The document outlines five common mistakes made by a startup and how to avoid them, including issues with copyright music in videos, ineffective calls to action, website visibility problems, poorly targeted promotions, and inadequate engagement at events. Each mistake is illustrated with personal anecdotes and offers specific recommendations for future improvements. Key takeaways emphasize the importance of checking for copyright issues, having clear goals for content, optimizing website settings, promoting effectively, and actively engaging in networking opportunities.

1. 5 MISTAKES
WE MADE WITH
OUR STARTUP
(AND HOW YOU
CAN AVOID THEM)
ROOKIE

2. 1.

3. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.

4. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.

5. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.
Enthusiastically he began editing, locking himself away in his room for a couple of days…

6. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.
Enthusiastically he began editing, locking himself away in his room for a couple of days…
Everyone loved the final result.

7. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.
Enthusiastically he began editing, locking himself away in his room for a couple of days…
Everyone loved the final result.
With a big smile on his face he uploaded the video to the company’s YouTube
Channel, and then shared the link on Slack. HAPPILY he even shared it in our
company and investor newsletters.

8. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.
Enthusiastically he began editing, locking himself away in his room for a couple of days…
Everyone loved the final result.
With a big smile on his face he uploaded the video to the company’s YouTube
Channel, and then shared the link on Slack. HAPPILY he even shared it in our
company and investor newsletters.
His colleague grabbed his phone, tapped the link so hard he almost
broke his screen, only to be greeted by:

9. THAT’S NOT YOURS…
We shot some rock star footage at Web Summit. We literally had over a dozen GB’s worth of video
ready to be cut into little pieces and glued back together again accompanied by a thumping beat.
Yours truly found a great remix of a Vic Mensah song. Free to download.
Enthusiastically he began editing, locking himself away in his room for a couple of days…
THIS VIDEO IS
NOT AVAILABLE
Everyone loved the final result.
With a big smile on his face he uploaded the video to the company’s YouTube
Channel, and then shared the link on Slack. HAPPILY he even shared it in our
company and investor newsletters.
His colleague grabbed his phone, tapped the link so hard he almost
broke his screen, only to be greeted by:

10. WELL, **** ME…
It may seem like the most logical
thing in the world. And that’s
probably because it is.
Copyrighted music (that stuff
artists worked really hard on) is
usually not okay to be used for
whatever you see fit.

11. WELL, **** ME…
It may seem like the most logical
thing in the world. And that’s
probably because it is.
Copyrighted music (that stuff
artists worked really hard on) is
usually not okay to be used for
whatever you see fit.
YouTube blocked our video on
mobile devices, and in Germany.
Oops.

12. WELL, **** ME…
THIS IS HOW YOU AVOID OUR MISTAKE:
๏ Create your own music (not easy
though…)
๏ Use one from the standard sound
libraries (boring!)
๏ Find (free) remixes on Soundcloud,
YouTube, etc.
๏ But… always test first! How? upload a
video just containing the sound.
Youtube will tell you soon enough if it’s
okay.
It may seem like the most logical
thing in the world. And that’s
probably because it is.
Copyrighted music (that stuff
artists worked really hard on) is
usually not okay to be used for
whatever you see fit.
YouTube blocked our video on
mobile devices, and in Germany.
Oops.

13. 2.

14. CALL-TO-NOTHING
So we have this little SlideShare called 7 ways to ROCK a TECH
CONFERENCE

15. CALL-TO-NOTHING
So we have this little SlideShare called 7 ways to ROCK a TECH
CONFERENCE
Thanks to the lovely people at SlideShare we managed to get thousands of views

16. CALL-TO-NOTHING
So we have this little SlideShare called 7 ways to ROCK a TECH
CONFERENCE
Thanks to the lovely people at SlideShare we managed to get thousands of views
Naturally we were running around trying to
buy a few extra servers to handle the
gigantic boost in traffic we were about to
receive

17. CALL-TO-NOTHING
So we have this little SlideShare called 7 ways to ROCK a TECH
CONFERENCE
Thanks to the lovely people at SlideShare we managed to get thousands of views
Naturally we were running around trying to
buy a few extra servers to handle the
gigantic boost in traffic we were about to
receive
And then….

18. #SMH
“HMM, AT LEAST THEY SAW OUR USERNAME RIGHT?”
“I THINK A COUPLE PEOPLE STARTED FOLLOWING US ON SLIDESHARE..”

19. #SMH
“HMM, AT LEAST THEY SAW OUR USERNAME RIGHT?”
“I THINK A COUPLE PEOPLE STARTED FOLLOWING US ON SLIDESHARE..”
So yeah, our SlideShare got a
little traction. But what we forgot
was to tell the people what they
should do if they liked it. And
why they should do that.

20. #SMH
“HMM, AT LEAST THEY SAW OUR USERNAME RIGHT?”
“I THINK A COUPLE PEOPLE STARTED FOLLOWING US ON SLIDESHARE..”
So yeah, our SlideShare got a
little traction. But what we forgot
was to tell the people what they
should do if they liked it. And
why they should do that.
While we’re still very happy that we
got featured, it feels like we missed
a good opportunity to build an
audience.

21. #SMH
THIS IS HOW YOU AVOID OUR MISTAKE:
๏ Ask yourself: What is the goal of creating this piece
of content? What do I want out of it? No really?
๏ If you’re clear on that… Think of how you can attain
that goal best. If you want people’s email, ask for it!
๏ But not just ask though, seduce them. Why would
they want to give it away? Put as much time into that
sheet as all the rest of your sheets put together.
“HMM, AT LEAST THEY SAW OUR USERNAME RIGHT?”
“I THINK A COUPLE PEOPLE STARTED FOLLOWING US ON SLIDESHARE..”
So yeah, our SlideShare got a
little traction. But what we forgot
was to tell the people what they
should do if they liked it. And
why they should do that.
While we’re still very happy that we
got featured, it feels like we missed
a good opportunity to build an
audience.

22. 3.

23. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!

24. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.

25. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.
It looked great, we were happy, and more than ready to hail in visitors.

26. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.
It looked great, we were happy, and more than ready to hail in visitors.
A couple of days later…

27. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.
It looked great, we were happy, and more than ready to hail in visitors.
A couple of days later…
“Maybe it’s just me… It’s probably me… But
the website. It doesn’t show up in Google.
At all.”

28. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.
It looked great, we were happy, and more than ready to hail in visitors.
A couple of days later…
“Maybe it’s just me… It’s probably me… But
the website. It doesn’t show up in Google.
At all.”
Webmaster Tools was consulted. Robots.txt was
framed as the suspect.

29. PLEASE DON’T FOLLOW US, ROBOT
BANG!
Online it was. Our completely revamped website.
It looked great, we were happy, and more than ready to hail in visitors.
A couple of days later…
“Maybe it’s just me… It’s probably me… But
the website. It doesn’t show up in Google.
At all.”
Webmaster Tools was consulted. Robots.txt was
framed as the suspect.
“DAMN ROBOTS.”

30. WE DIDN’T MEAN THAT GOOGLE
What happened was: we moved our new website from the development folder to the
root. That’s fine. But what wasn’t fine, was not changing the robots.txt to reflect the new
reality.

31. WE DIDN’T MEAN THAT GOOGLE
What happened was: we moved our new website from the development folder to the
root. That’s fine. But what wasn’t fine, was not changing the robots.txt to reflect the new
reality.
The robots.txt in the development folder told Google to ignore everything after ‘/‘.
Which makes sense, because you don’t want Google to index anything that’s still in
development.

32. WE DIDN’T MEAN THAT GOOGLE
What happened was: we moved our new website from the development folder to the
root. That’s fine. But what wasn’t fine, was not changing the robots.txt to reflect the new
reality.
When you’re going LIVE
however, it’s not so smart to tell
Google to ignore everything
after ‘/‘. Because that means it
will literally ignore everything
on your server. Including our
fancy page.
The robots.txt in the development folder told Google to ignore everything after ‘/‘.
Which makes sense, because you don’t want Google to index anything that’s still in
development.

33. WE DIDN’T MEAN THAT GOOGLE
THIS IS HOW YOU AVOID OUR MISTAKE:
๏ Just don’t be stupid.
๏ No, please always check, check, double check.
๏ Webmaster Tools. They’re your friend.
๏ Again, don’t be stupid…
๏ Just don’t!
What happened was: we moved our new website from the development folder to the
root. That’s fine. But what wasn’t fine, was not changing the robots.txt to reflect the new
reality.
When you’re going LIVE
however, it’s not so smart to tell
Google to ignore everything
after ‘/‘. Because that means it
will literally ignore everything
on your server. Including our
fancy page.
The robots.txt in the development folder told Google to ignore everything after ‘/‘.
Which makes sense, because you don’t want Google to index anything that’s still in
development.

34. 4.

35. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.

36. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.

37. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.

38. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.
It would be a shame to let a good blog post go to
waste right?

39. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.
It would be a shame to let a good blog post go to
waste right?
You log in to Twitter Ads. Well, the blog is in English
so you pick the USA & the UK as countries to target.

40. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.
It would be a shame to let a good blog post go to
waste right?
You log in to Twitter Ads. Well, the blog is in English
so you pick the USA & the UK as countries to target.
Interests? Tech I guess?

41. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.
It would be a shame to let a good blog post go to
waste right?
You log in to Twitter Ads. Well, the blog is in English
so you pick the USA & the UK as countries to target.
Interests? Tech I guess?
You select a Tweet. But after so many settings and
choices…

42. TAKE OUR MONEY, IT’S FINE
You wrote a blog post. You’re happy with it. No one’s reading it though.
You share your blog post on social media. Looks nice,
but it’s still not catching on.
“Let’s promote it!” Someone exclaims.
It would be a shame to let a good blog post go to
waste right?
You log in to Twitter Ads. Well, the blog is in English
so you pick the USA & the UK as countries to target.
Interests? Tech I guess?
You select a Tweet. But after so many settings and
choices…
You half*ss it.

43. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
“THAT’S IT?”

44. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
“THAT’S IT?”
“HMM, AT LEAST THOUSANDS SAW THE TWEET”

45. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
“THAT’S IT?”
“HMM, AT LEAST THOUSANDS SAW THE TWEET”
So what happened is that we
spent a couple of hard earned
dollars on basically a few clicks.

46. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
“THAT’S IT?”
“HMM, AT LEAST THOUSANDS SAW THE TWEET”
So what happened is that we
spent a couple of hard earned
dollars on basically a few clicks.
Sure, thousands saw our Tweet,
but what does that do? It surely
didn’t get us followers…

47. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
“THAT’S IT?”
“HMM, AT LEAST THOUSANDS SAW THE TWEET”
So what happened is that we
spent a couple of hard earned
dollars on basically a few clicks.
Sure, thousands saw our Tweet,
but what does that do? It surely
didn’t get us followers…
And those clicks? They might have
read our blog post, but so what?
The post had no CTA whatsoever.
No clear commercial goal.
Nothing.

48. SO NO REFUNDS, RIGHT?
THIS IS HOW YOU AVOID OUR MISTAKE:
๏ What is my end goal, and how much is that worth
to me? REALLY ask yourself that.
๏ Depending on your situation you might be paying
30 cents per click/follow/reply (is that really worth
it?)
๏ SO think of what you earn from a successful
CONVERSION
๏ And then calculate if the COSTS are worth it.
“THAT’S IT?”
“HMM, AT LEAST THOUSANDS SAW THE TWEET”
So what happened is that we
spent a couple of hard earned
dollars on basically a few clicks.
Sure, thousands saw our Tweet,
but what does that do? It surely
didn’t get us followers…
And those clicks? They might have
read our blog post, but so what?
The post had no CTA whatsoever.
No clear commercial goal.
Nothing.

49. 5.

50. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.

51. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?

52. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.

53. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.
The food was great. As it’s supposed to in Hong Kong.

54. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.
The food was great. As it’s supposed to in Hong Kong.
“I saw Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.”

55. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.
The food was great. As it’s supposed to in Hong Kong.
“I saw Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.”
“You mean the Dutch CTO of Amazon. The guy we can talk to
in Dutch?”

56. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.
The food was great. As it’s supposed to in Hong Kong.
“I saw Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.”
“You mean the Dutch CTO of Amazon. The guy we can talk to
in Dutch?”
“So what did you say to him?”

57. [QUIETNESS]
07-2015 - Hong Kong
RISE Conf, the largest tech conference in Asia, was in full effect. People were pitching
like crazy. Us included. We were literally ROCKING a TECH CONFERENCE. In all
SEVEN WAYS.
But were we though?
During our evening catchup with the team we exchanged stories about who we met,
what we saw, how we felt. The usual.
The food was great. As it’s supposed to in Hong Kong.
“I saw Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.”
“You mean the Dutch CTO of Amazon. The guy we can talk to
in Dutch?”
“So what did you say to him?”
“Nothing, we were just taking a leak…”

58. AT LEAST WE SAW HIM

59. AT LEAST WE SAW HIM
Yes, we had a major player within arm’s reach. But we missed
our window by not being sharp enough.

60. AT LEAST WE SAW HIM
Yes, we had a major player within arm’s reach. But we missed
our window by not being sharp enough.
THIS IS HOW YOU AVOID OUR MISTAKE:
๏ Don’t jump any celebrity/vip/cool person
you see just because
๏ But do politely ask them how their day is
going
๏ Got em?
๏ Now quickly explain what you’re doing and
how you can be valuable to them, and they
to you.
๏ And don’t overthink it. Or the bird has flown!

61. ALRIGHT,
SO ALL IS PERFECT NOW?

62. We wish…

63. IT’S FINE TO MAKE
MISTAKES EVERY NOW
AND THEN. DON’T BE
SCARED TO FAIL. OR
EVEN TO MAKE A ROOKIE
MISTAKE.
We wish…

64. IT’S FINE TO MAKE
MISTAKES EVERY NOW
AND THEN. DON’T BE
SCARED TO FAIL. OR
EVEN TO MAKE A ROOKIE
MISTAKE.
WE’LL PROBABLY MAKE
A DOZEN MORE, BUT YOU
KNOW WHAT? AT LEAST
NOT THE ONES WE MADE
BEFORE.
We wish…

65. IT’S FINE TO MAKE
MISTAKES EVERY NOW
AND THEN. DON’T BE
SCARED TO FAIL. OR
EVEN TO MAKE A ROOKIE
MISTAKE.
WE’LL PROBABLY MAKE
A DOZEN MORE, BUT YOU
KNOW WHAT? AT LEAST
NOT THE ONES WE MADE
BEFORE.
AND EVEN IF WE DID…
We wish…

66. IT’S FINE TO MAKE
MISTAKES EVERY NOW
AND THEN. DON’T BE
SCARED TO FAIL. OR
EVEN TO MAKE A ROOKIE
MISTAKE.
JUST KEEP CALM, LEARN FROM IT, AND MOVE
ON. WORKING IN A STARTUP IS TOO CHAOTIC
TO CRY ABOUT EVERY SMALL MISTAKE.
We wish…
WE’LL PROBABLY MAKE
A DOZEN MORE, BUT YOU
KNOW WHAT? AT LEAST
NOT THE ONES WE MADE
BEFORE.
AND EVEN IF WE DID…

67. BUT WAIT.

68. OUR BIGGEST
MISTAKE THOUGH?

69. OUR BIGGEST
MISTAKE THOUGH?WELL, WE WROTE A LITTLE PIECE ABOUT THAT ONE

70. OUR BIGGEST
MISTAKE THOUGH?WELL, WE WROTE A LITTLE PIECE ABOUT THAT ONE
WE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE

71. Have you seen our Twitter yet?

72. FOLLOW US!

73. FOLLOW US!
IT’S SO WORTH IT