Bootstrapper.com - Confessions of Serial Entrepreneurs

The 5th Presenter and the first in our Digital Media track at the BootStrapper Venture Summit was APParition Ads. *APP Ads)

APP ads is a yet to launch interstitial ad network that in tests have gotten $20 CPM’s within facebook and social media inventory. I’m the founding chairman of the company and we’re about to launch in public beta (been in private alpha making $$$ for a few months) and we’re very excited about it. We have a great team that includes 4 successful entrepreneurs. We’re not sure if we need to raise any money for this but i figured it would be good to pitch it since it was my conference (gotta love conflicts of interest

If you want to learn more, contact me!

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on takesalltypes. A couple months back, we applies for the facebook fund for TAT, thinking it makes total sense given their goals. Well, we just heard back and we’ve made the next stage of their process. Woohoo!!! Thanks facebook, let’s see where this goes? Meanwhile, donations appreciated :) 
Richie

So i misvalued facebook and said 7 times microsoft’s investment justifies the valuation. Well, I’m an idiot and have infantile math skills. It’s like 70X and that’s just crazy so I take back my thesis. However, I do think Search done right is the key to reaching their lofty valuation.

So I was on facebook today and noticed a new feature - chat. Yes, it seems facebook is building needed apps into their platform finally. Facebook is coming close to turning themselves into a true portal. First off, chat in facebook is tied to an existing addiction - facebook so see facebook chat numbers eventually overpowering AIM. It will - just give it some time. FCBK did chat in such a simple way that it will kick ass. Look for video chat in the future.

Now, facebook needs to retool their message system to allow users to host their REAL email and build a REAL search engine or at least do a proper google partnership and they will be able to almost maybe somday justify their valuation. At least I would say great work so far.

A couple of things about their valuation. First off, they are profitable so will never go under so what that means is that they have a $240,000,000 investment fund to invest in themselves over the next few years. They need to turn $240MM in $15MM which is possible. It’s only a 7X return. Your every day average VC is looking for at least 10X in a successful investment. Just some food for thought …

So I was browsing someones profile and he had at least 30 applications on it. To me thats a sign that ADD has taken over facebook in its entirety. Now there are so many apps its crazy out there and there’s app for just about anything you can think of but while some of them are very good, there simply is too many, building facebook apps right now has quite a limited effectiveness compared to six months ago, i no longer think its an awesome opportunity, still could be but much harder to market apps now.

3 months ago i was at a facebook developers group meeting and talked for a moment about monetization and how i thought facebook would build their own ad network and no one will make money on facebook. I am here to say that i think the climate has changed and now you can make a fortune on facebook.

Lately I’ve become a bit obsessed with facebook monetization. I’ve had the luxury of getting to know a number of people in the facebook ecosystem.

as an aside i’m amazed at the ecosystem facebook is creating and the fact that people are as resonsive on facebook as they were on the internet 10 years ago. This is a new dynamic that i haven’t seen online since 1999/2000 before the first bubble burst in terns of how interactive people are and how responsive they are to surveys and advertising. It’s really unique.

But in terms of monetization….as a result of my role as adviser/shareholder in Shoes!, a facebook app with 300,000 rapid shoe lover.

This is the list of monetization techniques

1) Ad Network rotation. You can’t make money with just one ad network. You need to rotate many facebook and standard ad networks. Each does well at different times of day and for traffic from different areas. You must test like a biatch!

2) Micropayments - there are 2 micropayment systems on facebook in addition to the ability to embed google check or paypal. Sell “gifts” and other $1 and $2 trinkets on facebooks. It adds up.

3) Apparel , if you have an addicted fan base sell tshirts, shorts, thongs etc… with your logo and slogans on it. People eat this shit up.

4) Email: collect email address (incentivize collection) and market to people via email. People buy shit off of email a lot faster than they buy off of social networks. True social commerce is probably 2-3 years away but using social networks to drive people into email lists is a way to drive people into a responsive mechanism. Email sell stuff. that simple.

5) Surveys - using stuff like acebucks. Users love this crap and it makes good money.

6) Affiliate Programs: Using affiliate programs to promote hyper targeted offers is very effective. For example a ringtones offer on a music site.

7) Custom Sponsorship: If you have a popular app with a targeted user base, you can go after real ad agency or sponsor direct dollars. There are plenty of potential sponsors out there that would throw down $5-10-20k a month to have an exclusive sponsor or presenting sponsor of an app with a few hundred thousand people.

Ad Agencies: If you have traffic, you should be pitching directly to ad agencies for standard banner type deals or working with a media rep firm. This is how you can turn a .20 CPM into a $25 CPM.

9) Search. You may as well have a google search box. Users appreciate it and it makes a few bucks. Won’t make a fortune but there’s some money in it.

10) ?

11) My Secret Method: I have one monetization method that blows everything out of the water. This is only reserved for friends, family and clients though. I may start a fcbk monetization business around it so i ned to keep it close for the next few weeks until I decide if i’m launching it or not.

I hope this post helps

Facebook is a very valuable thing. When facebook opened themselves up I never thought it would work. When they opened it up beyond Colleges, i thought it would fail too. I was wrong. Facebook has become the operating system for the internet. All they need is a powerful email system and a social search engine and they will own google and everyone else. Sure, they don’t have much revenue but that’s fixable.

lately i’ve gotten involved with the Shoes! Application that has 200,000 rapid woman’s shoes fans and growing rapidly. The app allows you to gift people shoes! and put it in your virtual closet. Now the app is showing by 8,000 new people per day.   Now, Facebook is a marketing platform for people and if you are trying to build apps as a business you really should just be using facebook as your marketing platform so that you can own the customer yourself.

All in all there are a lot of ways to make money on facebook. In general you can earn .50-1.50 CPM for rotating ads within the site. Beyond that, we feel that traditional tactics will work best like email lists and coreg and incentive systems. Incentive systems have failed elsewhere but because it is so new to facebook we think it could make a lot of money in the short term.

Why email? People don’t like buying expensive shit via social networks. The concept of social shopping is too new and confusing. However, people buy shit off of email all the time. Email is a super effective way to sell shit therefore we will be using it. We also can engage with our users and push content to them daily and remind them of our service. Most apps on facebook like at the app as an end all in itself when in truth an app on fcbk is just the starting point for leveraging their users for ourselves.