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Outlined below are common components of an online venture and a recommended product to fulfill those needs quickly, reliably, and inexpensively.

Content Management
WordPress - WordPress is an open source blog tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It’s often customized into a Content Management System (CMS). It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system.

Analytics
Google Analytics – Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. The product is aimed at marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists from which the industry of web analytics originally grew. It is the most widely used website statistics service, currently in use at around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites. Another market share analysis claims that Google Analytics is used at around 49.95% of the top 1,000,000 websites

Testing
Google Website Optimizer – Google Website Optimizer is a free website optimization tool that helps online marketers and webmasters increase visitor conversion rates and overall visitor satisfaction by continually testing different combinations of website content. Google Website Optimizer can test any element that exists as HTML code on a page including calls to action, fonts, headlines, point of action assurances, product copy, product images, product reviews, and forms. It can be used at multiple stage in the conversion funnel. Google Website Optimizer allows webmasters to test entire pages, known as A/B testing or page elements, known as Multivariate testing such as Headings, images or body copy. This tool is part of Google Analytics, though accessed through a different user interface.

Prototyping
Google Docs – Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, slide show, form, and data storage service offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs combines the features of Writely and Spreadsheets with a presentation program incorporating technology designed by Tonic Systems.

Email
Mailchimp - MailChimp is an email marketing service with over 500,000 users. They provide an easy way for users to send email newsletters, manage subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. MailChimp takes a variety of basic and advanced features (like templates, list segmentation, a/b testing, geo-targeting and ROI tracking) and makes them accessible to the everyday user through automation and a competitive price point.

CRM
Sugarcrm - SugarCRM is a software company based in Cupertino, California. They produce the web application Sugar, also known as SugarCRM, which is a customer relationship management (CRM) system that is available in both open source and proprietary, non-free versions. Sugar’s functionality includes sales-force automation, marketing campaigns, customer support, collaboration and reporting. The company operates a number of websites, including its commercial website SugarCRM.com, a development website (SugarForge.org), Sugar Exchange (for third-party extensions), and user forums.

Ecommerce
Amazon and Paypal both offer simple and more advanced integration of ecommerce capabilities via an API. Additionally, both of these companies offer a form of subscription ecommerce which in increasingly popular.

Please provide your feedback and insight into your own lean startup stack in the comments below.
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With online shopping cart abandonment rates averaging 59%, we’ve identified a subset of online customers who want another option. We make it easy for them to find what they need, pay for it all at once and then get it all the very next day for the same cost as standard shipping on most websites” said Kammann.

Consumers can simply add a bookmark to their browser window, select and browse the online stores of interest. Once you come across a product, simply click the bookmark and a popup appears populated with the product information and prompts for size. After payment, the products are shipped next day and all within one package regardless of the store.

Suddenlee’s business model is simple: solve the pain point of ecommerce and the wait time to receive the products in exchange for a service fee that varies based on the total purchase amount

I expect more innovation from this company in the form of mobile devices where I am able to:

• Compare prices of products and purchase from the less expensive merchant, or
• Receive recommendations and purchase a complementary product from another merchant, or
• Photograph an outfit that I saw someone wearing and purchase it

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Almost everyday I read about yet another company that has raise another round which catapults the company into the billion dollar plus valuation club. The problem I have with this is that it seems like most of these startups are in the business of raising money rather than focusing on a business model or refining it to become profitable.

What would happen if these startups focused on the strategy, product, and generating revenue instead of raising money?

A recent example is Twitter that has an estimated revenue run rate of $85 according to Pascal. I recently read that Twitter was working on an $800 million dollar funding round which would yield an $8Bn valuation. There are too many similarities between professional athletes and valuations these days.

Specifically, professional athletes often care most about the press around their multi-year multi million dollar contract and becoming the highest paid. What most people and athletes don’t realize is that not all of that money is guaranteed especially if they get hurt. Similarly, startups seem to be focusing on the next round of funding instead of building a sustainable business and corresponding business model. The tragedy is that most professional athletes squander their money and a lot of startups wind up wasting the venture capital by cashing out and not focusing on building a sustainable business.Tweet

After conducting in depth ethnographic research, Tesco realized that Koreans are one of the hardest working people in the World. Time is precious and after the work day is over, shopping is not something people want to do. Typically people would have to go to the store to purchase the groceries.

Tesco brought the store to the people by installing virtual stores amidst the subway stations throughout the country effectively turning their waiting time into shopping time. These virtual stores are backlit posters of products just as if they were in the store; each product has a QR code that people can scan and add to a shopping cart on their mobile phone. Once the purchase is completed, those groceries are automatically delivered to their residence after work hours.

This initiative increased new customers by 76%, online sales by 130%, and elevated Tesco to the #1 online grocer in Korea and improved their offline rank to a close 2nd. This is a very innovative use of QR codes to solve a major pain point for Korean consumers. I think that this can also apply to the US market in major cities as time is a resource that is becoming increasingly scarce.
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Watch the video below and you will truly be inspired.

GOAB. A TV Experience Concept from Syzygy on Vimeo.

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Steve Jobs @ Stanford

Jeff Bezos @ Princeton

Conan Obrien @ Dartmouth

Stephen Colbert @ Knox

Oprah @ Stanford

JK Rowling @ Harvard
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