Duration: ~59minutes

In this presentation I cover how to measure success for a start up in a global market (read: the Internet). I tried my best to give an overview of some of the common pitfalls that startup companies seem to face as well as some possible solutions that have worked for me in my career. I tried to have a little fun too.

Notable links for this presentation would be:

• Viddler’s Business Services Web site
• Viddler’s video analytics announcement
• Wufoo for creating surveys

See also some excellent notes from my presentation by Scott Meade.

LessConf was thoroughly enjoyable and I felt privileged to have been part of it. Thanks to everyone in attendance for putting up with me for an hour.

“Colin Devroe from Viddler seemd to have a lot of fun with his talk. Steve and Allan issued a series of challenges across the Twitterverse in the weeks leading up to the conference (“Colin eats lightning”, “Colin juggles chainsaws”), and Colin took them on in high style, tongue planted firmly in cheek, via a series of comical vids. I thought they were great, and I enjoyed his discussion of how, why and when to measure success.”

Thanks @Yardboy (sorry, I don’t know your real name and even after digging I didn’t find it). I’m really happy that the overall vibe of LessConf was positive and it seemed as though everyone had a great time.

Now, about those videos of the presentations. I have it on high authority that they are nearing completion. Stay tuned.

Jason is right. You shouldn’t say that. It makes people begin to wonder why they paid the ticket price. But I am going to take it one step further. Be well prepared for public speaking. That is the bottom line.

I don’t care if you have slides, fancy transitions, some sort of video or audio portion of your presentation, or even bring props like Carrot Top. Your presentation style is completely up to you. The point is that you should be well prepared to speak on the topic that you said you’d speak on and that people paid for you to speak on. If that means that you simply wing it because you’ll be discussing something that you live everyday, that’s fine. But be well prepared to wing it.

I tried to prepare very well for my recent LessConf presentation (whether it was obvious or not) and I hope the audience never questioned their reasons for attending the conference. When the video comes out, you can be judge for yourself but you can’t say I didn’t try.

Via Dan Benjamin.

Thanks to Scott Meade for taking really good notes from my How to Measure Success presentation from LessConf in Jacksonville, Florida. Consider this a teaser for the forthcoming video.

Photo credit: Mr Noded.

I’m happy to announce that I’ll be speaking at LessConf in Jacksonville, Fla. on October 17th. The title for my talk is still tentative but the main subject will be about how startups should measure success.

I have a lot to say about how startups measure success in a global market like the Internet. Too many times I’ve seen startups that try to compare themselves to companies much larger than themselves because they are building similar products. The Internet has shrunk the world to such a degree that unfair comparisons are drawn every day. I will be ranting about that and how I think that start ups should focus on themselves rather than the rest of the world when they are measuring the success of their products and business. I’m really looking forward to this opportunity and I hope that everyone in attendance is interested in this too.

Although the above is true I was really sucked into taking the opportunity to speak at LessConf because the Web site for the event sports random Star Wars characters and Thor on a chariot with an electric guitar. I mean, dude.

Thanks to the generosity of Allan and Steve I’ll be giving away two tickets to the event on my blog next week so if you’re interested in going to LessConf stay tuned for that giveaway. (It will have to do with video.)