David Cummings on Startups

Month: June 2010

  • The Pardot Name

    Way back in 2006 I had an idea for marketing software that would help with lead generation and management. Not owning any good domain names that met my criteria, I set out to find a domain name as the basis for the company name.

    After using several domain name finding tools (like BustAName.com) and not having any luck I went to Dictionary.com and typed in “marketing.” At the time, Dictionary.com returned translations of a word in 29 different languages. Nothing useful turned of for “marketing” so I tried the derivative of the word and did a search for “market.” Of the translations that came back, one caught my eye — pardot.

    Pardot is the Latvian (not Latin!) verb meaning “to market” or “to sell.” I liked that it was easy to pronounce and spell, so I headed over to BustAName to see if it was unregistered, and, much to my surprise, it was available. I registered it immediately for $8 and the rest is history.

  • Tools to Manage Tasks and Projects

    I’m always interested in learning how teams work within companies including tools they recommend. Methodologies like Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen has been great for me (I don’t follow it completely but did take several pieces from it). Today I had an entrepreneur shoot me an email and ask about project management software, so I wanted to share some tool ideas for both tasks and projects.

    Tasks and Projects:

    • Email – make a special folder to put action items in
    • Google Spreadsheets – this is my favorite when it is something simple and I don’t want much overhead
    • GQueues – good for task management with tight Google Calendar integration
    • Basecamp – great for lightweight project management that just works

    Of course, tasks and projects aren’t the same thing, so this list is just a starting point. My advice is to try out several tools and start using one to make your startup more productive.

    What else? What other tools do you recommend for tasks and projects?

  • My New Book on Marketing Automation: Think Outside the Inbox

    We just released my new book, Think Outside the Inbox, co-authored with my Pardot co-founder Adam Blitzer.

    The material assumes a strong knowledge of both interactive and B2B marketing but does not require any experience with marketing automation.

    Pardot Marketing Automation Book

    Topics covered include:

    • Lead nurturing/drip marketing
    • Effective email marketing
    • Lead scoring/grading
    • Forms/landing pages
    • Metrics worth tracking

    Think Outside the Inbox is available on Amazon. Please put a note in the comments of this blog post if you’d like a free copy sent priority mail at no charge. I’d love to get your thoughts and feedback.