Business owners and business marketers in the audience gained some key insights from a talk today at the San Diego Venture Group’s 5th Annual Venture Summit (a gathering of California venture capitalists). The keynote speaker (actually, interviewee) was Josh Berman, Co-Founder and COO at MySpace.com. MySpace is the largest social networking site (my earlier post on social networking sites) on the planet according to Media Metrix (comscore) who tracks such things. (Talk about a small company success!)
The interview was compelling, informal and meaty. Hats off to the interviewer, Michael Montgomery, President of Montgomery & Co. Montgomery has brokered many key media transactions (deals) including the recent sale of MySpace to News Corp.
Here is a pic I found of Josh Berman from Sundance Film Festival. He is a very, very smart, authentic, knows-his-market guy.
Berman talked about the lean days of growing a startup and while working at (other) startups. About going to Starbuck’s at 5:00 am and writing a business plan (for a new startup) till 8am when he went off to work. (There is hope for all CPAs—Berman was a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers prior to launching startups, like MySpace.)
Berman believes that MySpace’s success and growth is continuing since the News Corp. merger (if you can call getting about $580 million) largely because they really leave MySpace to Berman’s team. News Corp. is really letting them do what they do best.
Other insights from Berman:
- MySpace always kept the site as open as possible. When bands wanted to market on the site, they said ‘great’.
- The founders knew the user community would tell them how to grow. Their product and feature roadmap is completely driven by what the user community wants.
- The popularity of social networking sites is going nowhere but up. Why? Everyone is putting their life online—and connecting
- Customized communities are finding success; for consumer products like, deodorants, movies, tie-ins to music…
- ‘Brand involvement’ is the key. That means the brand becomes part of the community. Then consumers embrace the brand. (can you spell user-generated content?)
- So the future for social networking sites? Video, video, video…
- The 3 goals for MySpace this year: 1) International growth, 2) Video, 3) Mobile marketing
As a marketer well-past the MySpace age, here are my key lessons for all businesses about marketing and growing a business from this uber-successful entrepreneur:
- Always listen to your customers, your user base.
- Let customers drive product offerings.
- Make it easy for customers help you market to other buyers. Early on MySpace let the bands set up profiles on the site because they knew the bands would send their fans and drive more users to MySpace. (Good call.) Another social networking site took the band profiles down. (Bad call.)
More tips from yours truly:
- Buy a video camera.
- Learn to use it. Or give it to one of your (younger) employees to use for you.
- Do not send your employee to video-class. Just tell them to start interacting with your best customers. Run the camera. See what transpires.
- Give the camera to one of your early-adopter customers. Ask them to demonstrate why they love your product. How it helps them save time, save money, solve a problem or connect better with their customers.
- Talk to your customers early and often. It’s all about the customer. Always has been. Always will be. Whether you’re selling hammers at a hardware store or servers to an IT Director.
Any ideas out there for using user generated video? Anyone willing to go and video tape an interview with their best customer?
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