Carsonified

Exciting news for us and I wanted to share it with you all.

The mighty Register has listed DropSend as one of the top 25 Web 2.0 Startups in the UK (see #21).

We’re honoured to make the list. Thank you to all of our wonderful fans and customers - we couldn’t do it without you.

So as most of you know, DropSend is on the block.

I apologize for the lack of updates. One thing that I’ve learned about selling a web app is that most of the time is spent waiting for people to get back to you.

The scales have fallen off my eyes

A friend of mine expressed interest and we started trading emails. After several emails back and forth about the figures, I got this amazing response:

Ryan,

I’m just going to be really honest with you. Simply because I don’t want to see someone purchase your site, run some basic marketing on it and make a killing off of it, whilst you did all the hard work.

I plain don’t understand why you haven’t marketed DropSend. Or got someone on a salary (preferably in the US) dedicated to just that task now that the product is complete. I reckon your 5 (?) potential buyers are thinking of doing just that.

I can already see some of the people on Ed Dale’s Dominiche system (the art of buying and selling websites) smacking their lips in anticipation of ‘flipping your site’ with some basic marketing.

Some basics:

1. Adwords. Get Perry Marshall’s Definite Guide to Google Adwords. Run some PPC campaigns focused on getting traffic to various landing pages around the idea of sending stuff over the net. Get signups for your list so you can run autoresponder sequences.
2. Autoresponder sequences. The landing page from a PPC ad has an opt-in form. Get the sign up and send a free five part mini course comparing all the file sending programs out there and the best way to do it + free access to the tool for 1 or 2 sends. This gives you permission to contact people each day for the five days. Then do an upgrade on day five for a ‘discount’.
3. Organic. Articles submitted to article directories for some decent backlinks with keywords in them.
4. Blog for same reason. Short keyword rich articles on your blog to generate some nice back links and bring in some organic traffic.
5. Back end. Once you have sent out the five part mini course it’s time to start sending out information on other related products that you have a % affiliation with. People interested in sending large files are probably interested in video streaming services (low end/high end), folder sharing apps. Each email will generate a nice load of signups and some nice commissions for you.
6. If you’re not sure what they want then ask them with a multiple choice survey email. Segment the responses into more refined lists that you can mail. I like manageprocrm.com for heavy duty autoresponder action tracking and response. I also like getresponse.com for more just basic autoresponder stuff.
7. Affiliates. Does dropsend have an affiliate system? Get your affiliates to sell your product for you.

These are just the basics of internet marketing. But at the very least you should read Perry Marshall’s book or get someone else to read it, implement his strategies. Get a ton of paid traffic (search network & content network), monitor conversions with the Google adwords & analytics tracker and drive some more sales. Then do the autoresponder stuff to follow up with those who signed up to your opt-in form so you don’t waste the adwords click. Remember ‘frequency x time = reach’.

You’ll quadruple your income.

Hope that was helpful :-)

I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. How had I not seen this? Why have I been wasting DropSend’s capabilities to bring in valuable revenue for us?

I guess sometimes you can’t see something until someone puts it right in front of your face and slaps you around a bit. Hey, I’m always the first to admit I don’t know everything.

The plan

I’m not sure my friend’s advice is 100% the way to go, but it’s a damn good start.

We’re going to start by moving Lisa off of managing FOWD and onto marketing DropSend almost full time (the remainder of her time will be spent maintaining Vitamin). We feel she’s got an amazing ability to learn quickly and she’s got a great marketing brain.

We’re temporarily moving Mel onto FOWD (she’s one of the best events organizers we’ve ever seen!), while we look for another events person to bring on board. This will help with the events load.

The goal

Lisa’s got a goal of tripling DropSend’s monthly revenue in eight months. We think she’s got a great chance, considering we haven’t been actively marketing it. After that, we’ll put it back on the market and hopefully achieve a much higher sale price. Our new mentor/advisor has offered to help us sell it at that point - he’s got the skills and connections to make it happen.

Hell, even if it doesn’t sell and we’ve tripled the revenues, we’ll keep it and enjoy the extra cash! :)

Well, that’s the plan. Let me know what you think! We’re sure excited.

Calling all designers!

I’d like to spice up Carsonified and get it re-designed. If you’d be kind enough to help us out by designing it and building the WordPress template, we’ll give you a free workshop seat at FOWD, a free day-pass to FOWD and an entire set of Survival Kits.

Just shoot me an email at ryan at [ourcompanyname] dot com.

We’re at O’Hare in Chicago, waiting for our connecting flight back to London, and I’ve been thinking a lot about why I enjoyed SXSW so much this year.
I just hit me: I had time think about new ideas.

I made a conscious decision to not carry my laptop around with me. I bought a big yellow legal pad of paper and wrote down tons of ideas. It was so freeing to ignore email, IM and my monster to-do list.

As a result, we’ve decided to make some big changes at Carson Systems, and I’m SO excited (more on that later). Hooray for down time!

P.S. I’m really enjoying Dick Costolo’s new blog (founder of FeedBurner). If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, it’s a must-read.

We’re so excited! Vitamin won the SXSW Interactive “Best Education Resource” award!

We’d like to thank:

• Our loyal readers
• Our amazing writers and Advisory board
• Chris Randall for the amazing design
• Lisa for all the hard work she puts in on editorial
• Our advertisers and job board posters

Thanks so much!

We had our panel today at SXSW and I think it went really well. Read/Write web has a good write-up (thanks guys).
Feel free to download the slides. There’s tons of interesting financial info.
Sorry for the short post, but I’m off to the bazillion parties tonight! :)

We’re about to hop on a plane for SXSW! We’re so excited :)

I’ll be on two panels, so please stop on by:

1. Barenaked App: The Figures Behind the Top Web Apps
2. Turning Projects Into Revenue Generating Businesses

If you see me, please say hi - would love to meet you all.