Dear 2007 Rand Fishkin,
Hi there - it's me - your 2009 self. I know it's highly unlikely you'll ever get this email, but who knows? The flow of time could chaotically spasm and somehow drop a printed copy of this on your lap - stranger things have happened. And, in that unlikely event, here's a few quick things you should know:
- Take the VC Money - it's going to make you a better entrepreneur, a more serious company and fund some very exciting technology.
- Don't Turn Down the Extra Funding - $1.1 million will get you through fine, but 2007 valuations were awesome, and that extra million they're offering will make great things happen even faster.
- Build Linkscape, But Make Usability, not Features & Data, the Focus - the technology is amazing, sure, but most SEOs and Internet marketers have a very tough time understanding how to apply the information. You don't have 20 minutes to explain it in person to everyone, so make the interface as simple, intuitive and usable as possible (and rely on existing nomenclature wherever possible).
- Start Using Email Marketing ASAP - You have no idea the power of a well-crafted email campaign.
- Learn to Delegate Better - Hire people who can do the things you're spending your time on now. Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should be doing it. Your job is to lead, to craft the vision and to evangelize. Whatever you're doing now that isn't those three things, stop and recruit someone who's better at it than you are.
- Remember What SEOmoz Is - at its core, your company is about making something complex & mysterious into something simple & understandable. That's what the tools, resources and services in PRO should do.
- Development & Scalability are Your Big Challenges - concentrate on hiring great devs and build small, nimble, self-sufficient teams
- Hiring Friends Works - Gather the smartest people you know, trust and like and bring them aboard; it doesn't work for everyone, but it's working great for you.
- Get Religious About Conversion Rate Optimization - Design, launch, test, measure, improve and repeat for every aspect of the conversion process on the site, from blog page landings to the last step of signup.
- Don't Invest in Marketing via Booths at Events - The ROI just isn't there, and the cost is tremendous.
- Do Invest in Your Affiliate Program - There are a lot of Internet marketers serving SEO-style content who don't have great ways to monetize it. Just putting a link in your footer is not going to get them excited.
- Learn Relentless Focus - Find the most critical things the business needs for the next six months, make them the everyday focus of every person and hour you can spare and cut out everything else to the point where it hurts at least a little. Only then will you have the focus you need.
- Buy a Scooter to Commute to the Office - Just make sure you buy some motorcycle pants to wear on rainy days.
- You, Rand, Are Not the Customer - Get over it, and build products that someone who just learned SEO last week can use.
- Establish Guiding Principles Now - Don't wait; just write them down, work on them until they make sense and post them on the wall in big font.
- Last, and Most Important; Get Married - It's unbelievably excellent in every way.
And now, in a rarely used tactic, I'm pinging some friends from other web startups to ask them what they'd like to tell their past selves. Dharmesh Shah from Hubspot, Richard Zwicky from Enquisite, Seth Besmertnik from Conductor, Will Critchlow from Distilled, Kelly Smith from Inkd, Glenn Kelman from Redfin, Ethan Lowry from Urbanspoon and Chris Winfield of 10e20 - can I convince you to write an advice letter to your former incarnations?
p.s. Anyone interested in more on this topic should check out my recent interview with the gang at Wildfire Marketing for Thought Leader Thursday.
I'd probably try to keep it short and sweet. Something like:
25 03 2009: 13 23 26 27 37 49
:-)
Rand, I appreciate your work and I respect your brain, but I surely love your selfcriticism. It's a pleasure for me to watch you developing every day into a better Rand in all ways.
But I have to be honest to someone, whom I'd love to see to be the best in his job. You have found out what makes you still not the standalone leader in this field, but you didn't really implement those things in reality. Ok, one compilment more: simplicity in writing and explaining is your strong side.
BUT, the seo tools are really not useful, especially the seomoz toolbar, or we just don't have the time to read all the explanaitions to start work with them or there are simply already existing and not better as the existing tools, for example: rankchecker. I liked to read that you now get a focus on usability, but in real there is still much to learn about usability for you and the seomoz staff.
Thanks for sharing the simple, but honest tipps like: act in your role and delegate work & get married. But the tipps with the millions many of the readers won't even read - write a about bucks, small amount of bucks, a business start beyond USA dreams. Tell us more how you decide whom to employ and why. Which job beside yours is the most important for the success to the seo clients ...
At the end one question: From your viewpoint, does it really make difference to work 10 hours daily instead of 6? Can it make your wife happy?
Thanks and wish all the best,Nedim Sabic
Did you say the SeoMoz toolbar is not useful? Really? I find it very useful. I use it all the time to evaluate the trust of a site that I am considering getting a link from. A high mR combined with a low mT tells me that the link is questionable and I should move on. I don't know of any tool other than the SeoMoz toolbar that can give you this information.
Very interesting, not least because it seems to show that you still haven't learnt that scooters aren't cool. Unless you're a mod (which I'm afraid you're not).
On a related, but very different tip, this letter from Stephen Fry to his 16-year old self is rather lovely.
Great post Rand. Without the ability to reflect on oneself and the accomplishments you've made over a short period of time, how can you tell if you've met your long/short term goals? Taking a moment to reflect on your efforts, what did and didn't work over the past 2 years, and take that advice to heart to make you and your company better; you sir are on track to make the Moz that much better.
You, Rand, Are Not the Customer - Get over it, and build products that someone who just learned SEO last week can use.
That's one I have an issue with often when explaining SEO principles to tech teams or trying to develop an appropriate optimization strategy for clients. It's been hard, but sometimes under certain contstraints (server, programmers, staffing) you have to choose a strategy that fits the client, not the ultimate ideal SEO best practice. I'm a stickler for making sites as search friendly as possible, but sometimes when working with 3rd parties, you have to prioritize certain on-page attributes over others.
Hiring Friends Works - Gather the smartest people you know, trust and like and bring them aboard; it doesn't work for everyone, but it's working great for you.
Yes and no from my personal experience. Yes, in a sense that it creates a great synergy, work environtment, and hiring the smartest people you know (some have even said hire people smarter than yourself) and surrounding yourself with them is a great strategy. The NO comes in if the work isn't getting done or if issues arise. Depending on the pre-existing relationship, it can be difficult to come down on people you know outside of work; be it friends, family, church members, or anyone else familiar to you.
Don't Invest in Marketing via Booths at Events - The ROI just isn't there, and the cost is tremendous.
It's pretty hard selling someone who is at the same event trying to promote THEIR goods and services already. I think the bottom line here is events and expos really are best for branding purposes, contributing to the SEO community and making your pressence known, and bringing back new ideas and knowledge to your team.
Again, Rand, thanks for the great post, it's nice to see others interpretations of their own actions; but more importantly, you and the SEOmoz team will benefit from getting this stuff down on "paper" in the long run.
Rand,
I agree with your points and admire your self reflective moments but I'm surprised you didn't add convert all liquid assets into bank put options and ride the finanicial debacle into the sky by quintupling your money with leveraged shorts on the financial services market. Then you wouldn't even need VC money and you could tear that term sheet up and say you know what I think of your vesting schedule . . . .
If Socrates had had Google Analytics it would not have been 'the unexamined life is not worth living but rather the non conversion rate optimized site is not worth SEOing. Hope to meet some Mozzers out at SMX advanced.
Don't Invest in Marketing via Booths at Events - The ROI just isn't there, and the cost is tremendous.
Hey Rand,
I just can't let this one sit out there without a response.
We work hard at SMX conferences to create a marketplace that works for exhibitors and sponsors, and the number of repeat exhibiting companies demonstrates clearly that -- done right -- there is RIO in exhibiting at shows.
Many of the exhibitors have been doing our shows and others for years. They have either found a formula that works or are pissing their money away year after year after year. I doubt the later is the case.
Here are a couple of questions I'd ask about your criticism above:
- Did SEOmoz calculate RIO before committing? Costs could have been known. Revenue could have been estimated. Which did you miss on?
- Did SEOmoz clearly communicate what its goals were? If not, why not?
- Did SEO get wrapped up in doing things that the cool kids would dig, rather than focusing on ROI?
It sucks to have a customer who is dissatisfied. I'll take responsibility for not discouraging SEOmoz from doing some of this.
Is there no portion of the responsibility that SEOmoz shares?
Ezer - I certainly wasn't suggesting that anyone else take the blame. I am personally responsible for the failures there.
I definitely got very excited about having the money to support booths and got excited about the crazy amounts of buzz, traffic and positive feelings our booths generated. At every SMX event we've had a booth presence, we've been literally swamped by people.
It just turns out that the several hundred thousand dollars we put into booth investments (cost of booth itself is only one part of that) just couldn't produce ROI. As Gab says, if we had been there seeking multi-thousand dollar consulting clients, it would be great, but at $49/month memberships, it just didn't make sense.
My intent in that bullet point was not to disparage booths in general and certainly not SMX specifically, but rather to be honest in my letter to myself. It's advice I wish I'd taken.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Rand. Looking forward to seeing you and the SEOmoz team at SMX Advanced next week.
"You, Rand, Are Not the Customer - Get over it, and build products that someone who just learned SEO last week can use."
Nobody ever gets usability right the first time around, so don't sweat it.
But don't get into the habit of discounting your own opinion. I've seen smart guys tell themselves they are "not the target market," and it usually leads to misguided decisions.
If the product doesn't make sense to you, then it doesn't make sense period.
(Timmy is an SEOmoz employee)
Rand is a high-level SEO and that's not really the target audience of SEOmoz. So when you make a tool like Linkscape and all's it does is spew out data points about ridiculous link metrics, it's hard to use that information in any sort of useful way unless you're Rand Fishkin and you know what each of those link metrics means.
I think he's trying to say that writing a couple of paragraphs hidden in the help section isn't really going to communicate actionable value like a usable, user-centered and tested tool can.
:) Yep, true enough.
Great advice, Manticor - you definitely want a lot of vision and thought leadership from a concept perspective and I can see how founders who've gone through what I have might try to outsource that innovative creativity and that can't be a good thing.
Nice Rand.
Thanks for the shout out to marriage, it is awesome, and it gets a bad rap!
Im with ya on the marriage thing and I'm glad you gave it a shout! I've been digging marriage myself
Start Using Email Marketing ASAP - You have no idea the power of a well-crafted email campaign.
- That's what I've been telling people for years. When did we forget about email? Social is a wonderful vehicle, but a well crafted and deployed email campaign can turn heads instantly.
Do it, you won't regret it.
For all those who don't believe in email anymore; talk to Rand :)
Get yourself a good accountant who knows how to make your company more tax efficient - esp. here in the UK.
Rand, I agree with Nedim Sabic. Your self criticism is powerful enough for others to listen to. This is really a great post.
"The greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most. Who knows where life will take you? The road is long and in the end, the journey is the destination."
Excellent advice, also I'm really enjoying and learning from the SEO Beginner's Guide. You followed your own advice about not being your own customer and I'm sure others like me thank you for it.
Going to have to second the request for a follow-up on 'email marketing campaigns'. Color me intrigued.
Hind site it a wonderful thing.
Most decisions made, are always looked back upon, and we think "what if i did it this way"
Good thing is, to use this hind site info, to think outside the square next time.
Unreal post, much appreciated and there's a heck of a lot of stuff we're taking away from it.
More of the same please :)
Lol at the scooter comment.
It's funny how we start to reminisce in our olden days eh rand?
Yes, those points of advice ring true in addition to so many others we each hold from our career path, relationships and short comings...
nice tips, sad that cant be done (at least not yet) but its never late to do something
I'd go back to 2004 or 2005 and tell myself to start buying lots of generic domains. The appreciation is ridiculous. Reminds me of a very funny poster:
https://www.digitalheretix.com/images/seo.jpg
Great list of items Rand. I think the optimizing your conversions is key. Great stuff once again. Always love hearing advice from a pro. Thank you!
This is an excellent list, especially for entrepreneurs and small businesses like myself. I definitely struggle with the issue of delegation. I realize that I absolutely need to start delegating if I want to grow the business, but I still haven't found anybody who knows how to do the things the way I want them to do them. I guess at some point I will need to bite the bullet and delegate some tasks such as linkbuilding, writing articles, reporting, etc. so I can focus on generating more new business. :)
Rand,
From a fellow entrepreneur (this is my 3rd business in the last 15 years), that is an outstanding list, filled with valuable wisdom. Impressive that you can see some of it with only a couple years to reflect.
Arnie
"Start Using Email Marketing ASAP - You have no idea the power of a well-crafted email campaign."
Really? What do you mean? Advertising in established newsletters? Building your own leads? Spamming?
It would be great if you could elaborate this point a little bit since we have lost all faith in email marketing.
"Last, and Most Important; Get Married - It's unbelievably excellent in every way."
As long as your wife can keep up with the long nights at work!
He means building your own opt-in mailing list, then marketing to that list on occasion, but not spamming them to the point where people unsubscribe. For example, I imagine that SeoMoz received a ton of orders for their Advanced Seo Training Series through their email marketing of it. I received the email, and I ordered.
"You, Rand, Are Not the Customer"
I think this advice is true for every business owner, especially on the Internet. I've seen this a million times: people build websites and tell the designer to do this and that so it would be as "pretty" as possible without realizing that pretty is subjective and not always usable or SEO friendly...
Very true...design should not come before usability/seo but instead work hand-in-hand.
A true web designer not only knows how to make a gripping design but also keeps the user and development in mind.
I really like the advice to establish guiding principles. I am a big believer in planning and setting a code of how to work and writing down the goals you want to achieve really helps in your journey to get where you want to be. I've just recently started a blog, and have done this, though I admit I have to revise my initial effort.
Well done on the post.....'are you sure on the get married bit?' ;)
Yes, he's sure. Never seen a guy more sure of that one.
I know a guy who was unbelieveable sure. It's me. Now, I'm divorcing. Very happy and very sad, at the same time.
Hopefully, Rand will be of better luck. I wish you all the best to you, Mr. Fishkin.
(Sorry, after reading this post's URL it's all I have in my head now)
Great one.
I found it on YouTube.
I'm on it. I'll write something for the Distilled blog this week and get an update into an SEOmoz post when it's done. I love this idea (as you know from the breakfast conversation we had) - and I think the fact this (nearly) all works as advice going forwards is the beauty of it. There'll be some overlap with some of your advice too.
Hey Rand,
that's an awesome nice idea to take up - and in fact I used to write letters to myself already in the past (to read them later, more like a diary) ...but actually writing it the other way round would make even more sense :-)
cheers,
christoph
"Buy a Scooter to Commute to the Office - Just make sure you buy some motorcycle pants to wear on rainy days."
I thought you don't like scooter anymore.
Anyways, great post! I am in my startup phase and was thinking all the things you mentioned we shouldn't do, Thanks for that!
If I could go back I would spend more time on the boat fishing. Well that's what I would like to have done but in reality I should give more attention to sales and marketing.
Good exercise.
Hey Rand...
Just wanted you to know that this is my favorite post I've read from you.
I love transparency and try to incorporate it into my company and how I deal with my customers and employees every day.
Thanks for sharing.
Great post Rand, one of your better ones in a long while. (The others were still good, this was just...better).
I'm in a similar position that you were a few years ago, so this post provides some great insight and validity to decisions I've made and will soon be making. Although the situation is different, creating growth and value for owners and users is my end goal. With these large overwhelming goals in mind, I have a new-found respect for you and the path you took to get SEOmoz where its at today.
Looking forward to seeing everyone in Seattle next week...see you then!
I think that is a major hurdle for all business owners--learning that they are not the customer.
Even when you are solving a need you have you aren't the one buying it.
Hi there,
I think almost all the things written in this article can also apply to future decisions. It's funny that thinking about how you would improve your business if you could turn back the time could also offer some info for the future.
PS : the letter didn't arrived in the past and never will. If it would then you would not have to write it now :)
Thank you for your article.
Good post Rand,
few that stood out to me:
Development and Scalability
fully agree...having strong working teams that can take a concept and effectively run with it is just excellent. Builds a strong company and a much more productive environment
Start Using Email Marketing
With so many people using the internet for just about everything these days , it is more cost-effective to target them there (than with printed material). With opt-in mailing lists and some discretion, you can really generate some impressive results.
Buy a Scooter to Commute to the Office
Ahhh, maybe...
if we are thinking about being a little more green then yes a scooter is a good choice but so is a smart car!
Good points...until the end. Maybe review that point in a couple of years!
Dude, I'm right here.
here's one.. pay more attention to your PRO members who are experienced.. 2 years down the line.. they won't be happy to call your bullshit out.
(see the twitter u never pay attnetion to)
Will shoot you an email on this to follow up - sorry if I've been lax abuot replying on Twitter. Just really busy and traveling a bunch. If there's anything serious, feel free to email me - [email protected].
sorry had to resort to using attention grabbing language.
but it worked. =/
thanks for the reply.
=)
As a paid member I found response time in the Q&A section to be very good.