Larry Kim is living every entrepreneur’s dream. He developed his own software and then raised millions of dollars in venture capital in two rounds. You’ll be amazed by how he did it.
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Larry Kim founded WordStream in 2007. He Bootstrapped the company and used consulting services revenue to fund a team of engineers and marketers to develop and sell software for search engine marketing automation. In August of 2008, Larry secured a $4Million Series A venture capital investment from Sigma Partners and later in 2010, another $6Million Series B investment led by Egan Managed Partners. Today the company is a more than $12Million business, employing over 100 people, helping thousands of customers worldwide with their search marketing efforts, and managing around half-a-billion dollars in combined spend. In his role as Chief Technology Officer, Larry helps with marketing and product management. In the last five years he has written over a thousand articles on small business marketing which have been cited in over ten thousand publications and have generated a total of over 10 million views. Larry’s blog does around 650,000 visitors per month and is the world’s most popular SEM blog. Larry is also a top contributor to a dozen other industry blogs such as Inc. Magazine and Search Engine Land.
Think Like A Journalist Quote
“The days of SEO being a game of outsmarting algorithms are over. Today content strategy and valuable, sustainable strategies are essential, not just tricks and links.” ~Adam Audette, Chief Knowledge Officer, RKG
Success Quote
“Be a unicorn among a sea of donkeys.”
Career Highlight
Going from a sole-proprietor to a company with more than 100 employees, 2,000 customers, and more than a $12 million business.
When It Didn’t Work
Earlier in his career, Larry was churning out tons of content with the primary focus of Search Engine Optimization. See how, even though he was getting lots of traffic, it still wasn’t really helping his business. Find out why and what he did to solve the problem.
Brand Journalism & Marketing Advice
- Businesses often fail because of poor marketing.
- The product or service may be good but ineffective marketing will kill the business.
- Find a way to acquire clients at the lowest cost. Brand Journalism is a vital strategy to do that.
- Create remarkable content rather than tons of content.
- Remarkable content comes from deeply developing a story. Find a unique angle. Give an unexpected perspective.
- Give. Give. Give content that matters to your niche market.
- The scale and power comes from creating content because it can easily convert since the pre-customer is already engaged with your brand.
Multimedia Resource
Book, Documentary, Podcast, Internet Channel
80/20 Sales and Marketing, Perry Marshall
Resource Links
TBJA 039 Marcus Sheridan: How An Article Saved His Business From Bankruptcy
Contact
MobileMonkey website (creating mobile chatbots)
Larry’s Internet Marketing Blog
Twitter @LarryKim
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