Danielle Morrill: Refer.ly and Distribution Hacks

Danielle Morrill is a co-founder of Refer.ly, and was CMO of Twilio.  Refer.ly launched May of 2012 out of Y Combinator 2012.  It's an affiliate program for everyone where users can recommend products for cash incentives from companies.

She has been writing her blog since 2007 sharing her perspectives on marketing and startups.  Recently she shared lots of insights from running Refer.ly.  Here are a few sample entries:

• Timeline: Starting Referly Took Me Three Years
• Don’t Waste a Single Moment
• The Best Advice My Dad Ever Gave Me (for Demo Day) - from Distribution Hacks
• Who Owns the Website, and Why - from Distribution Hacks

She also runs Distribution Hacks where she shares her marketing insights.

Soon after the launch of Refer.ly, she gave an interview with This Week in Startups Sept 2012.

I first saw her writing a few times through Hacker News, but didn't realize how long she has been blogging.  While reading her blogs, I found that her blogs to be genuine.  She shares her stories without embellishment, and she writes in a way to help readers draw their lessons from her experience.  In fact, that's what I am seeing with all the other engaging bloggers.

Write about things that you care about, and don't be afraid to talk about failures as well as successes.  When you write with intention of helping the readers, that's when you have a blog that will truly resonate with people.

Here's a talk that Morrill gave sharing her lessons learned from being a CEO of Refer.ly for several months.  It dovetails nicely from her blog Don’t Waste a Single Moment: