Microsoft announced this morning that they will purchase LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion in cash, making it the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. To compare, the next largest acquisitions by Microsoft were Skype ($8.5 billion in 2011), Nokia’s phone division ($7.6 billion in 2013), online advertising company Aquantive ($6 billion in 2007), and Minecraft maker Mojang ($2.5 billion in 2014). LinkedIn’s …
I recently came across the Internet Trends Report put together by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), presented by Mary Meeker at the Code Conference. After looking through the presentation (213 slides!) I have summarized the most relevant points in this blog post.
In the fall of 2012 I quit my job to become an entrepreneur. My first business was a blog about marriage and parenting that I ran with my wife. In terms of impact, it was a success (it is still being read by 100,000 people per year). In terms of being a profitable business, it was a failure. My second business …
Last weekend I attended the funeral of the father of my good friend. The church was packed with hundreds and hundreds of people. It may sound funny, but I find attending funerals to be very meaningful. This time is a difficult time for friend, as he was very close to his father. I felt that it was important to be …
Almost every small business owner and freelancer I talk to wants to grow their business. Growth doesn’t always mean more money. Growth could mean more profits. Growth could mean less work while keeping your revenues stable. Growth could mean more ideal customers and less non-ideal customers. That’s why I sometimes describe what we do at Coracle Marketing as helping small business …
I’ve been reading Scaling Up by Verne Harnish about how to grow a business. One of his suggestions was to ask your customers 3 simple questions:
Today is my wife’s birthday and I wanted to write a blog post to celebrate her. 3 years ago I wanted to start a marketing business. I talked with my wife about the idea, but she was hesitant at first. But she could see that it was something I really wanted to do, so after reflection and prayer, she started …
Last week I attended the Canadian Internet Marketing Conference in Squamish. Among the speakers was Kristin Auger from Salesforce, who presented the results of a recent survey her company did with 4,000 marketers around the world. What they were looking for were the characteristics of high performing marketing teams (18% of the survey population). High performing teams identified themselves as “extremely satisfied …
Every spring there is a pop-up carnival that occupies the south side of Coquitlam Center’s parking lot (the mall that is 5 minutes from our house). I took my daughter there over the weekend to go on some rides, play a few games, and buy mini-donuts. When we got there we saw that the mini-donut line was very, very long.
Years ago my wife and I decided to take a day to rest every week. Usually it is a Sunday. Both of us come from a Christian background where the idea of “Sabbath” is encouraged. Sabbath means “to cease” – to cease from work. Taking a day to rest wasn’t something I used to do. When I was in school …
