We will be helped a lot by viral marketing built into the product.

Each METANOTES space presents many triggers to join. METANOTES is like a chat application; it makes people want to invite their friends.

We will be able to make our very large mailing list fanatic users of METANOTES at little cost.

We can do this through contests, surveys, competition, community, product development, adding content streams etc.

Our brand will resonate.

This means that advertising expenditure will be multiplied through branding excellence.

Our value proposition will hit the spot.

Taking notes is one of the biggest pain points of the student and enterprise experience.

If I had a million dollars to spend on marketing, we would meet vast usage targets.

I will put it more audaciously:

Give me $1m to spend on marketing and I will build us 10% of Facebook in one year.

For an early-stage, high-tech investment, you had better be able to convince the investor that there is a realistic plan for returning five times to ten times his money in three to five years.

Facebook is still private, so the financial information is not officially released. However, founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed a few critical information recently at a conference.

• Revenues for 2007 : $150 million
• Revenues for 2008 : $350 million (projected)
• CapEx in 2008 : $200 milllion
• EBIDTA for 2008 : $50 million

The head count shall increase from 450 at the end of 2007 to 1000 by the end of 2008.

This is probable because:

• taking notes online means they’re always at hand, you can share them, and other things that make it better than software or written notes.
• people are doing more and more things online.
  • new services like facebook are pulling them online.
• people buy computers today to communicate and do useful work.
• we are really good at marketing.
• laptops are cheaper and cooler now and will get even cheaper and cooler in the future.
• the global economy is absolutely dependent on information and knowledge workers rule it.
• people are going to need to telecommute, which involves sharing information online.