@kiwioconnor

A front-page photo shot on an iPhone and for the New York Times...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:10:00 +0100

A front-page photo shot on an iPhone and for the New York Times no less. Incredible, if for no other reason than I can still remember how much my father (a former professional sports photographer) paid for his first digital camera, way back when.

micropolisnyc:

The NYT’s front-page photo of Alex Rodriguez was shot on an iPhone in the Yankee’s locker room bathroom.

Professional photographer Nick Laham, seen above, said he hadn’t planned on shooting w/ his iPhone, but now Getty Images is licensing his entire Instagram series — of A-Rod, Jeter, Teixeira, Sabathia, et al — on its website.

Image of photographer and A-Rod from FStoppers.

Keith Rabois on the role of the COO

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:56:00 +0000

Keith Rabois on the role of the COO:

Loved this interview with former Square COO, Keith Rabois. He likens the role of COO in a start-up to that of an ER doctor: “Just like in the ER, there’s always something broken at a start-up, it’s incessantly chaotic”.

We're Hiring! Jobs in the LSI Portfolio:

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 10:47:00 +0000

2013 is off to a flyer for the LSI portfolio and a number of our partners are hiring in Belfast, Dublin, London and the US. Details of dev, engineering and sales positions below:

Options (London & NYC):

Thinking of a new challenge or just starting out on your career journey? We’re hiring. See our Careers page for details bit.ly/10yF3iS

January 16, 2013

Geopii (NI & US):

We’re Hiring! Find out more at: spatialest.com/jobs #Software #GIS #CAMA

January 8, 2013

Converser (Dublin):

Looking for keen Ruby/node.js developers to join the @converser team and to scale this baby up! oisin@converser.io

January 18, 2013

Get in touch with any questions - kieran@loughshore.co

- Kieran

From last night. A foggy Empire State. #nyc

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:45:16 +0000

From last night. A foggy Empire State. #nyc

Love this from Everything Everything (@E_E_). Ones to watch in...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:40:20 +0000

Love this from Everything Everything (@E_E_). Ones to watch in 2013 -

Startups, your marketing is only as good as your email marketing

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:35:30 +0000

Blue State Digital, the agency behind the digital campaign that powered Barack Obama to the White House in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, recently published some of the key metrics from their 2012 campaign. The firm also published a similar report in 2008 and both make for fascinating reading.

Interestingly, there is one strand of what was a very detailed and varied online presence that is repeatedly held up as the engine behind Obama’s digital, and subsequent, online fundraising success - his use of email. In 2008, the campaign had a reported email database of over 13 million people, which resulted in more than 2 billion individual emails being sent throughout the course of the campaign. In all, Obama raised $500 million online that year, the majority of which was attributed to this email database. In 2012, the figures are equally eye-watering with almost $690 million said to have been raised digitally.

The point of course is that email as a marketing tool is still clearly a force to be reckoned with and one not to be overlooked when early or seed-stage start-ups are deciding on how best to market their product or service. For B2C, email marketing can push people to your site, driving engagement with your brand or usage of your product (see this Fred Wilson post) and for B2B, email remains the key means through which you can reach decision makers (see this great SimplyZesty blog post on content marketing and in particular, the first infographic, which was the inspiration for this post). Most importantly, for start-ups raising seed and angel rounds, which are unable to invest the resources in marketing that a start-up after a Series A might, it a means your marketing costs are next to nothing, extremely versatile, easily measured and quick to create (see Campaign Monitor, MailChimp).

The very best B2B and B2C companies use email marketing extensively to communicate with key stakeholders and it’s something we encourage all our start-ups to use alongside key announcements and in the form of a monthly or quarterly update. It’s often an iterative process but there are a number of key areas to consider. The starting point should always be the email database and your ability to create and sustain it. Defining your key stakeholders and customers is a good starting point, seed-stage startups can still be without a CRM tools so centralising your contacts is key. An email sign-up on your homepage is also important, as is an email request when registering as a user to a web or mobile app (both now pretty standard in any UI). Crucially, a functioning, hassle free unsubscribe mechanism is also a must-have on any mail shot.

The design needs to look credible too, professional and devoid of formatting that will set off those spam filters. Finally the content needs to be on point; of interest to customers, relevant to the expectations they had when signing up to the newsletter and correctly timed in terms of frequency (i.e. weekly, monthly, or quarterly) and day of distribution.

From a personal perspective, I receive dozens of mail shots from various companies in the course of a week, some good and some bad. Some of the best include Codecademy (now mainly product announcements with a little content and good design), Quora (a weekly digest of site news, always complete with a great subject line) and Mike Allen’s Playbook (a daily political tipsheet from Politico packed with great content but with zero design). Each very different in terms of style and content but all are very effective. For start-ups it’s about finding the right balance.

Going back to the US Presidential election, Return Path (a USV portfolio company) published a report in the run-up to November’s election that focused solely on the email campaigns being run by both Obama and Romney. In the report they found that Obama’s email database was 5 times that of Romney’s. The knock-on being that Mitt was banking less than a tenth of what Obama was in online donations. In this case, it would appear your campaign is also only as good as your email marketing.

- Kieran

P.S. In the interest of balance, I should add that Obama’s email campaign wasn’t entirely without criticism. Here’s Jon Stewart’s take.

Freedom Tower. (Taken with Instagram)

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:49:26 +0100

Freedom Tower. (Taken with Instagram)

Some incredible sights in New York last night. (Taken with...

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:47:32 +0100

Some incredible sights in New York last night. (Taken with Instagram)

The view in New York tonight. (Taken with Instagram)

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 05:11:57 +0100

The view in New York tonight. (Taken with Instagram)

Not a bad spot for a couple of pints. (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 17:53:58 +0100

Not a bad spot for a couple of pints. (Taken with Instagram)

BBQ in Donegal. (Taken with Instagram)

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:15:34 +0100

BBQ in Donegal. (Taken with Instagram)

A little bit of genius ambush marketing from Nike. Banned from...

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:49:18 +0100

A little bit of genius ambush marketing from Nike. Banned from shooting an ad specific to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, they’ve shot the campaign in London, Ohio, and London, Norway, and East London, South Africa, and so on, and so on…

Salthill (Taken with Instagram)

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:51:03 +0100

Salthill (Taken with Instagram)

Great blog from Dave McClure on being a late bloomer & his life as a VC:

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:49:12 +0100

Great blog from Dave McClure on being a late bloomer & his life as a VC::

Dave McClure: “I went to college early, and found out that performing well wasn’t always based on being smart. Hard work and regular, consistent effort was also required…”

Big day. I’ve finally ditched my once beloved BlackBerry...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:34:05 +0100

Big day. I’ve finally ditched my once beloved BlackBerry (Taken with Instagram)

Crackin’ drawing from Hugh Macleod at...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:52:57 +0100

Crackin’ drawing from Hugh Macleod at LeWeb

hughmacleod:

Cartoon: how most marketing works. #leweb (Taken with Instagram)

Kasabian. Kept me sane this week. Fire.

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 17:16:00 +0100

Kasabian. Kept me sane this week. Fire.

Proof that even the best iterate.

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:37:02 +0100

Proof that even the best iterate.

RIP MCA via Coldplay

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:23:46 +0100

RIP MCA via Coldplay

"Marketing is dead" says Saatchi & Saatchi CEO

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:26:20 +0100

"Marketing is dead" says Saatchi & Saatchi CEO:

“Marketing is dead. The role of marketing has changed now.

It is a lot about story telling. Brands need to tell stories on their websites, on their packaging and so on. Make sure your brand and company has a smell, it has a sound, it has a feel and an intimacy with people. Think about how you can build empathy. It is the small things that count and how consumers feel about our brands that count today.”