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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Sandbox   >   An idiot’s guide to building a web business

An idiot’s guide to building a web business

By on September 22, 2009

I’m not calling Dave McClure an idiot. Far from it.

His presentation to last year’s Seedcamp on the basics of building a web business is inspirational.

He calls it Startup Metrics for Pirates – AARRR! (He did present it on International Talk Like A Pirate Day last year.)

By running through the concepts of:

  • Acquisition
  • Activation
  • Retention
  • Referral
  • Revenue

Dave sets out a basic “how-to” guide for anyone building a web business (or, for that matter, an iPhone app, a Facebook game and, increasingly, products on XBLA and PSN although in walled gardens, the raw data is harder to come by.)

You should read it. Seriously. Go look at it now.

Startup Metrics for Pirates (SeedCamp 2008)

View more presentations from Dave McClure.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com