Startups Uncensored is a free monthly speaking series in Los Angeles, and organizes networking events for entrepreneurs and technology aficionados. It’s presently hosted by Jason Nazar, CEO of Docstoc.com. As a first timer I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of entrepreneurs at the event.

The October linkup was mostly focused on ecommerce startups, ecommerce strategies, tactics, and challenges of building and growing an e-business. The speakers this month where the “Goodfellas of Angels”. And some pretty successfully serial ecommerce entrepreneurs:

• Dan Bliss founder of PerfectBusiness and organizer of the upcoming conference The Perfect Pitch.
• Wil Schroter former CEO of SwapaLease, founder of the GoBig Network,. GotCast and AffordIt;
• and Chance Barnett cool founder of Catch Him Inc.;

Here’s some take-aways for those of you interested in starting  up an ecommerce website:

1. Build an online store without angel funding? YES YOU CAN build a successful site without boat-loads of upfront money.  The speakers where all clear on the initial startup costs – almost nothing. They managed to start without breaking the bank or taking out a second mortgage. If these guys can start an ecommerce project without major backing, than so can you.
2. If you can identify the ecommerce situation, then you can communicate the marketing message. Better subject lines are critical to ecommerce! The message has to be clear and attractive!
3. For content business build for marketing. Not for yourself. It costs nothing to research the market these days…. The Internet will grant you most of the answers. The most saleable research tool is Adwords. Find a target audience, pinpoint what they search for, then run Adwords to see if you are on to something.
4. Risk is everything. Taking great risk can yield amazing results. Improvise, but don’t sell snake oil. And get the work done. It’s not about the finding the advantageous spot, like being first to action. It’s looking for the markets and telling people how to get them. Give the users the THING they are looking for.
5. Defining the ecommerce monetary stream is critical. Try all the business model revenue models. Advertising brings in mere “Beer money” – focus on transactions business and not advertising volume. Therefore you need to focus on the transaction model.
6. Test your price points carefully. You can’t guess. Test price levels (bronze, silver and gold levels) and verticals like subscriptions vs. one time fees. Talk to your members and just ask them why they shop and what they are looking for. And there’s always A/B testing. Here’s something interesting: Try every possible increase in pricing. Sometimes users are very counter intuitive, e-stores can raise the price and the persevered value of a service or product is higher than the worth! GREAT! So watch out for this kind of opportunity when dealing with our pricing strategy. Try the three pricing model strategy: the lowest price, the highest price, and right in between. These price points need to be tested. One could even consider a FREE pricing model…
7. The amount of qualified traffic is critical. Do you know the traffic value? And the conversion? Here’s a hint how you get conversion up: Test using good Landing Pages: These are quick pages defining one action – user stickiness is critical. If you target the right ads then the page will convert. The sales message is critical.  Test and measure pages – landing page and layouts. Remember, only one decision per page – no distractions.
8. Your headlines will dominate the web landing page. Put yourself in the user’s shoes. It will help you develop the page. Remember to Use Adwords to help target headlines – then you can test with the highest click through rate for the headlines. Use the rest of the content as an information marketing piece. Use the rest of the page to communicate content as a value add. It should demonstrate some expertise. Add a killer Call-2-Action:  make it very explicit  single step instruction or sell a simple one action message in a button  like “ buy now”
9. Building the platform first is critical – build enough out there to test the product. Do you know what the people want until the product is out there? Use the website to ask customers what they think of the product and do this regularly throughout the product lifecycle. This way you constantly find the message by listening to your customers… what you may find people may want something entirely different to your initial development plan. All this means building with good scalability – Build your products openly! Show your customers everything clearly and present them with different ways to get the information they want. If you don’t have the real-estate, then swap out services and products regularly to see what hits.
10. One final huge take-away: Get your customer first. Setup a landing page before you start your business. Test the conversion of the product in a micro site or a “pre-site”.  Remember to follow the site traffic and let that drive the direction of your company.

Check it out Mediafunding.com:  they will fund your infomercial if you can prove it it’s a hit! Nice. Be sure to attend The Perfect Pitch on Monday, October 26th, 2009.

Also, Startups Uncensored is planning a blowout networking event towards the end of 2009 somewhere in Los Angeles, They are hoping to top 500 attendees with top keynote speakers. Wow – Nice job Jason! We’ll see you at more events.

If you have questions about the subject then let’s hear it.

Sergio Kajirian is the co-founder of PEK Interactive. PEK Interactive offers in-house search engine optimization services as well as SEO mentoring, link strategies, and SEO copyrighting and custom search friendly web development. PEK provides frequently publishes SEO resources with the latest tips in search engine optimization and search engine friendly website design.

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