Atlantic Business Technologies, Inc.

Author: Atlantic BT

  • 5 “Secret” and Disruptive Content Curation Tools

    Secrets In Content Curation Execution

    We received great feedback after writing Why Content Curation Is Disruptive for Jan Gordon’s new Curatti.com Editors of Chaos website. Half of WHY content curation is disruptive is missing. Execution is more than half of our content and social marketing battle.  This post shares secrets on how we use 5 powerful content curation tools in “secret” ways:

    • Haiku Deck.
    • Scoop.it.
    • Paper.li.
    • Pinterest.
    • GooglePlus.  

    Haiku Deck

    Think of Haiku Deck as a vast improvement on PowerPoint and you miss half the value. Haiku Deck is a brilliant founder’s comfortable easy to use User Interface (UI) for the creative commons. The engine is intelligent. Images are well tagged. When you create a slide Haiku Deck grabs keywords and makes image suggestions. Click on a keyword to see Haiku Deck’s suggested creative commons images. Cool right?

    Cooler still is what happens to your marketing.Presentations become much more TED-like with arresting visuals supporting great storytelling, but the tool really works on the right side of the brain most powerfully. We use Haiku Deck to SUGGEST ways to visually communicate ideas AND we use Haiku Deck to suggest new ideas by wandering around its visual content.

    How many free tools do you use that help CHANGE (for the better) your thinking? Every tool on this post does change the way we create, curate and publish content, but Haiku Deck wins the “suggest new ideas from simply wandering around” award.

    Scoop.it

    Scoop.it is the “hub” of our content marketing strategy. My Scoop.it “Revolutions” passed 100,000 views a couple of months ago. That’s great, but we can’t pay rent on views. We pay rent with knowledge and information and this is where Scoop.it excels. Scoop.it helps content creation and curation in many ways including:

    • Spiders the social web based on keywords you supply & grabs related content you can scoop. 
    • Creates a beautiful magazine from your curation. 
    • Has an amazing community of power curators and Internet marketers (several of these power users have more than 1M views on Scoop.it btw). 
    • Increases curation reach (via community and SEO) while decreasing creation costs and risks.  
    Once your website, blog and other properties are modeled in Google think of every new blog post or webpage as a risk. Back in the “optimization” days Google depended on links with anchor text to confirm a page’s value and content. Google evaluated WHO was linking, and the higher PageRank the better, and what they were linking. Links remain important to Google’s algorithm, but links aren’t alone anymore.

    Social signals, Facebook LIKES, shares, Pinterest pins, Tweets, StumbleUpons and Diggs all influence Google’s mathematical “understanding” of your content, rank and value. If your blog typically gets X support and you write a post that gets X- support authority is harmed. Authority is so hard to win never HARM IT is a good rule.We use Scoop.it to lower content risks and costs.

    Scoop.it lowers risks because we blog about content that earns “legs” on Scoop.it. If content doesn’t set the world on fire as a curated snippet we move on. When content does trend for several days it goes into our “blog about this” folder. We leave 25% of our content calendar for posts on trending topics. Scoop.it is our most important source for “trending topics”.

    Sure you can use hashtags and Twitter to see trending topics, but that content is trending out in the world with who knows who. When our Scoop.it community, a community formed over the several years we’ve used this magical tool, gives a THUMBS UP with a lot of views, shares and ReScoops we trust those results more. We know more about the community that provides our fast Scoop.it feedback. Our Scoop.it community comes from hard core curators and Internet marketers so win them, win the world (lol).

    Scoop.it lowers our risk because we are LESS LIKELY to write a post whose social support is well below our Google modeled means thanks to pre-testing on Scoop.it. Scoop.it lowers our cost because we get exponentially more “testable reach” from curated content on Scoop.it than any other tool, social net or community (though GPlus is coming up fast).

    Paper.li So Much For So Little

    Think of the tens of thousands of dollars you spend creating Tweets (millions perhaps). Without Paper.li that money better do something in the tiny window of a tweet’s half life (less than a day) or record another strikeout and hope for better tomorrow. Paper.li uses a sophisticated algorithm to claw back your tweets mashing tweets into a “Daily Paper” constructed from a GENUS algorithm (perhaps the best we’ve seen).

    Paper.li is as close to “set it and forget it” as any tool gets (if that is how you choose to use it). Set your Paper.li business rules and get tweets thanking you for including people you didn’t know until Paper.li’s magical algorithm introduced you. Paper.li is a powerful Business Intelligence tool too.

    Content that wins, content that makes it through Paper.li’s filters, is content worth investigation. Sites that consistently win are sites worth following. Paper.li is one of those tools we’ve already made so much with, while putting in so little, we owe it a real sit down to figure new ways to take advantage a vastly underestimated tool but POWERFUL content curation tool. Could you disrupt a business vertical with Paper.li? Absolutely and have fun doing creating disruptive competitive advantage too.

    Pinterest

    Pinterst got a bad rap right out of the door. It felt “crafty” and so not like Pinterest could help businesses make money. We’ve built a bigger Pinterest community faster and cheaper than on any other social network. The funny story of how we created our 3,000 strong following by making a mistake we’ve written about, but don’t underestimate the power of arresting visuals. One our most “scooped” pieces of content was a startups resources Pinterest board (had legs for days and days).

    Pinterest has two powerful angles few play.

    First the “community board” creates User Generated Content on your boards (lowering content creation costs). Even better, your community boards appear as boards on those pinning to them creating a form of “widgetization” that creates vast reach cheap. If your community board pinners have 1M followers (collectively) each pin has a million sets of eyes. Widgetization, the ability to create something you control and others curate into, is powerful because it builds community and provides sherpas to carry your curated content up our content and social marketing EVEREST.

    The other thing we love about Pinterest is how strangely “out of time” it is. Stuff you pin today may not do a thing for weeks. Then some “power pinner” takes a liking to it and you are off to the races. Talk about “long tail” of curated content. Checking our Pinterest today only one Repin came from things we’ve pinned in the last few days, yet we’ve had about 50 repins all on content from months ago – strange but cool and anytime you can get MORE out of content you’ve already published its a good thing.

    GooglePlus

    Remember when G+ debuted and everyone panned it? Those days are fading fast (darn). B. L. Ochman, a GPlus guru, said it the best in a Hangout on air last week, “GooglePlus is not simply another social network. It is a powerful set of tools revolutionizing online communication”. we agree and would add every SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis we’ve done (about 20) on a range of businesses show GPlus is a blue ocean. Other social nets are shark invested (and so red oceans).

    If you can be the first to discover unique ways to use GPlus to curate, create and mashup content you will win BIG.

    One of the ways teams I’ve managed made millions online is to look for undervalued assets, invest in them a little before the mob and create differentiation and competitive spacing thanks to a slight lead. GPlus is NOT a falling off a log easy set of tools (yet), so adoption is limited to those wiling to walk through the desert with little water.

    Before it rains and everyone can make the trek we suggest using GPlus for its conversational power, ability to interact with leading experts (in almost anything) and help understand how your content is really landing with PEOPLE not bots. This “new Google” era can be summarized as PEOPLE not BOTS!

    Don’t Forget

    As amazing as these tools are you still need a BLOG and a website (and these can be the same things now). Blogs are great for SEO because they are flat and spiders understand them. Blogs are lousy for links because they are flat and spiders understand them (sort of). If your blog is your website read articles on how to make a blog WORK as a website. You will need to pay attention to how to categorize, menu and splash page your content. If none of that made sense, create a more traditional website and hang a blog off of it.

    Conversation On GPlus
    Great Neil Ferree comment about tools he likes added to my GooglePlus page. Share your favorite disruptive curation tools and we will add.

  • Triangle Startup Factory Fall 2013 Showcase

    TSF Graduation Day

    Yesterday was graduation day for six startup teams as Triangle Startup Factory sent a new class out into the world at their Fall Showcase in the Fletcher Opera Theater in downtown Raleigh (next to Memorial Auditorium). The morning started with networking and great blues influenced folk music from Look Homeward Folk.

    The Triangle is gaining a reputation for innovation, technology and startups. Triangle Startup Factory’s founders Chris Heivly and Dave Neal are about halfway through their intended $4M investment in nurturing startup talent in the Triangle. If you don’t know Triangle Startup Factory or “startup accelerators” you should. Startup accelerators create an intense 8-week “course” to help entrepreneurs gel ideas and get ready to talk to the first round money people. Think of startup accelerators as school for entrepreneurs.

    Interesting to hear Dave Neal explain how only half of this TSF “class” of entrepreneurs came from our area. As if to illustrate Dave’s point, perhaps the strongest presentation came from a Stanford B-School graduate discussing how to dominate and disrupt interactive Christian gaming and online publishing by thinking and acting “mobile first” (4soils.com).

    Bob Young

    TSF’s Showcase started with Bob Young. Bog was one of Red Hat’s first investors and LuLu.com’s founder. Bob is a man after my heart since he has never met a Big Hairy Audacious Goal he didn’t love. Red Hat took on Microsoft (and one could argue is WINNING big) and so of course no less than Amazon is LuLu.com’s next Goliath (been there, done that Bob and wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy). Bob’s life, like so many, has been touched  by the Big C. He lost his brother to leukemia.

    The story of how one of Bob’s brothers was against investing $1M in a fishing camp was inspirational. Seems Michael, Bob’s brother who invested in Red Hat too, loves to fish for pickerel, a love I share btw, he wanted to buy a fishing camp. Another of Bob’s brothers was advising Michael NOT to buy the camp. “The only people that make money from this kind of investment is the person who sold the camp,” Bob’s brother insisted.

    Bob did the math differently. He saw how much his brother loved fishing, and this must have been before he was sick, and approved of “investing” in what he loved even if returns where mostly in his passion for fishing. I would LOVE to have Bob’s take on CureCancerStarter.org, our new crowdfunding cancer research and empowering cancer patients website. Bob, if you are reading this, please let me buy you coffee.

    Jonathon Perrelli

    Chris mentioned Jonathon’s Startup Summit presentation in his introduction of FortifyVentures.com’s founder. I attended that conference too and remember how ADVANCED Jonathon’s discussion of content and social marketing was. Most startups pay little or NO attention to content marketing and social media and that is a mistake. Jonathon’s Startup Summit presentation along with many interactions with startups and knowing how much of a paper chase creating a startup can be (having created 4 companies and looking at a 5th here soon) led me to write The Social Startup. I may see if Jonathon is up for a more detailed GUIDE to content and social marketing for startups since he is a leader in the space (great presentation yesterday insisting social is HERE and NOW and ignore it at your peril if you are a startup).

    TSF Fall 2013 Showcase: SIZL.it

    Sizl.it seems to be a content curation tool, kind of a RSS reader on steroids. The SIZL.it team has several startups under their belt, but they should take a lesson from Jonathon Perrelli or read my Social Startup post. The content opportunity exists BEFORE any APP launch (theirs launches is in a week). No way to find out more information about the company since they don’t blog, YouTube or Scoop.

    SIZL.it provides a great content and social media marketing lesson for startups. Launch your content strategy before your alpha or beta websites. Create a blog NOW and share the journey of creating your revolutionary new personal curation tool app thing. The MOMENT you start sharing bloggers will begin riffing your content (sharing the link) and comments and feedback will follow. Don’t buy the idea your widget is so special it must be kept under wraps since the cost of such thinking far exceeds its benefit (in almost all cases). Execution is where ideas live or die not drawings on napkins.

    Being a “Social Startup” is more important than any VC money because content and the feedback loops even a minimal amount of content marketing create (blog, Twitter, GPlus) is how an idea becomes an app and how an app becomes a beloved tool.  Since I didn’t really understand much of what was presented and can’t find any content to clarify I will reserve further comment.

    One more important startup note. When picking a name LOOK at what you will be up against from a content and social marketing point of view. I’m a content and social marketer these days and I would never advise a name where there is such a red ocean of competition already piled up.

    TSF Fall 2013 Showcase: 4Soils

    If I had the money I would write a check to this team from Stanford. They are DISRUPTING the Christian publishing and gaming space because they think “mobile first”. Smart, well-trimmed, against the wind and with almost a million downloads already means WINNER. Chris taught me to invest in TEAMS not ideas. I hear him, but this idea is perfect. By thinking “mobile first” 4Soils.com rides two HUGE converging waves – mobile and gaming. Throw in their faith based content positioning, an area currently dominated by print players, and if you have an extra $100K WRITE THE CHECK.

    TSF Fall 2013 Showcase:RocketBolt

    “RocketBolt helps websites increase sales and online engagement with automated social tools and drop-in customer loyalty/rewards programs.” Here is another chance to learn a content marketing and web design lesson. I found the sentence explaining RocketBolt.com’s mission on their Facebook page. The rub is their current website creates dissonance with their stated mission. Here is their homepage:

    The RocketBolt.com homepage and content feels like a B2C gamification engine, but their TSF presentation was about helping “websites get what they need” from the web (so B2B). As much as I agree with many of their market defining statements such as how overwhelming it is to be a small business in time dominated by content and social marketing AND as much as I believe gamification will be the answer I can’t understand how RocketBolt gets THERE from HERE.

    If you asked me how B2C Ecom teams I’ve managed made more than $30M with AOV (Average Order Value) NEVER higher than $62 (so more than 500,000 transactions) my first recommendation would be to always know your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and manage to them. I think RocketBolt can help, but I only have their founder’s word and a single example from Durham’s Thundershirt to support that claim (at the moment). Yet another example where a little more content could move me (and other visitors) from curiosity to advocacy.

    Dissonance was death I noted during my 7 year Director of Ecommerce tenure. Confused customers do many things BUYING and SHARING is rarely among them. Right now RocketBolt.com confuses me.

    TSF Showcase: Brevado

    Would write a check here too. Brevado.com solves a problem we (agencies like Atlantic BT) are having RIGHT NOW. In fact we are having the problem this great tool solves with CureCancerStarter.org. We can’t find a single tool to share what we are doing with our four cancer center partners. These are important shares since we are trying to build one of the first crowdfunding websites for cancer research. We debated sharing our BaseCamp, but who wants to do that?

    Basecamp is spaghetti that it is possible to understand IF you cooked the dish. If you are on the outside looking in forget about it. Brevado recognized the missing Lego block needed for agencies like Atlantic BT to communicate with our customers AND the value such a tool could bring. Worth many times the$21 a month they now charge (after a free trial).

    Kudos to team at Brevado for programming the APP and creating the website. Would I like to see testimonials and PEOPLE on their homepage? Sure, but solid presentation and great idea!

    TSF Fall 2013 Showcase: CourseFork

    CourseFork.com is another well-defined market niche, helping teachers and professional instructors, and a solid team with a great grasp of content and social marketing. Potential investors take note, when a team already has 3,600 Facebook likes they know what they are doing. I have a few design nits and would recommend adding GooglePlus (especially for the IT audience they seek), but tweak this engine 10% and it makes lots of money.

    TSF Fall 2013 Showcase: HomeWellness.co

    Homewellness.co is another team that gets it or got some LIFE SAVING advice from Chris and Dave. I’m NOT a big fan of alternative URLs like .it or .co since they don’t SEO as well as .com or .org. The GOOD NEWS is  the team at HomeWellness.co has figured out alternative distribution that makes SEO objections moot.

    The team at HomeWellness.co will sell their service as a HR add-on. Big companies like to keep valuable employees. A company like SAS should engage with HomeWellness.co to have another important service to provide their most valuable assets – the ones that walk out the door every day. By finding alternative distribution SEO isn’t as important. HomeWellness.co becomes a B2B play and so doesn’t have to swim with the sharks as much.

    Since I used to work for the kinds of companies HomeWellness.co will be pitching AND I pitched large Consumer Packaged Goods companies as a Sales and Marketing Director at NutraSweet, here are a few tips that can make the journey easier:

    • Fortune 1,000 companies are very competitive. The minute you sell one ask for a testimonial and the ability to use their logo (should be granted since it reinforces how pro-employee they are).
    • Read Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore (very important book for how to relate to you target audience and “cross the chasm”).
    • Lose the canned graphics. I know original art can be expensive, but how you LOOK determines if you get a second look from the big guns.
    • Remember your website is a “pass along” and will be used to sell the concept, so pepper it with testimonials from UP and DOWN the food chain (assistants to C level execs).
    • I would trade all the copy on your current home page for 3 testimonials because BIG GUYS buy when they are COMFORTABLE and they get comfortable fast when one of two things happens: A. Competitors are already using something or B. Trusted sources tell them to use something.
    • Find a “trusted source” like my old boss from M&M/Mars J. Langdon (former Hickory Farms CEO) and pay them some consulting money so you know HOW to pitch and WHO to pitch. In Fortune 1,000 companies you will need to pitch people who RECOMMEND ideas to decision makers you may never meet.

    That last bullet is where RUBBER will meet ROAD for the team at HomeWellness.co. If your content is so compelling it can survive climbing the corporate ladder where some levels like the financial guys live to say NO then life will be good. My single warning is Fortune 1000 sales can take TIME so hunker down and hone your look and feel for when your website is how some C level executive learns about HomeWellness.co from someone in HR.

    TSF Showcase Summary and FREE Offer

    Great class of startups from one of the Triangle most important ideas – the idea WE can become a startup mecca. Chris and Dave are to be commended for putting everything they have into the mix and spending their life helping others. Sure they get a piece of companies that come through Triangle Startup Factory, but the service they provide all of us is so much greater than the money they are paid! Their contribution goes into the “give back” and “make better” category.

    I’m a believer in giving back too.  Supporters of our Story of Cancer Foundation know my money is up on the table too. If any of TSFs startups would like a couple of hours of my 15 years of ecommerce, content and social marketing experience it is FREE and there for the asking. Paying back with these talented teams is the least I can do for being so nitpicky. I work at Atlantic BT near Crabtree Mall, but live in downtown Durham so a stone’s throw from where most of these companies currently have offices. My contact is Martin.Smith(at)Atlanticbt.com (until January) and call me at 919.360.1224 (and I will leave the number there until it gets spammed).

  • If You Could Change The World Today Would You?

    Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

    5 Ways YOU Can Change The World In 5 Minutes For $50 NOW

    Donate to Roswell Park’s Brain Cancer Vaccine Research.

    Donate to UNC Linberger Cancer Center’s Fibrocyte Research.

    Donate to UW Carbone’s Revolution in colorectal cancer care.

    Donate to Roswell Park’s Vitamin D and Lung Cancer Research.

    Save generations of lives In Malawi by helping to buy equipment we all but take for granted.

    Save The World Marketing

    Perhaps the real question is do we have the courage to make sacrifices necessary to change our world. Can we imagine curing cancer and then act on that thought? Not sure I would have enough courage to change ME if the Big C wasn’t backing me into a corner (lol).

    I see myself as a dragon fighter by choice and profession. Dragon fighting is required when creating anything. You know and have experienced how dragons appear the minute you imagine a different YOU, US or WORLD.

    After hearing “cancer” and my name in the same sentence I began to BUCKET LIST things I want to do before the dragon ate me instead of the other way around. This BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) list took years to fully develop, but here it is:

    Done – Ride a bicycle across America (Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer).

    Done – Create a Cure Cancer Store where every purchase helps cure cancer.

    Done – Create one of the first crowdfunding cancer research websites (CureCancerStarter.org) working with great cancer research institutions like the two that saved my life (Duke and UNC).

    Cancer teaches so many lessons.

    One lesson the Big C teaches is there is NO ONE ELSE. There is YOU, your friends, your family and your doctors and caregivers and that team is what stands between you and whatever is next. The interesting part of this “no one else” lesson is that is ALWAYS the case.

    We always have everything we need to do anything we want.

    WE are the holdup. We imagine and then defer. Once deferring seemed robbed life changed. Let’s change the world together NOW, today, this moment. We might only change it a little. We might only change how cancer research is funded a little.

    Our tiny change may only speed up the cure for cancer a little, but “a little” means a lot to 14M Americans like me living with cancer today. TIME is the magic gift you make when deciding to get involved, help, assist and donate. You are giving me the gift of TIME.

    100% of your donation goes to cancer researchers. Atlantic BT and I are paying for this one as a “pay back” and “Pay forward”, so all money goes to doctors, researchers and great federally approved research centers (how we vet the research by requiring federal approval).

    Let’s slay some dragons together, right now, today. Thanks to my friend and fellow dragon slayer Phil Buckley for creating this great Haiku Deck. Hope you can join us and we can slay dragons together.

  • The Social Startup: Social Media & Content Marketing

    The Social Startup

    What is a startup if not a race to social legitimacy. An idea in one or two people’s heads has grown to a point where it will make magic or not. Since life and startups are rarely all or nothing startups need to be competent content marketers and social media marketing wizards.

    Why competent at one and wizards at the other? Becoming great at creating something, content marketing and social media marketing all simultaneously is a bridge too far for anyone. Startups should focus on developing their widget and adding a social layer to their process.

    Reach is the other reason a social layer is important for startups. Content marketing takes time. Developing a consistent following can take years, but the right tweet can lap around the world twice before breakfast. Would I prefer to have BOTH consistently great content and a powerful social layer? Of course, but startups are about priorities.

    The Problem With Priorities

    Most startups are so widget focused they don’t see the need for social or content marketing. Inattention to the creation and cultivation of a following could be a costly mistake.

    How Social Media Helps Startups

    • Feedback is oxygen for startups.
    • More feedback NOW makes better products later.
    • Many social media pros are attracted to early stage ideas.
    • Deal flow favors the known.

    Years ago in a land far, far away I co-founded a specialty gift distribution business called FoundObjects.com (now RIP). The magic formula to many naĂŻve startup gift companies was to have Oprah feature their gift followed by instant fame and riches.

    Life is rarely as easy as we dream. Oprah doesn’t work that way. FoundObjects.com would eventually have several items featured by Oprah’s magazine and one amazing offer to give away one of our gifts to Oprah audience (another long story for another time).

    Oprah, I learned quickly, isn’t interested in the obscure unproven gift (for the most part). Oprah knows her power. She knew the limits of that power too. Going far out on a limb too often could tarnish even Oprah’s power, so she rarely went out on a limb.

    Oprah preferred to amplify an existing success. She looked hard at products that were small but capable of becoming big and then gigantic. VC’s evaluate business teams and ideas in much the same way.

    Chris Heivly, one of the founders along with Dave Neal of Triangle Startup Factory, explained startup team focus several years ago. Sitting in a coffee shop speaking about one of his favorite things, how to create successful businesses, Chris told me he and other investors don’t bet on ideas.

    Ideas change. Instead of ideas, the thing most startups are hung up on a rock about, Chris evaluates teams. How deep is the team in the core competencies of any business: tech, finance, marketing and sales?

    Startup Social Media – Fastest Way To Learn The Most

    I suggest your startup write blog posts at least every third day, but Tweet and use GooglePlus daily.

    Startup Social Media Content Sources

    • Startups own blog posts.
    • Responding to social notes about the startup.
    • Thanking followers who mention, comment or share.
    • Sharing content from followers and industry experts.
    • Commenting on content from followers and industry experts.
    • Sharing process and progress.

    Twitter is Internet radio. Use Twitter for what is happening NOW or what just happened or what might happen. Use GooglePlus to have conversations, pose questions and get multi-thread feedback.

    Creating Content

    Creating content is only hard until you create content. Once you are in a consistent content creation rhythm it comes like riding a bicycle. No matter how long you are away from riding a bicycle you remember how to do it AND riding a bicycle more means you get better at it.

    Same dynamic is true for startup content marketing. “We don’t have the time,” is a common objection. The irony of startups that spend huge amounts of time creating dog and pony shows to pitch potential investors cold while saying they have no time to warm up their reception hasn’t escaped me.

    What DIY Means For Startups

    We live in a Do-It-Yourself time. One of the implications of DIY is your startup’s online presence will be checked out HARD. Assume potential investors are going to read your copy AND any copy written about your startup (from any source).

    If your content is present, consistent and well received you’ve effectively spread the table. “Spread the table,” means creating many little impressions instead of banking it all one big one.

    Follow The Money

    Let’s talk about one of the most consuming aspects of most startups – money. I heard another VC explain how his evaluation of a company comes from a single perspective – the art of reducing risks.

    We uninitiated think of Venture Capitalists as high-flying risk takers. Not so much this VC explained. Being a VC is nothing if not Darwinian. The way you get to be an “old” VC (this gentleman was retired in his forties) was to apply systematic thinking to risk elimination.

    Some risks can be reduced by having the right team, others by creative financing and still other risk can be limited by the right partnerships so VC evaluate RISKS and then apply their address book and network to lessen the risk and so increase chances for profit.

    Let’s apply the same thinking to the creation of your startup. Executing the social media strategy I’ve suggested will cost about a day a week or about 400 yours a year about 20% of the 2080 hours in a full year.

    I realize no startup only works 40 hour as week, but stay with the model for a moment. If someone asked most startups if they would trade 20% of their sweat equity to double or triple their valuation most would say an immediate YES.

    How about if we ask if an investment of 20% of time could lower costs by half if they would do that trade. Again most would say YES. Following the content ideas here could help reduce recruitment costs, launch marketing costs and new customer acquisition costs so once again our 20% investment provides solid startup return.

    There Are No Secrets

    Many startups are scared their ideas will be stolen. Your ideas will be stolen. The key to survival is not caring when your ideas are stolen because you own the keys to a much more valuable and hard to steal thing such as a competent content marketing engine matched to some real social media wizardry.

    Unless you are working in some highly technical medial field worry that your ideas will be stolen shouldn’t eliminate benefits associated with fast feedback loops created from social media. Think back to Chris Heivly’s lessons. Chris evaluates TEAMS not ideas because he fully expects ideas to change.

    The extension of Chris Heivly’s statement is your startup should risk sharing because the OVER (what you stand to gain) far out weighs the UNDER (what you stand to lose). This statement is true for developing a competent content marketing strategy strapped to a great social strategy too. The OVER, what your startup stands to gain, far outweighs the UNDER, what any startup stands to lose.

  • Atlantic BT Does The Impossible – Inc. 5000 For Five Years

    Less Than 10%

    Less than 10% of the “fastest growing private businesses” who achieved the Inc. 5000 award five years ago will make the cut for the fifth year. Atlantic BT is in rare company with our 10th Inc. 5000 award. Inc.’s growth requirements are so high repeating once let alone five times can be all but impossible.

    Atlantic BT Passes Test of Time

    Time may be the great overlooked judge. Google uses time in their algorithm not granting trust until trust is earned. Achieving the Inc. 5000 award for five years straight speaks to a company’s ability to design and execute process to create satisfaction. Satisfaction implies customer support and no five time Inc. 5000 winner can achieve the award five times in a row without amazing customers.

    The other side of the satisfaction coin for a web design and software development company is employee satisfaction.

    Every skill Atlantic BT teaches and employs is in high demand. Headhunters practically camp in our parking lot, so employee satisfaction is as important as high ratings and word-of-mouth from customers. Atlantic BT’s second year on Triangle Business Journal’s Best Places To Work speaks to our company’s ability to balance on a beam between customers and employees.

    Secret Sauce

    I’ve had the honor to work for great companies such as P&G and M&M/Mars. I’ve started four companies and so can appreciate how difficult Jon, Mark and our team at Atlantic BT’s achievement can be. In my almost two years at Atlantic BT I’ve learned about where success lives.

    Atlantic BT Secret Sauce

    • Inspirational people (starts with CEO Jon and President Mark, doesn’t end there).
    • Great Team.
    • Willingness to HIRE NOW and figure it out later.
    • Myth Creation.
    • Business Processes.

    Myth Creation & Business Process

    At first I didn’t understand. In my career cultural events were either formal (M&M’s) or missing (when you are burning 401k money nose is firmly to grindstone in companies I started and that was a mistake of epic proportions <smile>). Atlantic BT’s need to haul out their medieval Trebuchet once a year to see how far they can smash pumpkins seemed inconsequential and strange.

    Atlantic BT's Trebuchet graphic WRONG!

    The more I got to know Jon the more I understood Atlantic BT’s culture. Jon started Atlantic BT in 1998 when he was nineteen (what were you doing at 19, I was NOT doing anything that might one day employ more than 70 people). It is rare I meet someone whose brain spins at faster cycles than mine. This is NOT to say I am smart as much as chaotic (lol).

    Jon is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever worked for or with. His ability to see the unseen connection is the best I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had the honor of working with some amazing people. Jon is so competitive he works all night on his egg drop contraption or tries to figure out how to rescue a Ford Bronco on his “free” time.

    For every brilliant grey cell of Jon’s there is a need for balance. Mark provides the perfect balance. Mark, or someone with Mark’s leadership and management skills, is the missing element in my four startups. Mark makes trains run on time and that they run on the right tracks. Mark doesn’t try to manage a company this size alone. He gets great help from solid Project Managers and an expanding layer of “coach/leaders”.

    Inspirational people can wander around in the dark forever without defined yet flexible processes.

    Atlantic BT has several well defined business processes. My favorite example is our Continuous Quality Score or CQS.  CQS was a brilliant answer to a clear problem. As projects increased in size and time to market the management team noted we needed to check and catch wobbles before they became cracks.

    CQS is brilliant and cool, but it is also a living breathing and important “business process”. When bad things happen they get fixed long before brush fires become infernos. Every Friday the company meets before Jon buys everyone lunch (a sizable bill with more than 70 employees). CQS is one of the fixtures of Atlantic BT’s team standup meetings. CQS is the voice of the customer and customers are respected and appreciated at Atlantic BT.

    Dov Seidman in his great book How: Why How You Do Anything Means Everything explains our business processes are all the “intellectual property” left. In a “no secrets” flat and connected time how a company forms their work, identifies market needs, responds to customer concerns and creates a family atmosphere where employees feel valued and loved is what a company owns. Inspirational people, myths, process and fun create the strange alchemy that is Atlantic BT one of the fastest growing private companies in America for the 10th year.

    In a few months I will “retire” to work on Story of Cancer Foundation and Cure Cancer Starter, one of the first crowdfunding cancer research websites being created by Atlantic BT.  Life is a strange twisting journey and TIME is our most valued and often overlooked nonrenewable commodity. In my long strange trip of a business career I’ve consistently voted for creativity and challenge. Like most people I judge a “job” on its ability to teach new things.

    Working for Jon, Mark and with the amazing team at Atlantic BT has been like going to Internet marketing graduate school all over again, the school that never ends <smile, sigh>. This is NOT to say I skip home from work everyday, but the character of this company wants to do the right thing.

    Perhaps the highest compliment a cancer survivor can pay is I’m glad I spent two years learning, working and contributing to Atlantic BT. Success will continue for Jon, Mark and the team at Atlantic BT because their heart is in the right place and our minds (whether employee or customer) know it. Maybe having your heart, passion and mind in the game is the secret sauce that brings Great Place To Work and Inc. 5000 awards to Atlantic BT.

    Note
    I published this post erroneously with 10 years initially, but the extensive research I did last year into the Inc. 5000 was in anticipation of Atlatnic BT’s 5th straight award. Less than 10% of Inc. 5000 companies make the list 5 years in a row. Apologize for the mistake, but Atlantic BT’s 5th year on the Inc. 5000 is a substantial accomplishment sure to be followed by many more.

  • Atlantic BT Best Places To Work 2nd Year!

    TBJ’s Annual Best Work Places Survey

    Each year the Triangle Business Journal (TBJ) searches for the “Best Places To Work” in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Among the thousands of companies in the Triangle TBJ employs Quantum Market Research to find 35 “Best Places to Work” in several categories. Quantum Market Research created a rigorous employee survey with Best Places Awards earned based on survey results. Kudos to TBJ for creating a “contest” that captures the how employees feel about their company.

    Here is Atlantic BT’s founder and CEO Jon Jordan’s Facebook note after TBJ’s 2nd Best Places To Work award:

    “In my opinion one of the best local awards to win! Definitely the one I’m most proud of. Congratulations to our hard working managers and employees for winning Best Places to Work in the Triangle for the second straight year!”

    Kudos for Atlantic BT

    Kudos for Atlantic BT are arriving from many directions. After growing the company’s web design and software development business consistently since its founding in 1998 Atlantic BT is up for a rare 5th straight  Inc. 5000 award, an award less than 10% of companies achieve because consistently growing for five years straight is a hurdle most small businesses can’t get over.

    Atlantic BT also earned Best Web Designers In The Triangle from The Independent’s (Indyweek.com) annual survey. Atlantic BT isn’t alone. We are lucky to have great entrepreneurs and companies in our triangle of North Carolina. Atlantic BT supports and has been supported by many “Best Places To Work” on TBJ’s list including:

    Brooks Bell
    Netsertive
    ChannelAdvisor
    Vamp Communications
    CAPTRUST Financial Advisors
    Magnus Health
    Hill, Chesson & Woody
    Netsertive

    TBJ’s Best Places also showcases several Atlantic BT web designs including:

    Hire Networks 

    Parata Systems

    To echo Jon’s note, Atlantic BT is a “Best Place To Work” because of our great team and awesome customers. We love customers who bring web design and marketing challenge, creativity and passion to the Atlantic BT Center (right across from Macy’s Crabtree Valley Mall) daily.

    Congratulations to every Best Places To Work company. Together every company on Triangle Business Journal’s list (and several great startups, universities and companies not mentioned) make the Triangle one of the most innovative and exciting places to live and work.

    Join and Follow Atlantic BT

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