The most important adwords report I never knew about

For the last 3 months we have been running and testing a variety of google adwords campaigns for WizeHive.

We had done some variations of the ads, turned things on and off, and thought we had a good handle on what we were doing.    Over the last few weeks I've really started digging in the last few weeks trying to understand every piece of data.

Since we are positioning our applicant manager product for foundations one thing we found was that the search term "Scholarship Software" provided a large # of hits but not a large payback so we turned it off for now.   

Yet, I kept typing it into google and it kept coming up.   We spent hours trying to figure out where this keyword was.     It wasn't until this morning based on an exchange with Google that I realized that there was a report called "Search Query Report" under their Reporting section on adwords that may be one of their most important reports.

I had see the keywords showing up in Analytics and/or the other Adwords reports but did not realize they do not show the exact keywords that were typed; but rather the keywords that were triggered.

For instance, we paid for an ad and a click when someone typed "federal subgrant policies."   We paid for another when someone typed "free money management software."  Neither have anything to do with WizeHive.    Using this report I can now either add negative keywords to reduce or eliminate these odd searches or I can change from "broad-matched" keywords to phrase and exact matched keywords.      Either way they will significantly reduce our expenditures and probably increase our click through rates.

If you are doing any adwords work I would urge you to find and study this report.   I'm glad I did now but wish I had known about it a few months ago.

SCVNGR gets $4M Funding

SCVNGR, one of our DreamIt 2008 companies closed $4M in funding from Google Ventures at a very healthy valuation. These guys have grown from the 3 of them that took part in DreamIt just 2 years ago into 40+ people on pace for $5M in revenue. Read more about it here.

How to get hired or not...

So business is crazy busy as we grow our web based collaboration tool, WizeHive and I know I need help. Administrative help, marketing help, sales help, SEO help, etc. I also know that since I oversee most of the administration and logistics for DreamIt Ventures I'm going to need some help there too as the fall roles around to deal with accounting issues and the like.

So Sunday morning I decided to run an ad on craigslist focused on finding some help. The focus on the ad was my need for administrative help but I left the door open for folks with all sorts of different talents to apply since I could use help for WizeHive, DreamIt and a few other things I'm involved in.

The ad worked well, I've gotten about 300 emails so far and a great mix of talent. The range of responses is so great I thought I could share so do's and don'ts if you are applying for a job or know someone who is. These are all from the responses I got the last few days.

First, with hundreds of other emails and a 3 page to do list I can't spend a ton of time going through a first pass on the 300+ applications so my first goal is to quickly sift them into categories. Categories I've made up are essentially good, maybe, probably not and no. So my first goal is within a very short amount of time, probably about 30 seconds, to categorize each response into one of these categories. Then I will go through and rank those in the good and contact them first, then go through the maybe's and contact them second...and if I haven't found who I'm looking for I may go further.

So what puts things into these categories. There are some gray areas but here are some real answers based on what i received.

Lets start with what gets moved to the no pile really fast:

Call me: It is hard for me to believe but I probably have 10 to 20 emails that do not include a resume, include very little info but instead say "I reviewed your job posting and I can really help you. My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. Please call." Sure, buddy, I've got hours to spend talking on the phone to people I know little or nothing about. Next.

Attach a resume only: I probably have another 5% to 10% that attach a resume and send it to me. No cover note or anything to give me the impression that they even read the job description and feel they are qualified. So my inclination before I even look at the resume is that they are going into the no pile and I don't think I've looked at a resume that convinced me to change my mind.

Spouse's email: OK..maybe there is a legit reason for this but why do I get an email from Joe Smith from Mary Smith's email address. I'm in a tech business and I want tech savvy people. What does it say about them if it comes from their spouse's email address? Actually I had a funny exchange today because I sent a quick "Thanks I"m looking at the resumes and I'll get back to you" blast to all the people I received resumes from and I got copied in on an email between the spouses accidentally forwarding the emails around. I knew it wasn't for me when there was a big "I LOVE YOU XXX" at the bottom of the note (or is that how some people try to get jobs?)

AOL email address: OK...this isn't an absolute no but come on. I've probably gone from AOL to something to comcast to Gmail over the last 10 years. How tech savvy do I feel about someone still using an AOL email address. Not a definite "no" but a bad first impression. Sorry AOL.

So...what gets me excited? Who has done a good job and is in my top category?

When I posted the jobs I did not use my name and I also used an anonymous (craigslist) email address, but I did mention WizeHive and DreamIt. There were 2 out of 300 that spent enough time to check the sites to see who was posting and then wrote a personalized email to me by name. Do they get the job? Don't know...but they are in my top category almost out of the shoot. All other skill sets being equal I am looking for someone who shows creativity and initiative and it doesn't get much better then that.

There are another batch, maybe 20 or 25, where the people did almost as well. They checked into DreamIt and WizeHive sites, took the time to learn a little about the businesses, and shared with me in one way or the other that they took the time to check things out. This does not automatically get them the prize, but it sure puts them ahead of generic responses.

So in general, if you really want that job take your time to sell yourself. Do your homework and tell them how you are going to help THEM, not what you are looking for... It certainly would have a much higher chance of success then the other way around.

Well, enough blogging time, back to the resumes...

Vuzit Gets Funding

One of our DreamIt companies, Vuzit, recently shared that the company received funding from a mix of angel investors and economic development organizations, including Robin Hood Ventures, Innovation Philadelphia and Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Vuzit, located at the Science Center in Philadelphia, was part of our DreamIt Ventures program. Their flagship technology is an online document viewer and SaaS-based security application designed to provide a more secure method to share and store sensitive documents that today are often distributed by e-mail. Vuzit won the "Most Innovative Product or Service" from the Ben Franklin Emerging Business Awards competition earlier in the year. Coley Brown, President of CTB Consulting said, "We've been following the progress of Vuzit for some time and have chosen to be an investor with Innovation Philadelphia and Ben Franklin. Vuzit has shown amazing promise with over 5,000 trial users and a steep viral marketing curve. With Vuzit’s plans of a future document control system supporting Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPPA privacy requirements, Vuzit is primed to extend their current success into a whole new market." Coley is a member of Robin Hood Ventures and is mentoring Vuzit as a board member and temporary Vice President of Sales. Brett Matzelle, CEO of Vuzit, added, "It is satisfying to receive support from investors in the Philadelphia community like Robin Hood, Innovation Philadelphia and Ben Franklin Technology Partners. This was a natural next step for us after an intense summer with DreamIt Ventures where we were able to quickly transition from working prototype to a live application with paying customers. This money and related support will allow us to continue to drive the business forward, capitalizing on our positive momentum." The company will use the investment capital to enhance its sales and marketing efforts as well as to patent their proprietary document technology. To learn more about Vuzit and their new technology, please visit the website at http://vuzit.com/.

Meetup with Steve Barsh at TechAviv NY

Can't make it to Israel to hear Steve Barsh deliver his presentation on De-Risking Your Startup on December 30th? Never fear, Steve will be the "Hot Seat" presenter at TechAviv's New York Meetup on January 7th. To register for the event, visit the Meetup page.

SnackFeed Gets Crunched

SnackFeed is the latest of the 2008 alumni to get reCrunched. TechCrunch provided an update on SnackFeed last Friday, highlighting the growth the site has seen in the last three months. In November alone, SnackFeed generated more than 150,000 unique visitors; solid results for any b'alpha site. While Jason and CC Laan (SnackFeed's Founders) initially focused on developing tools to create personalized viewing channels, users provided important feedback-- they were primarily interested in watching the most talked about videos on the web. SnackFeed now focuses on this first and then provides its own recommendations. They must be on to something-- the 1,000 invite codes provided to TechCrunch users were quickly snatched up for free trials. To read the full article, click here.

Talking in Tel Aviv

We really do search everywhere for the great people with great ideas-- Steve Barsh is in Tel Aviv, Israel this week to meet aspiring Innovators. After 24 hours of travel (with his family in tow), Steve arrived in Tel Aviv late last week to recover briefly before beginning his tour.

On the agenda, a presentation for the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya on December 30, 2008 at 7 PM on "10 Common Assumptions Entrepreneurs Make That Kill Their Ventures." This presentation is an extension of the session Steve led at DreamIt during the summer on De-Risking Your Startup. Steve was invited to speak at the IDC event as part of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program. Check out all of the details about this free event listed on Eventbrite. Steve will also introduce the group to DreamIt Ventures and the support we offer aspiring Innovators. If you'd like to be notified when the application process reopens, click here.

If you are building out a business plan for a new venture, expanding an existing company, creating a new product, or meeting with VC investors to pitch for funding, this will be a presentation you won’t want to miss.

Get Ready, Get Set, TapInko!

Exciting news from the field. TapInko launched on Friday! Everything went smoothly-- including the launch party at the Centennial Cafe at the Ohio House in Fairmount Park.

The extended DreamIt network was there to wish TapInko their congratulations as well as see the site. Among those attending-- Michael Levinson, Marc Slovak (who signed on to serve as TapInko's Technology Business Advisor) and many of the founders from DreamIt's 2008 session including SnackFeed, Vuzit, DropCard and InterviewBest.

True to their vision, the site simplifies the advertising process by providing an efficient way to identify targeted advertising and place ads. Included in each "publication's" profile is a summary of the readership as well as the particulars for placing an ad (pricing, sizing, production schedules). Once registered, users can manage their activities (ads sold/inventory for "publications" and ads placed/deadlines for advertisers) using a slick, easy to use order center.

To sign up and start using TapInko, click here.

Standing Out in a Crowded Market with DropCard

BusinessWeek (via partner GigaOM) recently posted an interesting article on modern networking tools, particularly in light of the current economic downturn. Celeste LeCompte writes, "As the hordes of job-seekers descend upon trade shows, conferences, and meet-ups around the country, a few mobile startups could be poised to profit from their misery: digital business-card services."

Featured among iPhone only applications like beamMe, Nameo, Handshake, FriendBook and iCard as well as BlackBerry/Android solution Dub is TextID, rmbrMe and our own DropCard.

DropCard, rmbrMe and TextID because they are universal services and do not require "matching phones" to work. "I've found services like rmbrME and Dropcard to be simple to use, and I could easily send my data to smartphone-carrying folks via shortcode. Better yet, people could send info to me, without even knowing that I still carry a Stone Age-era device," jokes Le LeCompte.

To read the full article, click here.

Counting Green Beans

Beanstockd was selected as a finalists for the WeMedia Game Changer Award, an award recognizing people, projects, ideas and organizations leading change and inspire a better world through media. If you think Beanstockd fits the bill, show your support by making Beanstockd the Community Choice Winner by voting online. The competition is tough. Beanstockd is up against giants like Twitter, Digg, NPR and BlogHer.

Meet Us at the Founder Factory

Questions about DreamIt Ventures? Join us at the Founder Factory tomorrow in Philadelphia where Steve Barsh will be joining Vadim Telyatnikov (Director of Advertising Operations at myYearbook) and Colin Evans (Founder and Managing Partner of Sandwith Ventures and Co-Founder of StubHub) to serve on the Fishbowl Panel (don't miss Tal Raviv and DropCard!)at the inaugural event.

Also being featured are former speakers Josh Kopelman (Half.com and First Round Capital), Lucinda Holt (Commerce360 and TurnTide), Gil Beyda (Real Media, TACODA and Gencast Ventures), and Steve Goodman (Morgan Lewis).

Tips for Innovation

We were contacted by a national magazine on entrepreneurship last week for tips for innovation. I polled the team for their thoughts. Here are our top three tips.

#1 Talk to Outsiders
A great way to innovate is to ping your ideas off really smart people outside your company as well as inside. All of our companies work in an open floor plan, giving each entrepreneur access to more than 50 other startup people to bounce ideas off and get reality checks. Every day these entrepreneurs drive innovation with input from one another.

#2 Feed Your Passion for Learning
When experts talk, listen! People have been where you are. You can get innovative ideas listening to them talk about their experience and expertise. For example, every week DreamIt Ventures brings in top speakers on topics such as marketing, software development, venture capital financing, user interface and experience design, PR, and more. The objective is not only getting entrepreneurs to learn information critical to the success of their business, but also to expose them to ideas that will stoke their innovation mojo.

#3 Experiment Quickly, Encourage & Reward Risk Taking
Innovation must be sown into a company’s culture. The only way to ensure this is to reward successful risk taking and accept the occasional failures as part of the creative process. All innovators fail at one time or another, but you can’t innovate if you don’t try. The key is to iterate on ideas quickly and make sure you are being as capital-efficient as possible. Burn up your intellectual capital faster than your financial capital, and reward risk taking.

BarCamp Philly

Just returned from BarCamp Philly, a loosely organized (but like LORE, loosely organized in a good way) conference hosted at the University of the Arts. Participants were invited to attend or host session on the topic of their choosing. The event is completely participant driven, and there were a number of familiar faces from the summer in the crowd-- Chris Cera (Vuzit), Jason Laan (SnackFeed) and Alex Hillman (IndyHall and Anthillz).

Waiting for applications from all of you in the "Quit Your Job" session...

Say Hey at Rae

A bunch of us got together on Thursday night at Rae. In attendance, David, Steve W. and Brooke as well as representatives from Vuzit, TapInko, SnackFeed, DropCard, Anthillz and Trendient.

It was great to see everyone and hear the latest news. Special thanks to Chris Cera who put together the first event.

Expanded Verticals for the Beanstockd Game

Sandra Ekong just posted an article describing expanded plans for the Beanstockd Game on PBS's MediaShift Idea Lab. She shares that conversations with fellow entrepreneurs and advisors led to the decision to expand their target demographic beyond university students (the original focus). "We're excited to test the Beanstockd game in these three very different verticals (universities, schools, and businesses)... We're interested to see how each population reacts to the game. Who will adopt the game most quickly? Who will stay engaged longest? Where will the most tangible change take place?"

We're excited, too, Sandra and Angela.

Diamond Dashing Success

Wondering what the rush was yesterday in Philadelphia? Hundreds of teams following clues and answering trivia questions in search of a $20k Hearts on Fire diamond ring as part of the Robbins Diamond Dash, a Philadelphia area promotion using SCVNGR's technology. To enter, participants submitted short essays or participated in contests on WMMR's Steve & Preston show. The event was also picked up by National Jeweler Network, JCK Online, idoyoudowedo (a wedding site), Geekadelphia and others.

In addition to the Diamond Dash, local film students and area video professionals were invited to participate in the SCVNGR & Robbins Diamond Dash New Media Contest, a contest looking for the best 2-3 minute video capturing the energy of the day.

The hunt went smoothly thanks to the intelligent routing system developed by SCVNGR. Wanna see? pictures video

CN8 Stars

Don't miss Steve Welch (DreamIt Ventures) and Michael Hagan (SCVNGR) on CN8 later this month. Both will be on Art Fennell Reports.

Look Out Adobe, It's Nodobe

David Speers of Phillypreneurs covered the launch of Nodobe, Vuzit's latest offering. Nodobe is a free FireFox add-on that allows users to view 38 different document and image file types including Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft Word (DOC), Microsoft Powerpoint (PPT), Microsoft Excel (XLS), JPEG Images (JPG), TIFF Images (TIF), and many more.

To view the article or his video interview, click here.

Boston's Getting to Know DreamIt Ventures

Xconomy, a national business and technology publication, featured stories on SCVNGR and DreamIt Ventures over the last week.

In the first article, Wade Roush's interview focused on SCVNGR and Seth Priebatsch. Discussing future plans and their summer at DreamIt Ventures, Seth offered "coordinating mobile games is just one of many potential uses for the SmartRoute algorithms... right now we’re pretty heavily focused on this gaming market because we think there’s a lot of potential there, and the market seems to want something that will make a location-based game easy and fun."

The second article, a follow on to the first, featured Wade's interview with Michael Levinson. Familiar with fellow startup seed organizations (like YCombinator and TechStars), Wade explored what makes us different. Perhaps Seth said it best, DreamIt "offered more support—monetary, administrative, and advisory—than [Seth] would have gotten from the other incubators he considered applying to. "

Drop Dead Simple

Kevin Tofel, Web Worker Daily, is a fan of DropCard. In a posting earlier this month, he details how he was introduced to DropCard at the Mobilize conference earlier this month. "Towards the end of the event however, I witnessed “business card nirvana”. Andy Abramson and I were chatting about mobile technologies over drinks when all of sudden he whips out his BlackBerry to send a text message."

Kevin and Andy aren't the only ones. Fans are popping up all over the place. Baby Boomer Librarian likes it because he often misplaces business cards. Francine Hardaway of Earth911 likes the green aspect of eliminating paper and printing pollution. Earlier this month, Pat Phelan called DropCard "the business card killer." Thrillist also found DropCard enticing. "Business cards are an essential networking tool, but the phrase "Let me give you my card" is so hateful, uttering it ensures no one feels good doing business with you. De-shame your exchange, with DropCard."

We agree. All are great reasons to convert.