Liveblog: Techcrunch Geek n Rolla Event 2

This is the second post in my series writing up the TechCrunch Geek n Rolla event in London...

Joe Drumgoole, CTO and Founder PutPlace.com

Again, the venues wi-fi was out of action here, but you can see Joe's presentation in the video above, and below.

The TechCrunch write-up of the speech is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/26/geeknrolla-launching-your-startup-in.... And the slides of this presentation are here:

Joe Stepniewski, co-founder, Skimlinks

Joe, known as @digijoe because of his twitter addiction (and, well, it's easier) is from Skimlinks and his talk was on 'Monetising your startup'.

He said the two elements were 'acquisition' and 'conversion'. Acquisition is getting people to use your site or product, and Conversion is turning them into paying customers.

Elements of Acquisition
Marketing and PR via search engine optimiasation, email, social media, events etc. The lower the cost of acquisition, the easier it will be to make a viable business.

Options for making money
When it comes to convert - what are you selling? Subs or advertising? If its ads the best is to deal direct with a few targetted advertisers, and offer monthly tenancy on your site for monthly periods. look for sponsorship opportunities such as themed home pages etc. Choose sponsors you genuinely like. Create interactive promotions where the audience participates, such as contests etc

The TechCrunch writeup of this talk can be found here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-mo-money-mo-affiliate-mar...

Jof Arnold, CEO, Gymfu.com

Again, the venues wi-fi didn't hold up well enough for me to liveblog this, but the videos are above and below, and the TechCrunch writeup is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/28/geeknrolla-what%E2%80%99s-the-freque...

Leisa Reichelt, User experience, Disambiguity

Lisa is a specialist in usability for websites. The TechCrunch writeup of this talk is here: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/04/21/geeknrolla-designing-good-user-exper.... The slides are above, and the videos are below.

After this there was a panel discussion about women in tech - which produced a controversial discussion, but not with many lessons for start-ups, so I'll skip it here. Head to techcrunch if you want the details.

Meanwhile, my writeup of the day continues in my next post...