As December 2019 comes to a close, I’m finishing a great assignment as Interim CFO of TheDroneRacingLeague.com. I’ve been interim CFO at various startups including DRL.io, Itopia.com, and IntelliStack.co. What I like best about these assignments is tidying up, organizing, and streamlining my clients’ businesses and processes, and getting to meet and work with new people all the time. There is so much to learn, and nothing beats first hand startup knowledge from the people on the front line!
AlwaysConnected is my newest app startup, available now for iOS. Dump your old business card and take your personal network live. See us on Angel List: https://angel.co/projects/749709-alwaysconnected-app?src=startup_profile
Find out about #telehealth and #AI in my article on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-healthcare-telehealth-ai-peter-hubshman/
KareCall is AI-driven telehealth, a virtual caregiver for the globally aging baby boomer population. It allows home-care patients greater autonomy and saves time for the healthcare practitioners. Please help us help our parents and grandparents. Find out more at at www.startengine.com/karecall.
What's happening in the world of fashion industry startup investment? Who are the VC's behind this plunge into the end of brick and mortar inventory based retail and the beginning of something new? See my article in the Startup Spaces Expert Space: http://www.threespaces.com/network/browser/expertspacepost.jsp?expert_space_id=10&post_id=35
It's the end of the year giving season. So maybe you're looking for one last small or big social investment to top off the year's good deals and deeds. Read my article on a great social investment in the cryptocurrency space: http://www.threespaces.com/network/browser/expertspace.jsp?expertSpaceId=10
What's happening today in the world of cryptocurrency and fundraising cannot be ignored by the venture capital community. See my article on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cryptocurrency-markets-pre-ico-action-peter-hubshman/
Consider co-working spaces like the Impact Hub as natural test beds for growth hacking startups and corporations. In fact, larger corportions can no longer afford not to invest in growth hacking. See my article in Expert Spaces for more. http://www.threespaces.com/network/browser/expertspace.jsp?expertSpaceId=4
Farm Update: I've just posted an update on my farm startup persona, here: http://www.threespaces.com/peterhubshman/founder-fresh-table-farms
From Revolution to Manufacturer. I'm excited! I've had the chance to move vertically from New York City logistics and electric vehicle fleet operator Revolution Rickshaws to UK manufacturer, Cycles Maximus. CM is in the R&D business making short runs of ever better prototype electric trikes for a variety of short haul and last mile logistics systems. The opportunity to scale designs to US-based plants iron all our minds as sales increase.
Financing growth hacking
Consider co-working spaces like the Impact Hub as natural test beds for growth hacking startups and corporations. In fact, larger corportions can no longer afford not to invest in growth hacking.
Wikipidia defines Growth Hacking as ?a process of rapid experimentation across marketing channels and product development to identify the most efficient ways to grow a business. ... Growth hackers are marketers, engineers and product managers that specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business.?
I see this as the very same process on the engineering and product development side described in ?The Lean Startup?, by Eric Reiss, which most of you read when it came out. He coined the term ?Minimum Viable Product? (?MVP?) and described the MVP process, as you know it. It was really all about growth hacking on a budget for startups. Driving down the mistakes with an MVP and increasing the testing until you can smell the traction.
But shouldn?t growth hacking be for everyone, big and small, old and new?
CMO?s, CEO?s and CFO?s: Are you funding growth hacking for your business? Growth hacking is clearly a great method to find one or more growth formulas that work, and perhaps to constantly accelerate your business. Afraid to rock that boat? Think your market is saturated and price is the only driver you can sustain? Most companies should consider this seriously. You can?t afford not to finance and hack success for your new products using an MVP approach. If you can do this all the time, then you may be able to do for your business what growth hackers are doing for many of the best startups.
Startups use the MVP method to launch and relaunch and relaunch their new products until they hit traction. Good ?Venturepreneurs? know that all that growth hacking must be financed properly. Finding solutions in this manner is generally an iterative process. Large companies might be well founded to invest in growth hacking (like Facebook does) and to consider it one of the cores of product and marketing R&D.
To learn more basics about Growth Hacking and some of the thinking behind it, I recommend a quick read of this blog post on the job site, betterteam.com: https://www.betterteam.com/growth-hacking where the editors review their pick for the top 20 growth hacking resources.