Category Archives: MerchantCircle

Love the Ones You’re With. Why Startup Success Depends on Relationships | SiliconANGLE

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Ben T. Smith, IV

I recently wrote this post with Doug Kilponen, COO at Wanderful Media. Having worked together on two different startups over the course of several years, it has become clear to us that loyalty is the secret ingredient for success. The media … Continue reading →

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Billions in Local Ad Dollars Surge to Online — But Just a Trickle to News | Street Fight

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Tom Grubisich wrote a great piece on the failure of local news sites to capture the boom in revenue happening in local online.    He made a great point on the news market not capturing this local revenue.  “The issue that no one … Continue reading →

Posted in Advertising, FindnSave, Groupon, MerchantCircle, Newspapers, Silicon Valley | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Grace Chan, Ben Smith: Building An Online Community Is Hard Work | peHUBpeHUB

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Grace Chan, Ben Smith: Building An Online Community Is Hard Work We have seen it all. We’ve seen entrepreneurs set out to build loyal communities for newly minted products only to forget that they are more than just sales assets. … Continue reading →

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Victor Belfor, Ben Smith: We’ll Trade 100 Employees For One A-Player | peHUB

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Mark Zuckerberg famously commented that a great engineer is worth a 100 average engineers (something every developer knows deep in her heart). He was talking about A-players, and in our opinion the worst thing any startup can do is accept … Continue reading →

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Crash Dev: Top three reasons NOT to do a local + online startup (and what to do instead)

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

This piece by Devore is fascinating and correct.  Having looked at buying the Judy’s Book asset twice, I think they really were a great team with a solid execution, and it still did not work.   The fundamental issues of high cost to acquire customers, high customer churn, low monthly … Continue reading →

Posted in MerchantCircle, Startups | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Getting Shit Done The key to success in business is execution, whether you run a sprawling multinational or a 12-person startup. So measuring how your company stacks up against the best and brightest in your space is crucial. If you … Continue reading →

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV | 2 Comments

peHUB » Doug Kilponen, Ben Smith: First They Ignore You, Then They Want To Buy You: Managing The Startup-Big Company Relationship

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Every entrepreneur has met them. Big company executives with big company swagger. They ignore you. They dismiss the business problem you spent your life solving. They think they can crush you. Then the tables turn. They push for strategic relationships. … Continue reading →

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peHUB » Ben Smith: Eight Steps To Mastering Small Company Acquisitions

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

One of the biggest misconceptions in technology is that small acquisitions are less risky and require less attention than large ones. It is not true. When Reply bought my company, MerchantCircle, in May it put several of my top execs … Continue reading →

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How to Blow Up an Ecosystem (and Prosper Within One)

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

How to Blow Up an Ecosystem (and Prosper Within One) Are you a part of an ecosystem or do you plan to destroy one? You must decide before plotting a path to success During the four years we spent building … Continue reading →

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Ben Smith: Building Startups Is Cheap But Never Run Out of Cash | peHUB

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Ben T. Smith, IV

Internet startups have been getting cheaper to build for 10 years. So why is it more important than ever not to run out of cash? We built MerchantCircle into one of the 100 most trafficked U.S. sites and I honestly … Continue reading →

Posted in A.T. Kearney, Deals, Investments, MerchantCircle, Relationships, Silicon Valley, Spoke Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ben Smith: Building Startups Is Cheap But Never Run Out of Cash | peHUB