01. Marketing & Acquisition

Estimated Time

  • Reading: ~9 minutes
  • Video: ~97 minutes
    • Many may have already watched the 2-Day Founder.University videos that are recommended in this section
  • Activities: to be completed prior to next week

Insights

  • Do the things that you can not scale when finding your first users
  • Talk to your users early and often; collect and bucket feedback
  • Talk to users — this week!

Marketing

  • Just like building the MVP of your product, you do not need to have marketing and customer acquisition perfect from the start
  • In fact, the way you acquire your first 10-20+ customers does not necessarily even need to scale
    • Do things that don't scale is a great blog post that goes deeper into this concept
    • But there is an advantage as a founder to talk to as many customers as possible in the early days
      • You can quickly (and directly from customers) find out what works
        • Which feature was an ah-ha moment?
        • What phrasing in your pitch resonated?
        • When did they give a buying signal?
      • You can also identify the shortcomings and learn to fail fast
  • It is important to have some kind of marketing even early on
    • You have already been working on several of the points made in the blog Successful MVPs Have a Key Component: Marketing Strategy
      • Market Analysis
      • Competitor Analysis
      • Positioning
      • Targeting
      • Strategy
    • Understanding where your ideal customers hang out online and offering value is a great way to start
    • The value could be in the form of
      • Blog posts
      • Twitter threads
      • Answering questions in your field of expertise
      • The value doesn't have to be an advertisement for your product or service
        • If you are a thought leader in your space people will be interested in why you build a product
        • If you create a strong brand and community based on your content people will be more interested in what you are building
    • Don't target the "hard" customers first
      • Hard meaning the customers who are going to need a lot of convincing to try or switch to your product
        • Is there a segment of users that are more open to new solutions?
        • Is there a network you can tap into of these potential customers?
      • Be open to what the users are telling you when you talk to them
      • Your initial vision of an ideal customer might not be who you think it is — be open to that possibility of shifting
  • You can start marketing in some capacity before even launching your MVP
    • So if you have already launched an MVP you can definitely be marketing it
    • It doesn't have to be anything fancy or expensive
  • Presh gave a phenomenal talk on Early Stage Marketing & Growth
    • At the intensive 2-day Founder.University
    • [~30 minutes]
    • If you have not watched it I highly suggest clicking that link
      • He emphasized:
        • Building in Public
        • Audience Building
        • Content Creation
    • Copy of his deck:
    • Day2_Session4_Marketing Strategies for Scaling at Early Stage_ Presh Dineshkumar, LAUNCH.pdf

      29.9 MB

  • Whether you are officially building in public or not you want to connect your personal social accounts with your company website or accounts
    • Jason's account for example, links directly to his top investments, his main websites, podcasts (product), and has a newsletter you can subscribe to all in his bio
    • image
  • You should also do this for your social accounts: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
    • At a minimum include a link to your website (and company social account if you have one) so users can quickly learn more about you
    • You don't ever want to miss the chance to make a sale (or talk to an investor) because they gave up looking for what you do
  • So often we find a founder on social media from a retweet or a comment they made on a post and want to learn more about what they are building
    • With our investor hats on, we are saying to ourselves... "this founder seems so great..."
      • "I wonder what their website looks like?"
      • "What problem do they solve? How do they do it?"
      • "What does this product look like?"
    • Only to click on their profile and find out they have no information about their company
      • We can't find a link in their bio
      • We can't find the name of their company to even do a Google search
      • We sadly look at a cute picture of their dog the recently posted and move on without a meeting
    • Do not miss this opportunity with customers or investors!
    • Make it as easy as possible for them to learn what you are building and why they should care
    • When someone goes to your profile, give them the option to quickly go to your website and become a customer with little friction!
  • As the founder, you are the face of the company
    • Have a checklist of easy to implement requirements for the company
    • Make this part of the onboarding process so that each new member of your team expands the reach of your company
      • Provide a templated email signature with a link to your website
      • Social media accounts should have links in bios
      • Open communication channels on social media
        • Don't limit inbound traffic by having your profile locked down
        • Check it regularly
    • There are some of you in this cohort that I can't find out what your company name is or if you have a website — and I desperately want to know!
      • If you don't have these things yet — don't worry everyone is at different places in development
      • Just keep in mind if I am actively searching and can't find out info...
        • How hard is it for a customer to find you if they don't know you are even building an MVP that they should buy?
        • Make it so easy for people to know where to buy your product that they could do it every time they see you tweet, email, etc
  • Simon Hoiberg makes the argument that putting your idea out there for feedback early outweighs the risk of having your idea stolen
    • Continued execution is greater than any idea
    • If you keep your ideas a secret until the day you launch you actually may be giving your competition more of an advantage
      • They will collect all the user feedback from the launch and be on a level playing field
        • If you wait you may be too far along to simply iterate but could be essentially starting over
        • You did all the heavy lifting just to give the most valuable feedback to the competition
      • If you collect feedback and validate your idea from actual users along the way you can iterate and stay ahead of the competition
  • Craig Zingerline gave a talk on Finding and Owning Your Initial Acquisition Channelsl

User Acquisition

  • You have a product (at least in the works)
  • You have identified who your ideal customer is
  • You have curated questions to ask as part of an outbound strategy
  • You also now have a plan to start generating some inbound traffic
  • The key, and we'll say it again and again, is to talk to customers
  • You can not delight your customers efficiently if you don't listen to them
    • Some of you have started to have conversations — keep it up!
    • Do not stop drilling if you are finding oil!
  • If you have not started to talk to potential users that is okay
    • But you need to start!
    • Make that a goal this week!
      • Talk to your first users
        • It would be best if they are your ideal customers
          • The most valuable feedback will come from the people who will ultimately buy your product
          • These are the people you ideally want to talk to
        • But just talk to someone — even if they aren't within your ideal profile
          • Collect their feedback
            • Just because they aren't your targeted audience does not mean they won't offer insights
            • They can provide insights on the flow, feel, and usability of your product
              • This feedback is very important
              • But weigh it accordingly when bucketing the feedback
      • This "talking" can be in the form of an email, a Loom, on the phone, or a meeting in person...
      • No excuses — interact with users this week!
        • Don't have an MVP — show them a wireframe
        • Don't have a wireframe — show them your initial drawings
        • Don't have those — call them up and ask if they have {insert problem you are solving}
        • The key is to get whatever you have in front of users as soon as possible
      • You are never going to be 100% ready to get your first bit of feedback
        • We know it is scary and rejection is a real possibility — if it happens be grateful you didn't wait longer to get it!
        • The sooner you can get feedback the sooner you can either double down or pivot
        • Take great notes and listen!
  • Keep in mind that not everyone is going to want to talk to you
    • In fact, it is possible that most won't
    • You should target 3 to 5 times the amount you intend to talk to
    • For example, if you hope to talk to 25 VP of Sales at an Enterprise Company
      • You should target (cold email, LinkedIn message, call, etc) between 75 and 125
      • You are also testing, collecting feedback, and iterating on your messaging (not just your product)
        • Every interaction is valuable
        • If you aren't getting responses to your requests ask yourself what you can tweak
          • Is this the right persona that I'm reaching out to?
          • Is the messaging clear?
            • Remember to
              • Keep it brief
              • Use bullet points when possible
              • Offer a specific ask
                • Provide a date and time
                • Ask for an intro to the right person if it isn't them
    • This process will be very manual at first
      • At this stage, it is more important to get meaningful feedback than to try and be efficient
        • You will waste weeks, months, years trying to get the perfect product, pitch, or profile
        • Reach out to people you believe
          • Have the problem
          • Are willing to pay to solve that problem
          • Are okay working with a startup
      • The manual process will help you truly understand if you have product-market fit
  • You already created a list of questions to ask — test them out and see what gets a response
    • For example,
      • Is XYZ currently a problem for you?
      • How painful is it?
      • How do you solve it today?
    • In these early conversations, you don't even need to focus on your product until it makes sense to do so — obviously close the deal if they are the buyer — but there is value in listening and learning!
  • A user thinking "your product is cool" and paying for it are two very different things
    • If your MVP is not completely ready, but they are ready to buy — collect more info and get them on the waitlist
    • Or get creative and ask if they will pay now at a discount and you'll onboard them in X months when the product launches
    • If they say your product is great but they wouldn't pay — you want to understand why
      • Is it because they have no budget?
        • Great - can they introduce you to someone who has it?
      • Do they not have the authority and need someone to sign off
        • Awesome - who would that be?
        • Put a date on their calendar before getting off the call
      • Is it not a big enough problem for them to purchase a solution?
        • Gold mine — dig deep!
        • Why?
        • What would deem it "big enough"?
    • A few "hacks" you can do as prep work for the meeting to know their budget
      • Have they recently raised money?
        • Congratulate them on the raise
        • But also lets them know you are aware they have money to potentially spend
      • Look for signs of "growth"
        • Are they posting about a new job openings?
          • Awesome - they are expanding
          • Find out more about these openings
            • Are they looking for 6 new developers and you offer a solution for managing teams?
            • Lean into that
        • Are they expanding to new cities?
  • When you meet be clear with your intro
    • Articulate your value proposition and one simple sentence
    • They need to understand the problem you solve immediately
  • In the coming weeks, we'll go into more detail on how to properly demo your product and incorporate iterations
    • Right now is about collecting as much feedback as you can get and categorizing it
    • In future modules we will talk about
      • Which feedback is more valuable?
      • Which user's feedback carries more weight?
  • In July of 2020 Jason and David Sacks had a conversation on This Week in Startups about:
    • How smaller startups should operate with product and marketing
    • Why marketing should feed off the product
    • Creating a “product launch event” to fuel marketing
      • Although this is for companies that are a little further along it still has a lot of value
      • The thought experiments and knowing what is coming down the line is helpful

Episode Date: Jul 14, 2020 --

Jason Calacanis | TWiST | Twitter | LinkedIn

  • It is vital to understand that the process of testing, talking to users, and marketing never stops; your product is never "complete"
  • You will always be iterating and striving to make it better
  • You have to continue to obsess about finding new customers and this starts with having a product that you can market
    • You can start small, it doesn't have to be perfect, and really doesn't need to scale at the start
    • "If you build it, they will come" might be true in Field of Dreams but it is not typically the case with startups
      • You need to let people know what you are building
      • Show them why they are the ideal customer
      • Make it very easy for them to become a customer
  • If you continue to delight and listen to customers your chances of success go up
    • This is a top priority as a founder early on
    • As your team grows and others take on this responsibility full-time you should strive to still personally hear your customers
      • Either regularly from your team or the customers themselves
      • Collect user feedback and bucket it often
  • It is hard to delight customers if you are not talking to them regularly and listening to what they are telling you!
  • Talk to your customers this week!

Additional Resources

Activities

Week 6

🔲  Conduct your first user interviews

  • Use interview questions from last week
  • Listen, collect feedback, and bucket accordingly

🔲  Update your social profiles

  • Make sure your landing page, company account is easily accessible from your social media and email

Week 7

🔲  Continue customer interviews

  • Adjust marketing as you iterate on your MVP

🔲   Collect feedback on your demo

  • Adjust marketing as needed