A friend who’s the global head of sales for a large software company told me that today, he’s bringing out the spinning plates and crayons instead of the traditional PowerPoint presentations and the White Papers that accompany them. Due to their business and typical audience, they typically focus on their technical value propositions.
Here’s the way I looked at the differences - in the eyes of the customer type:
Have you thought the differences in your startup? Maybe this table will help you tease out the notion a bit. What kind of presentation do your target customers respond to?
Do you always spin plates when the customer wants white papers? Perhaps vice versa? How do you distinguish between the two?
The terms alpha and beta to describe a startup’s launch product are simply wrong. Last week, I wrote about so many startups failing to launch and many of the sites are in “beta” mode. Alpha, beta, bronze, silver, gold, it’s all stinkin’ thinkin’. Startups must be focused on the customer and providing value to them. Orient your release names towards customer acquisition and let your early adopters tell you when you can start charging.
Why? If you’re not focused on getting paid, how and why are you in business? Secondly, if you change to this kind of naming convention, your potential paying customers have the notion that others have adopted it. It’s true, early adopters have, they just haven’t paid for it or have paid a lower fee.
Consider the following names for your release stages:
Demo – Enough to truly demonstrate your value propositions. This should be completely out in the open if you’re confident that no one can imitate you easily. If they can, I would suggest that you don’t have enough to get to market in a big way.
First Adopter(s) – Just enough code beyond your demo for your first adopters to grasp your value proposition and consider paying for the product (unless you’re freemium of course.) The great part is that you can add more features until your early adopters say “Yep, we love it and you can start charging for this. In fact, we’ll start paying for this!” (Next question of course, how much would they pay?)
Paying Customer – You’ve validated your principle value proposition and customers are willing to pay. There might be other more suitable names but your customers get this one. Potential paying customer: “When did you release this product?” You: “We had early adopters in March.”
Once you have paying customers, lean and agile notions start to shine. No more traditional phase names as you’re continually putting customer-driven features in front of them.
Startup consultants everywhere (well, at least here in Newburyport) probably sighed a collective sigh of relief after reading Derek Pilling’s “What We Have Here is a Failure to Plan.” His post outlines good reasons why you need a plan. Read it. Simple. After you’ve read, here are some further qualifications:
Does it have to be a big plan? No. It just states what you’re going to do and why. That way, post IPO, you can keep your job since your whole existence isn’t accidental. (Not that being accidental is a bad thing, it just gives people that much more confidence that you actually know what you’re doing.) The other huge reason is to get everyone on the same page. A simple concept.
Do you have to stick to the plan? No. But the whys or the drivers should be clear and if you’re wrong or if things change, you’re wrong and things changed. At least you can remember why you failed. (Seemed like a good idea at the time doesn’t sell very well.)
Why don’t VCs need business plans? Lots of answers here but boiling it down, they want the flexibility to suggest their own direction and have it you strongly consider it (that’s fair), most entrepreneurs need to get to business and quit overanalyzing, and/or most plans are wrong in the eyes of the VC and yet they definitely look at things significantly different than you do. In the final analysis, it is relationship overhead - they’re bringing you fresh money. Fresh and money are the the operative words here. Fresh as in their energy and experience and money as in something you don’t have.
You don’t fool me, you had a plan, didn’t you? You didn’t just stumble upon something cool did you? You had a plan, you had a vision, you figured out it might be popular or that people would pay you for it, right? Didn’t you plan various ways to show customers and have them pay for it? You backed execution up with a reason to do it. Didn’t you have a little timeline or did you do literally everything at once? That’s a plan. Accidents are cool. I just wouldn’t advise waiting for them.
A vision? The entrepreneurs I know say the same thing: Its the reason behind the things that keep you up at night evaluating ideas and ….. planning.
How about writing it down and thinking about it a bit? Maybe send it to your team and see if they agree or disagree. You can surprise some other time.
I am writing this short post while trying to find 50 gently used winter coats in 5 days. This morning, it struck me that I wasn’t following my own typical sales process of involving anyone who would listen directly in success. Not my success but the success of the project, the product, the idea. Whether it is to buy and install software, help you find customers, or attract people to your website, its the same. You ask, you ask again, you ask for help, you ask until you can’t ask anymore.
Being part of a charity organization, we’re always doing these things but this week, right before Christmas, it is especially difficult. Most folks already cleaned out their closets in the fall. If you ask for help, if they can, people will help you. It’s human nature. Thank god!
What’s more, if they’re invested in your success, they’ll help more!
For this project, I did the usual thing. I went to my network and asked them to donate. I had moderate success. I kept asking and a few more donated. This morning, I woke up and changed my strategy. I asked my network to commit to finding me a certain number of coats. Now, why didn’t I think about that before! We’ll exceed our goal by tomorrow.
Here’s the process in highly abbreviated form:
- Call your network. Ask for their buy-in and leads. Call those target customers (“Terry sent me!”)
- If your target customers don’t have business or need, asking for their help, ask them to engage and suggest ideas for you to success.
- (New to some of you!) Call back. Thank them.
- (New to some of you!) Send a written thank you or something that will make them remember you and your sincere thanks. If you weren’t sincere, you wouldn’t be sending cards, right? Its not a physical task, it is the effort to remember that people respect.
If they don’t have time, perhaps they aren’t human! Perhaps they never help other folks. Perhaps the dog you’re selling won’t hunt. At least you’ll be one step closer to your goal. Ask! Ask Again, Ask for Help and Keep Asking! (And Thank You for visiting. If you liked this post, please post your comments and other ideas!)
