Lars Lofgren

Top google result for "best pet insurance" and "best CBD gummies" are Forbes (actually Forbes Marketplace), and they've moving into sports betting. https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/

Additional information about Forbes' downward trajectory: https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/

Found on the front page today, an article about exactly this kind of "marketing" https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/

The discussion at https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/ is not going well for Mr. Novati. Edit: oops, that was the wrong link! I meant to link to the reddit post discussing that article: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/1o1guxj/thoughts_on_t… I think one of the most telling facts is that pro-Novati poster u/Ok-Donuts has posted numerous comments that are clearly a violation of all norms but seems to be immune to moderation.

It's always been a tough market since the time Google got on the scene. In principal comparison sites could give a lot of value, in practice the vendors want to control the narrative and Google sure as hell wants to extract all the value it can out of the ecosystem. They made the decision to make Forbes.com rank #1 for many comparison queries: https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/ probably because they were tired of brandless bottom feeders fighting for that spot. Today even if you don't intend to use AI Google will probably put trash answers into your search results anyway.

Forbes is blogspam: https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/

Because it became an embarrassing news story (https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/, also mentioned in this article). They would have lazily left it unfixed if everybody weren't laughing at them.

Was probably a whole company right? Pretty good argument that Forbes the traditional media property and Forbes the seo giant are 2 different things: https://larslofgren.com/forbes-marketplace/

Which is also CNN Underscored Money: https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/money. And also USA Today Blueprint: https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/ Details here: https://larslofgren.com/cnn-usa-today-forbes-marketplace/

Growing Virally (where virality coefficient and cycle are really important[1]) is different than growing with Paying Users (where Lifetime Value (LTV) and Cost to aqcuire customers (CAC) is really important[2]) that its different than growing through very high retention rates[3]. You can achieve P/M fit with any of them. You can argue that you don't need growth. Which investors won't particularly like (in particular, VCs have LPs to give a return on investment[4]). But ultimately, if your company is not growing in any way, is any of your work actually making a difference? Are the people working on the company getting a return on investment on their time investment? Growth also doesn't need to be about money (or eventual money, as it can be the case if you are growing virally). Think of Khan Academy (which is a Non Profit[5]): they can grow on more people using them, and on people using them more. They can also grow on impact they have on the students. [1] http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/lessons-learnt-viral-marketing/ [2] http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/startup-killer/ [3] http://larslofgren.com/marketingbasics/the-three-engines-of-growth-wit… [4] http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/08/vc-insanity-economics/ [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy