Building a successful long-tail business

Reena A Jadhav · December 13, 2009 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/bf6

Interview with long tail expert Adam Boyden, President Conduit

Reena A Jadhav interviews Adam Boyden, President of Conduit which has crossed 200,000 long tail publishers and successfully monetized their customers in less than 5 years.  

According to Adam, building a successful long tail strategy starts with addressing a big problem faced by large number of businesses. The key is to deliver an incredibly easy to use solution that is also easy to understand and implement. Don't forget to make the product reliable and stable.

How about the importance of managing cost of customer acquisition? Long tail platforms are inherently fixed cost platforms so focus on business development to drive scale.  

He shares information about how Conduit helps publishers build a better relationship between their content and their end users in less than 15 minutes of setup time. Some of their unusual conduits include one called LA Gangs and another one for buying and selling cows.

When asked about the importance of viral marketing for customer acquisition, Adam says people don't really understand viral marketing. Watch the video to hear his insights into how Conduit, which is not an inherently viral solution, has accomplished meteoric growth.  

What about the pitfalls? The big one is around assessment of need, the fact that there isn't a "big need". The other issue is feature creep and the assumption that more features will bring more customers. Focus on one issue and solve it for the masses. Final words - don't forget international markets as they offer huge growth opportunities.

 

Image Description

Reena A Jadhav

Reena Jadhav is a 4 time entrepreneur (Done.com, Conduit, JobFlash, Riiwards), now working on HealerPedia.com, start-up Advisor, and Investor with Valley incubators. Harvard MBA, Summa Cum Laude Wharton Business School.

All author posts

Support VatorNews by Donating

Read more from our "Lessons and advice" series

More episodes

Related Companies, Investors, and Entrepreneurs

Conduit

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

Conduit: Function -noun, Pronunciation \ kän- dü-et \

Definition:

  1. A channel through which something is conveyed.
  2. A means of transmitting or distributing (a conduit of information).

Conduit provides website syndication solutions for web publishers that increase traffic, revenue and brand loyalty while simplifying access to the content, communities and applications that subscribers care about most. By creating a direct, always-on connection between publishers and subscribers, Conduit opens new channels for real-time communication and commerce. More than 140,000 publishers have joined the Conduit network worldwide, including major brands such as Fox News, Lufthansa, Major League Baseball, Greenpeace, TechCrunch, Softonic and small and medium organizations in 180 countries around the globe. Web publishers who become part of the Conduit network have the opportunity to syndicate their website content and applications directly to the browser by allowing subscribers to add them as simply as adding an RSS feed.

 

The Conduit community toolbar helps Web publishers drive online revenue and build stronger relationships with their customers by giving them direct access to the content and applications they want, when they want them, directly from their browser.  As the first and only fully customizable, branded toolbar available 100% on-demand, the Conduit community toolbar offers a greater variety of features and more sophisticated communication and syndication capabilities than custom-programming without the high cost and headaches of software development projects that lie outside a Web publisher’s core business. 

Build a community toolbar today!  www.conduit.com/toolbar/ 


The company is privately-held with headquarters in Israel and Redwood Shores, CA. For more information about Conduit, visit www.conduit.com or email info@conduit.com.

HealthBootcamps

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on

HealthBootcamps is a platform for doctors to offer actionable affordable online health programs to 100 million Americans suffering from chronic disease.

Our health bootcamps are powered by Dr. Joel Kahn for heart health, Dr. Connealy for beating cancer, Dr. Vij for diabetes, Dr. Seibel for women's health and menopause, Dr. Comella for biohacking health and many more. 

 

 

23707

Adam Boyden

Joined Vator on

135

Reena A Jadhav

Joined Vator on

Reena Jadhav is a 4 time entrepreneur (Done.com, Conduit, JobFlash, Riiwards), now working on HealerPedia.com, start-up Advisor, and Investor with Valley incubators. Harvard MBA, Summa Cum Laude Wharton Business School.