How effective is advertising

Guy Kawaski's blog in 2006 generated $3,350 (yes, whole year) that's not too impressive. Unless you put up some sexy pictures and encourage people to click to see more, the little adds don't seem to make anybody rich. So I wonder how much net new business anybody generated through advertising? So far I got all sorts of esoteric answers - but no numbers.

Any comments or experience? How much did advertising do for you? (As advertiser getting real leads | as advertising getting dollars for clicks.)

Facebook deal still not confirmed

It's still a rumor and buries some interesting questions:
If Microsoft invests in Facebook and some additional hedge funds, Facebook could get some $500M to $750M cash in the bank. That's IPO like money. The company would have what they'd gain at an IPO without getting public (yet) and con continue operate like a public company. NICE!

Would an investment in that size determine a $15B market-cap now - what would that mean for the real IPO? Is there a $30Billion market cap opportunity? More than any automobile giant or
only 50% away form SAP? Would that valuation kill Facebooks IPO, because there is no short term upside? May be NOT SO NICE.

Is this the begin of yet another bubble? Oh well.

Would Facebook as friend of Microsoft be enemy of Google? NOT NICE.

So if it is becoming for real would that be a good deal for Microsoft? For the industry as a whole? Even for Facebook? TOO PATHETIC.


Would the deal block out certain future investors? Sure. Would it accelerate certain other peaple to invest? Sure.


An age old rule says: "If somebody offers you good money, take it."

We'll see

Messaging by community

THANK YOU !!!!
We received over 100 emails, public feedbacks in LinkedIn, user group comments and even phone calls in less than 24 hours. This is amazing :-)

Our team took some of the great suggestions right away, turned it around and you can see it already on the website. Some of the suggestions need some more careful thinking and planning and others just need time to sit in. I just wanted to thank everybody for the excitement you shared with us, your participation and your well placed criticism. This is AWESOME.

Xeequa became truly a virtual yet very social company. I like to think that more people helped us during this startup phase than most other companies. But actually very interesting to mention:

Many times more people outside the company helped shape Xeequa, than we have employees.

T H A N K Y O U

High Tech Entrepreneurs' Forum

November 12, 5:30PM, something for entrepreneurs and startups.

Theme: A Start-Up's Bottom Line
It all starts with a dream, which through blood, sweat and tears somehow becomes tangible - your product or service becomes available to the market. In the past months, we talked about acquiring reference customers, creating a value proposition, and integrating the sales and marketing plan. This month, we'll talk about a start-up's bottom line - how to deliver sales results and continue to build the start-up dream.

• Facilitator Ben Park, Founder and CEO, Camfess.com and President, KASE
• Panelist Axel Schultze, Founder and CEO, Xeequa
• Panelist Henry Wong, Garage.com and Diamond Ventures

More info is on High Tech Entrepreneurs Forum

Distilling down the message

We know exactly what we do - But does anybody else know? As we are getting closer to our final product launch of Xeequa 1.0 in Q1 08 we are now working on our messaging. Rather than spending a lot of consulting dollars we’d ask you our potential users what you think our message should be. Any input is very appreciated.

“Xeequa is bringing the power of social networking to business.”
[does that make sense]?

“Xeequa connects whole companies and their teams, like social networks connect individuals.”
[does that help draw the picture?]

Some background: While you can’t really DO anything with a social network other than enjoy the fact that you have a lot of connections, Xeequa invented actionNet™ and actionable network architecture that allows users to share project or opportunity information over the very network they created.

“Xeequa’s ‘actionNet’ Technology is first in making a social business network actionable” 0r as an alternative “How much new business did you get through YOUR social network?”
[Is that worth mentioning at all?]

“By joining Xeequa you and your company join the most powerful business network in the world. With an astounding 30,000 high tech companies, Xeequa silently aggregated the largest publically accessible company directory on the planet. By participating in Xeequa you may cut your alliance development cost in half. Leveraging Xeequa will give you more connectivity to your partners, alliances, suppliers and other business relevant connections than any other system."
[Is this too salesy too many superlatives?]

Please respond in any way you like – one way is info at xeequa.com