Hot answers tagged forecast
7
You might be asking the wrong question because:
Notice that a lot of the answers here involve leveraging existing social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and I would add LinkedIn and mailbox integration with GMail, Yahoo Mail, and HotMail.
Of course when Facebook was growing, these didn't exist (in the massive, ubiquitous form they're currently in) and ...
6
One of the problems with trying to use other company/people success is that there is a bias towards "survivors" and there may not be any usefulness in copying them.
Essentially you can look at the outcome of facebook and other popular sites as the one lucky survivor out of thousands of initial participants. Eventually you will have a company that has "made ...
6
Take a piece of paper (or a spreadsheet!) and write down the pros and cons for each. Weigh up which, on balance, is best for you.
Then sleep on it, and ask a friend the next day what they think. (The process of talking about it will help make up your mind. It seems that talking helps the decision making process.)
In the meantime, some things to ponder:
...
4
The most powerful element in growing a social network is referrals via your new user's contact list.
The ability to import address books automatically to send out invitations is key to viral growth.
This tactic is so crucial that Facebook acquired a company for such talents recently.
Imagine if there is an average of 100 addresses in each new user sign up ...
3
Modeling churn won't stop you losing customers, but it will give you more accurate information about what's happening, and it will help pinpoint when conditions improve or worsen. It will also give you a basis for doing experiments which try to improve your churn rate.
Here's a tiered approach to modeling churn.
0: For initial planning, assume 50%.
1: Look ...
2
Mark Suster wrote an amazing article on this very question.
Is it time for you to Earn or to Learn.
I think your decision will become a lot clearer after reading it.
2
If you're not able to estimate this for your market for your product, then
People outside of that market and that product won't be able to, and
You need to get some understanding of the basics of product
lifecycle.
There are fairly basic processes around product lifecycle, evaluating ideas, protoptyping, gathering feedback, evaluating markets, performing ...
2
I have no idea how to estimate the amount of sales you are going to get, but I suspect with so many variables there just isn't a way to have a number with any relevant level of accuracy.
If you just want a number to make you feel better than choose a number that does that. If you want to an actual number that's realistic so you can make decisions based off ...
2
You cannot avoid losing customers. There is a natural churn in every industry. However, churn prediction modeling can reliably indicate which individual customers are most likely to churn BEFORE they do – and thus take some action to try prevent it from happening.
While most churn prediction approaches rely on static data and metrics, a more successful ...
2
Our company (Pixability) has built a SaaS for video marketing and also has a video production arm. We deal with tons of raw, encoded, edit-by-proxy video. One thing we have learned early on is there are SO MANY variables, it is hard to find the right data in general. You have to decide on exact format, exact audience, exact type or streaming, etc. etc. and ...
2
Budgets are critical for a successful operation. You need to know what it will take to make your product and have some idea how much your burn rate will be.
There is really no good budgeting software that I have seen. Usually, people just use spreadsheets. You can use Quickbooks but it's not as flexible as a spreadsheet.
As David mentions above, knowing ...
1
I would make a spreadsheet, for example in Excel, were you indicate time intervals in the future (for example each month) on one axis and the parameter in question on the other. In your case this would be cash.
Then I would fill in various expenses that would fall in each month to see when you run out of cash. You could also indicate income, for example, ...
1
Yoav, you asked a million dollar question, since if it was possible to predict which products will sell how much in different websites, you could make risk free, arbitrage revenue...
I looked at that space in the past, and came up with a few techniques, but not enough to put the whole thing together. While it probably can be done using very big data, you ...
1
Yoav,
I think you haven't gotten an answer because of the difficulty in forecasting this type of information. Short of putting in place an affiliate manager who builds an understanding of each affiliates past performance and estimates for sales - its just a pure guess. Having the in depth conversations required to get this information and power the top ...
1
There isn't a general rule. Your company is unique. Your unique value proposition to your customers will be priced in a way the reflects the value you add to them. As such your per unit sales -- and life time customer value will be unique. The market you are in will provide benchmarks for you.
That being said -- you need numbers in your spreads of your ...
1
What you need is a CRM tool. Something like:
Sugar CRM
Salesforce.com
There are tons of customer relationship management tools that exist. Many of these allow you to set goals/expectations and also allow you to manage your 'sales pipeline.' Based on your prospects how much potential money could you make, you can set probabilities and it will calculate ...
1
Along with Alex's address book integration, I would include other social apps. I just saw a Facebook post that indicated it came from Twitter. I've seen wireless posts as well. You don't want to get dropped by users because your app is just one more thing to worry about.
Don't forget email (As much as some of us would like to.). Not as full proof as some ...
1
I think you got it right.
All you have to do is change the amounts of revenue that you expect to receive during any given period. For the lowwater mark, use a conservative, low forecast. Let's say 5 million. And for the highwater mark, use high numbers. Maybe 10 million in revenues. Also, bear in mind, that high revenues usually require high expenses ...
1
I may be wrong, but it sounds like you are too young to be chasing the money, instead of the experience. Getting paid a fair wage is definitely important, but shouldn't be the deciding factor.
First, I would suggest that you take a look at Joel Spolsky's blog, Joel on Software, and read all of his posts listed under the subheadings on the right hand side ...
1
(In addition of what's already posted) I would consider the possibily of joining the startup but I'd take into consideration all possible outcomes. Of course you may learn a lot more in the startup but remeber that is important to know well the founders and their commitment to their project, trust is very important.
I once worked for a startup that failed ...
1
If the start-up fails and you suddenly find yourself without a job, will that cause you incredible hardship, or just a minor inconvenience?
When looking at the issues, you need to look clearly at the possible risks also.
It may help to look more carefully at the start-up and determine how feasible their business plan is, are they counting on some miracle ...
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