everything you wanted to know about making moz (and some stuff you didn't)
DESCRIPTION
When you’re a first-time everything, you don’t know how to do anything. Sarah Bird, CEO of $30-million-dollar-a-year software company Moz, spills her guts about the challenges of her first time making a successful startup. From spontaneous bacon parties to arduous product launches, Sarah takes you through the highs and lows of working towards an audacious mission. Learn about failure, friendship and building something bigger than yourself.TRANSCRIPT
Making
by Sarah Bird, CEO | @SarahBird | moz.com
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know (And Some Stuff You Probably Didn’t)
Topics in this Presentation:
What exactly is “Moz?”
Sarah Bird: 1st Time…
Everything
Highs & Lows of Making Moz
The Company’s Future
Slides 6-20
Slides 21-32
Slide 33-120
Slides 121-136
These are so you can skip ahead when you’re browsing on your own or showing your friends ;-)
TransparentAuthenticGenerousFunEmpatheticExceptional
Hold me to it!
Moz Basics
On Advice
What is Moz exactly?
Moz Basics
$30 million/year in total revenue
140 talented team members
Moz BasicsMoz Basics
Over 25,000 paying customersFrom all over the globe.
Moz Basics
History of Fast Growth
Lots of Awards N Shit
Best Places to Work
Moz makes software that helpsmarketers
understand and improvetheir SEO, social media, links and brand
mentions.
It looks a little like this…
It looks a little like this…
This is our flagship product, “Moz Analytics”
Confession: I hate marketing.
Confession: I hate marketing.
Bad
MarketingBad
Obscures the truth
Stops me from doing what
I want to do
Floods my inboxes without my permission
Tries tell sell me on products
I’ll never, ever need
Doesn’t teach me anything
Interrupts me during dinner
Asks first
Pollutes the scenery
TransparentAuthenticGenerousFunEmpatheticExceptional
The best marketing is…
The best marketing
Educatesme
Is tailoredto my interests
Gives beforeIt gets
Is so good,I want to seeit again and
share itwith friends
Is the Scenery
(rather thanpollutes it)
Appearswhen I’m
looking for it
Is clearabout what it
can andcannot do
for me
Entertainsme
It’s not about the software.Moz empowers businesses to succeed bycreating their best,
most TAGFEE, marketing.
…Making the world better for ourselves and everyone.
I’m a First Time Everything
How Most People See Me
How I Used to Feel Most of the Time
I used to be a cleaning lady.
Chains!
College Librarian
Studied Literature & Philosophy
So… Law school then!
Met Rand and Geraldineat a party!
On Your First Day Lawyering
You Have To Lawyer!!!
Usually, I Make Decisions Like This..
This time, I Followed My Dreams…(literally)
Joined SEOmoz in 2007 To Work With Rand and Gillian
First Weeks At Moz Were Amazing.
Shit Got Real
No Effing IdeaWhat We Were Doing.
First Board Meeting
Those Were the Droids I Was Looking For…
Second Board MeetingDo-Over!
Dear God…
Have I convinced you we had no idea what we were doing yet?
Don’t worry. We figured it out eventually.
Lots of great stuff happened in the early days too…
Who Am I
2008: First Attempt At SEO Analytics
What if we could track all of your SEO metrics over time? And graph them for you?
Why “SEO Analytics” Failed
We used poorly understood third party data to make the product.
Why “SEO Analytics” Failed
You gotta validate that shit!
We used poorly understood third party data to make the product.
We decided to kill “SEO Analytics” 9 months after launch.
Dreaming Big in 2008
“Why is my competitor ranking there?”
I can see the keywords my competitors care about
I can see how bot friendly their site is.
But who is linking to them?
What if we could answer that?
Mission Accomplished: Linkscape Launched in 2008
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Today, we index 837+ billion links.
If you love data, set it free.
The Rise of APIs
We can build faster
We succeed when our
competitors succeed
Our metrics are the
standard
Make Money
Linkscape was the start of our product framework.
Product Success Pyramid™
Profit
Product Success Pyramid™
???
Profit
Product Success Pyramid™
???
Collect Underpants
Profit
Product Success Pyramid™
Data
Product Success Pyramid
We need lots of high quality data to help marketers.
Moz gets you ungettable data.
Insights
Data
Product Success Pyramid
Insights point out next actions and
save time.
Insights
Data
Product Success PyramidData, without
insights, induces anxiety
& creates an exclusive
club of data gurus and subject matter
experts.
Insights
Data
Packaging
Product Success PyramidOur customers are
not all the same.
Our technologies can be repackaged to deliver the best
experience and value for each persona.
Moz is and always wasa community first.
Rand blogged about learning SEO.
It was a community, not a business.
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
Moz = Sharing/Open Source [dmoz, Mozilla]
Ever wondered...
From 15,000 visits/month in 2007to 2,000,000/month today
Content is Co-Created and Curated
Practicing What We Preach
800k marketers come to Moz to support each other, and
try to become their best professional selves.
Come for the content.Stay for the Software.
The natives are digital.
We don’t have sales people.We have community managers.
Their job isn’t to sell.
It’s to foster an inclusive and generous environment to learn about marketing.
How Moz Makes Money
I hate asking for money.
I hate answering the phone.
Customers find our community through Google and social shares.
Customers find our community through Google and social shares.
(Add screen cap of the DA learn SEO page)
They enjoy our free content.
And hopefully sign up for a free trial.
85% of Moz free trials are fromorganic sources
The Moz subscriptiondefaults to monthly, and starts at $99.
Signing up is easy!
Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is on the low end
Much Lower Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Highest CLTV/CAC Ratio
We break even in 1.6 months
1 - 2 Innovation Punch
1 - 2 Innovation Punch
Float like a butterfly.
1 - 2 Innovation Punch
Sting like a bee.
1 - 2 Innovation Punch
Technology innovation!
1 - 2 Innovation Punch
Business model innovation!
The First Time I Thought About Quitting.
And Rand thought
about firing me.
Role Transitions
Lawsuit Episode
learning SEO.Even the little stuff was hard.
TAGFEEsaves the day!
The Second Time I Thought About Quitting
I can’t go on.
Fuck it.
That’s my job, yo.
Picard Wisdom
Dreaming Big in 2012-2013Again!
We should build anSEO Analytics product!
Ugh. We biffed it.
Triple Face PalmFor when the fail is so strong,
reality starts acting up.
It’s not all bad! There’s a lot going right too
The brand is strong.
Better results for less money
Launching New Products
There is a lot more to do.
Moz is on this crazy journey.
It’s kinda like Star Trek.
“…To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to
boldly go where no one has gone before.”
“ …To empower businesses to succeed by creating their best,
most TAGFEE, marketing.
Marketing is not getting any easier.
The web continues to fragment.
This is still Day One.
And about the Reality of SEO’s New
Risks Penalty?
Cannibalization?
Drop in Demand?
Technical Issue?
Competition?
New SERP Types?
Realities of New Marketing Risks
Realities of SEO’s New Risks
“I learn by going where I have to go.”- Theodore Roethke, The Waking
There is a lot of work left to do.
But hey, there’s a first time for everything.