Len Lodish discusses how Diapers.com went from zero to $545M

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Len Lodish, Vice Dean, Program for Social Impact and Samuel R. Harrell Professor in the Marketing department of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was my guest on The Free COO radio show on May 3, 2012.

Two of Len’s students from Wharton San Francisco’s MBA for Executives program founded Diapers.com while in school. Len was an investor and on Diaper.com’s Board of Directors. He discusses how the company went from a startup to its acquisition by Amazon.com for $545MM in just five years. Here how Diaper.com started in a garage, sourcing supplies from Costco in order to test their theory and market potential. Then learn how their customer service totally delights their customers.

Dr. Lodish also helped two other students get www.milo.com off the ground and sold to eBay.com in less than three years.

In this amazing interview we’ll explore Len’s career, his courses at Wharton, his own fantastically successful startups, his Global Consulting Practicum and how he and his wife complete a 1,000km unassisted tandem bike ride somewhere in the world each year to raise funds for the ALS Association of Philadelphia.

You’ve got to hear this interview end to end.

For more information about Len or to contribute to his annual 1,000K fund raiser visit these links:

Wharton MBA for Executives

Len Lodish’s profile

The Free COO airs Thursdays on Speaker.com. You can also hear replays on Facebook and iTunes.

ScanCafe co-founder Sam Allen shares his success story

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From dedicated Marine Corp veteran to the Co-Founder of the highly successful Scan Cafe, Sam Allen shares his story of bravery and entrepreneurship on the Free COO radio program.

In this lively and funny conversation, Sam talks about how he moved a 12 year military career, to becoming an mergers and acquisitions specialist for Cisco Systems and on to the MBA program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he and some fellow classmates decided to form and internet startup. Fast forward to today and ScanCafe has almost 1,000 employees and is the leading provider of digital scanning services on the Web.

Join us each Thursday at 4:00pm PDT to learn how you can make the next great start up company. Only on Spreaker

Using search engine optimization for generating new customers

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Driving new customers to a company by the internet requires a three-pronged approach of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) and affiliates. Of the three approaches, SEO can be the most cost effective means of generating a sustainable long-term flow of new customers for any business.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the art of creating content on the internet that, when indexed by search engines, will show up at or near the top of the results page for a given search keyword or phrase. To show up near the top of a results page the content needs to be rich in relevant keywords, readable by search engine robots and referred to by links from external websites. Read more…

Getting Started – Learning to Let Go

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There is a big difference between being a CEO and a COO.  I know, because I’ve been both.

At my first startup company I didn’t have a COO and, while the company was a success, it wasn’t until I learned to let go of certain tasks that the company flourished.  Entrepreneurs, almost by definition have a vision of how things should be and how their company should be run, but first time entrepreneurs, myself included, often spend too much time on internal details which can be crippling to a startup venture.
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Getting Started – Setting Priorities

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My first job out of college was a corporate engineering position with a $3B multinational aluminum and chemical corporation.* My branch of engineering was highly specialized so, as a 22 year old, I was able to pick and chose which of several dozen multi-million dollar projects I wanted to work on at any of the company’s manufacturing facilities worldwide.  My list of projects was a mile long with some involving serious health and safety concerns of employees.  Every project required reconciling the production and financial needs of plant managers with the demands of corporate execs to maintain control over disparate operations.  For a foot loose young man with an unlimited travel budget, I needed to balance my responsibilities with a desire to see the world.

You see, if you’re 22 years old and can choose between working in a can factory supplying a major European brewery with access to all the beer you can drink for free, or standing next to an 1,100 degree extrusion furnace on a 107 degree July day in the panhandle of Texas which would you choose?

Well… not so fast.
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