duplicated. What makes a startup truly special? That's a question every founder needs to understand.

HG: How did you tell your story so Angel investors would listen?

DL: It's all about having your elevator pitch down pat. Skip the details; answer "What problem are you solving? Who are you? Why does it matter if you solve that problem?" It should take you no more than 60 seconds to answer all of that. For us, it was "We're building a dashboard for local businesses that puts the best tools in one place and teaches them how to use them effectively. I'm an engineer turned product manager from Amazon.com and Etsy, and my co-founders were the engineers who built Etsy. The SMB market is huge, and our experience at Etsy makes us uniquely able to build the grassroots communities necessary to reach those SMBs without a huge expensive salesforce."

Congratulations to Postling for raising their Angel investment and for changing to meet their market.

I was interviewed by Inc. Magazine talking a bit about my startup experiences. Hopefully you guys like it.

(Also, this is reblogged via our new tracking feature we'll be launching soon. Real-time search results reblogged to my tumblr, my wordpress, and my facebook. Pumped!)

Yep, that's a flickr photo that I can reblog to my WordPress, Tumblr, or other any of the other blogs we support (Typepad, Blogger, Squarespace, Drupal, Facebook Notes). I'll be unveiling this today at Smashsummit. 

You like it?

Whenever you tell entrepreneurs and investors that you're going after the small business market, the inevitable question is, "What is your customer acquisition strategy?" I thought I'd lay out my thoughts on this, as it relates to Postling.

Customer acquisition, which really means "How will people know you exist, and how will you convince them to care", usually comes in four forms – sales, advertising, channel partnerships, and word of mouth. We decided that sales was completely out of the question, because we didn't have the money or the expertise to do sales well. We'll do some testing to see if paid ads on Google / Facebook will work for us, but I'm skeptical, especially after hearing from Drew Houston of Dropbox how poorly it performed for them.

That leaves channel partnerships (top-down) and word of mouth (bottom-up), and that's where we're headed. (Also, read this superb post by Mark Suster about the dangers of channel partnerships.) So how do we get word of mouth going?

That's where Sidewalk Collective comes in. Sidewalk Collective is a monthly meetup for local business owners to teach each other how to use various technologies to improve their business. We had our first event last month in NYC and this month will be holding events in NYC + LA. (Next up, SF and Philadelphia!)

Here are the components of our strategy:

1. Peer leadership. While Postling is the official organizer of the meetup, the meetup discussions are lead by other Sidewalk Collective members. This is important; if we were to lead the discussion ourselves, it would come across as too much like a sales pitch.
2. Start with influencers. Our strategy is to reach out to the business owners who are already on Twitter / Facebook — the ones who "get it" and are role models — and ensure that they have a fantastic experience at their first event. If they leave their first event having learned a ton and are excited for the next one, they will bring their friends to the next event (who will bring their friends, too). 
3. Work with local organizations. The Chamber of Commerce is a great partner in driving awareness. Same goes for your local greenmarket, neighborhood small business associations, etc. All of these organizations are looking for valuable events to recommend to their members (in order to earn their annual dues).

What's in it for us?

1. Permission marketing. At the end of the event, people inevitably ask, "Thanks so much for the great event… so what is Postling?" And we can tell them how they can use Postling to apply all of the great tips and strategies they just learned about using us. 
2. Customer development. We are hearing straight from our target customers' mouths what pain points they experience, what their routines are like, and what keeps them up at night. 
3. Cultivating awesomeness (read this!). Forming real relationships with our customers and helping them be more successful leads to the kind of sticky loyalty that lower-priced copycats can't defeat. 

If you are interested in creating a Sidewalk Collective in your city, email sarah@postling.com. If you would like to discuss a sponsorship opportunity, email josh@postling.com. Our next event is Tuesday, May 25th at 7pm in both NYC (tickets) and LA (tickets), with a free Postling workshop starting at 6pm.