Steve Blank just shared an interesting anecdote from his days in marketing, where he created what he thought was the ultimate data sheet, only to find his CEO and VP of sales literally setting it on fire. The VP of Sales had an insightful quote: “the only thing your datasheet will do is give a prospective customer a reason for …
Think goals, not functions
I just piggybacked on a twitter conversation between Sean Ellis and April Dunford talking about product management versus product marketing (see April’s post). Sean tweeted this comment which I just wanted to highlight: “Functions” is part of the problem in early stage. IMO goals better: PM fit, then conv eff, then growth… [Ed note: PM fit = product-market fit; conv …
Coming up with a startup name (i.e. the 6th circle of hell)
Few things are more painful than coming up with a good yet inexpensive name for a business on the Web. Somehow you need to find something that is “cocktail party friendly” (i.e. someone can hear it, spell it, remember it), search engine friendly (i.e. type it in and have a shot at appearing high on list), and yet available / …
Enthusiasts vs Normals
First Chris Dixon tweeted, “Does anyone really want to have a “conversation with brands”? I I want my relationship to Starbucks limited to buying coffee.” Roger Ehrenberg then responded with a great post on authenticity in brand conversations. I would argue that they are both right, they are just talking about two different people. Just as Dixon once wrote about …
Are you all on the same page? A 20 minute Test.
When you are in the weeds building, testing, and iterating, communication challenges can pop up. First, you want everyone on the same page as to how the “value proposition” has evolved, what needs to be validated next, and why. Second, when your business feels like a moving target, sometimes it can be awfully hard to explain to others in clear …
Targeting Matters!
The other day, Cindy Alvarez (product manager at KISSmetrics and author of a great blog), wrote a post called “Anybody, As Long As It’s Not You” , saying: “Who should give you feedback on your early-stage product mockups/demo? Anybody, as long as it’s not you. OK, sure, there’s probably an “ideal” audience to show your product to. But it probably …
Validating your startup idea and initial customer development
A reader named Eric asked a question about customer validation / development on my “Bull doesn’t build” post, and I thought I would answer with a post. Eric’s question was: “You talk about your ‘focus right now is on building a solid foundation of product-market fit.’ At what point do you spend more time focusing on product-market fit then on …
Learning is about the translation, not the source
I was reading Fred Destin’s post on why entrepreneurs hate VCs, when a quote caught my eye: “Learning from mistakes is far less useful than emulating success.” It’s a message that 37Signals likes to harp on as well. I’d argue that you have an equal shot at learning from mistakes or successes, as long as you take the time to …
What is your customer acquisition strategy? (startup marketing tactics)
“What is your growth strategy?” It is a classic question from VCs to early-stage consumer Internet companies, and one often difficult to answer at such an early point in a company’s life cycle because you have not yet seen which specific tactics work best. There is usually no silver bullet answer, just a lot of hard work ahead. This post, …
Music Marketing; Amanda Palmer w Twitter
Modern Music Marketing “The most important thing that an artist can do is to tour, absolutely. Touring provides the spark that all the other marketing segments need to work off of.” An interesting quote from Mike King, of the Berklee College of Music, in a video interview on modern music marketing. (via Hypebot) Amanda Palmer & Twitter There have also …