Tips, tricks and tools I used to build Gist and other companies. Focused on internet or software product development.

1. T.A. McCann – create something great

2. Mental muscles…
• Data accumulation
• Resources, features, time
• Pattern recognition
• Decision making
• Coordination
• Communications
• Measure
• Critique, learn and repeat
• Read Tim Ferris post regarding Noah Kagan (AppSumo)
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3. Filling in the blanks…
Customer Value prop
Vision
Feature set Business model
Gist is a next-generation contact manager for business professionals, that combines all your contacts, all
their updates so you can focus on who and what is most important and is monetized via premium
subscription plans. 3

4. Filling in the blanks…
• Better than…(existing way or competition)
• What and how will you tell your friends…
• All of this in 140 characters, actually 110 if
possible
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5. Copy the leaders (for some stuff)
Marketing
Positioning
User/market data
Feature priority
Key thought leaders
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6. A valuable target customer
• Business professional
• Places high value of relationships (>8/10)
• Has significant (>50%) of key relationships outside company
• >5 meetings/week with outside people (more/new is better)
• Uses technology to gain information advantage
• Actively builds and manages his network
• Pays monthly information service fees (mobile, CRM, wiki,
contact manager… (more is better)
People like this include;
T.A. • Roles include (execs, sales, recruiter, PR, journalists, lawyers…)
Brad • Influencer of others and/or small teams
Buzz
Kendall • Technical, early but not bleeding edge adopter
Brandt
Miles
Dave Thomas • Often fits in GTD category as well
• Reads books like “never eat alone” or “4 hour work week”
• Attends “networking” events or activities
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7. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZTH5BJR
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8. Kevin Spidel
"I am the Managing Director of an
international PR firm and am very active on
the social web. Gist allows me to cut
through the noise and manage my contacts
directly. I am able to monitor what matters...
the relationship."
Managing Director
Patriot Strategies Gist user since 11/03/09 – has invited 34 users
http://patriotstrategies.com
Washington, DC, USA
5300 contacts, 1279 companies

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10. Vision to value
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11. Product planning
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12. Development process…
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13. Do what you say
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15. Build for an 10 year old
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16. Tool set
• www.mindjet.com - mind maps
• www.pbwiki.com - wiki
• www.surveymonkey.com - user targeting
• www.gotomeeting.com - engaging directly with users
• www.launchrock.com - capture early interest
• www.crazyegg.com - web user tracking
• www.zendesk.com - support and new ideas from users
• www.skitch.com - quick mark-up of pages
• http://blog.gist.com/2011/10/24/20-apps-and-services-that-helped-us-build-gist/
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17. Crazy Egg -
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18. Making it social…
• Sign in with… (Facebook, Twitter, OpenID…)
• Bring my friends…
• Tweet my success…
• Join the club…
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19. Beta users
• Engage them early, often and on a regular basis
• Be hyper-critical of who gets in, when
• Bring new users on in groups (200-1000) – test and
measure (cohorts)
• Build your user communications models (bi-weekly
updates)
• Help them find more users
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20. The new influencer
• Usually has a day job, writing for passion
• Well connected and socially enabled
• Selling to other influencers as much as customers
• Easily co-opted with “first looks” and attention
• Leverage your own influence to gain theirs
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21. Make someone else the champion
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22. Jump on someone else’s message
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23. Track your influencers
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25. Set big goals
Get connected
Listen and learn
Fail fast and iterate
Persist
Go make something great.
T.A. McCann
tam@gist.com
www.gist.com/tamccann