We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – a great startup founder has to be a little humble. Imagine that you see a problem and find a great solution. You get so excited. You envision a cool solution and start building a product. You figure out how much money you are going to need to get the product built and then…
Picking a marketing strategy is a lot harder for startups than it sounds. Why is that? Basically, it means making three inter-related decisions (that is, the answers to #2 and #3 change as #1 changes):
Who are you talking to? That’s your Target Market.
What are you talking to them about? This is the Frame of Reference, or the product category or the group of competitors to be dealt with.
Why should they choose you? This is your Point of Differentiation.
But notice, the first key decision is “Who is the target market?”
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
How many times have you heard the statement, “We need a road map to make sure we are headed in the right direction?” In fact, sometimes the business plan is described as “the road map” for the buddingstartup. Unfortunately, the road map as a metaphor prompts all the wrong associations for even the most promisingnew startup. Why?
People sometimes describe entrepreneurs as risk takers. They see starting a company as a risky activity. Yes, there is risk involved. But, navigating uncertainty rather than being risky is the essential task of the entrepreneur. What to build, how to build it, whom to partner with, whom to sell to, and how to fund growth… these are really tasks laden with uncertainty.
Most founders we talk to have a little glaze in their eyes as they share their vision. You can tell that in their mind’s eye, they see their startup as a Unicorn. At a minimum, they can see revenues of $100 million. And that’s great – they should have a lofty and bold vision of what they can accomplish. Without that vision, they are guaranteed not to get there. We wondered, just how likely is this kind of an outcome?
If you listen to a variety of startup pitches or work closely with startups, one refrain you often here is – “we are unique, there’s no one else like us.” What appeals to a founder about this idea is that they don’t have any competitors. Instead, this is a hidden debt that we explore in the Marketing Ocean.
So, why do we say being in a market category of one company is a bad idea?
One of the fun things we did as part of writing “The Titanic Effect” was explore stories of startup successes. One of the first stories we dig into in the book is that of Randy Hetrick who created the TRX fitness system. So, let’s talk about how he developed this product.
Randy Hetrick was a Navy Seal on deployment on an anti-piracy mission in Southeast Asia in 1997. He was looking for a way to exercise in the limited confines…
The Titanicwas a powerful and inspiring metaphor for us to draw on for our book, as an epic failure that resulted from many decisions over time. We thought it interesting and relevant to share some pieces of the story here in the blog. And here is a link to 25 popular myths about the sinking of the ship: https://www.thetravel.com/25-things-about-the-titanic-we-thought-were-true-but-are-actually-false/
The iceberg that is believed to have caused the sinking of the Titanicis actually the punctuation mark on a much broader array of choices and actions that resulted in the calamity—a perfect visual representation of the visible parts above the water versus the hidden aspects that lie underneath (our Hidden Debts). To understand the sinking of the Titanic, it is helpful to understand the history of the White Star Line, the organization that owned, designed, built, and operated the ship.
The most important job of a startup in the early stages is figuring out product/market fit. Turns out that this is much, much harder than it sounds like. You know the basic story:
- Entrepreneur has a great idea for an unsolved problem to fix
- They envision what they think needs to be done to fix it
- They built that product (BTW – when we say product, it could be either a product or a service)
