Tuesday evening, I attended Startups Uncensored #14 with Jason Nazar and the folks at Docstoc. Docstoc is an online community where you can find and share professional documents. If you’re not familiar with their service, I encourage you to check them out. I’ve used them to upload and share content before (such as e-books) and highly recommend them.

The subject for the evening was Google Adsense for websites (some of the Google Adsense team flew in from Mountain View, California and led a great session). Our very own Stacey Soleil won some product schwag prior to the start of the evening (we’ve since dubbed her #schwagqueen, heh). But really, though the adsense session was great, it wasn’t the hi-light of the evening for me. See, I’m not much of an adsense user. I never have been and probably won’t be (it just isn’t part of my marketing strategy). If you use adsense on your sites, I’d be curious to hear about your experience (good or bad) and how long you’ve been running adsense (just drop a comment below).

What did stand out to me was the opening presentation led by Jason Nazar to kick off the evening. There were a lot of entrepreneurs there that evening (from the solo-preneur to the small business). Each of them hungry to learn, network and grow their business. Jason shared 12 rules that entrepreneurs need to follow to kick-start their business and get on the path toward success…

12 Golden Rules to Marketing & Publicity for Startups:

#1 – “Marketing is not something you do, it’s who you are“

#2 – “You are your product: First, Market Yourself“

#3 – “Brand Recognition is Everything: People don’t use products they don’t know”

#4 – “Turn your Customers into your Mass Marketers“

#5 – “Social Proof is key: they need to hear how good you are from someone else”

#6 – “Marketing a product Does Not require having a product”

#7 – “Don’t give people an option not to listen to your message”

#8 – “Publicity is not a Meritocracy: journalists cover Products of people they know and like“

#9 – “Capture attention where I don’t expect it”

#10 – “Don’t be afraid to Piss People Off, it gives you a chance to win them back”

#11 – “Publicity is a function of persistence: No door can not be opened with time”

#12 – “Be Everywhere! In startups popularity not polish wins the prize”

Personally, each of these stands out for me… How about you?