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The Super-Angel or VC you’ve been hoping to meet is approaching your booth at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley.  You have 5-7 seconds to get his attention. What do you say?

This is not the time to trot out the classic Unique Value Proposition (UVP). If you’re not familiar with how to write a UVP, stop right now and go read Positioning: The Battle for your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

William James once said “First a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.” The ideas contained in The Lean Startup by Eric Ries seem to have advanced to the third stage, with people claiming that the ideas are not new. While there’s a little truth to this, as Ries admits his debt to Toyota’s lean manufacturing philosophy and to Steve Blank’s Customer Development methodology, the larger truth is that Ries has introduced a revolutionary, counter-intuitive approach to building startups, which if followed, should greatly improve the odds of success.

WordPress is infinitely flexible because of its ability to add functionality via Plugins.  Plugins are easy to install, and can instantly add new functions to your site.  Here are the ones I use and why.

There are many software tools on the market for managing Agile teams.  Most of them are oriented towards Agile Development teams, but a few are suitable to managing Agile Marketing teams as well.  Here are the ones that I’ve tried.

Trello

Trello is my favorite for individual use. It consists of a simple Kanban board, with three columns: To Do, Doing and Done.  Adding a new task is as simple as typing and hitting the return key.  To mark a task complete, you simply drag it over to the Done column.  It also supports multiple boards, teams and some more complex features, but I primarily use if for my To Do list. Trello is a great tool for anyone who wants to manage their To Do lists, not just Agile Marketers.

Do we really need more marketing like the ad to the left? Don’t give me the excuse “it converts”.  First, I doubt it does.  Second, who cares? Porn sells, but do you really want to create more porn?

I also don’t like the second ad on this page. Do we really need more “stuff”, more conspicuous consumption? Does a phone work any better because it’s gold plated?