Marketing Joint

Why Startups Fail

You can surf the Internet and find endless articles on why startups fail. Most of these articles focus on finding the right market opportunity and some place undue attention on the “DNA” aspects of getting a startup … well ... up and running. By “DNA,” I’m referring to getting the right team together, infusing a level of agility into the structure and process, and so on. It's definitely important to go after the right market opportunity and invest in great, smart people. But, that's kinda like saying you need to be healthy and on the right course to win a marathon.

I want to talk about an area that deserves its own focused coverage – startup myths. Plenty of myths exist at startups. Ping pong tables and free meals. Unfortunately, those are becoming myths.

Much of what you learned or picked up through years of experience working at large(r) corporations are often rendered useless at most startups. This is a hard pill to swallow for some people. Taking the baggage of conventional thinking into a startup leads to frustration or, worse, lengthy paralysis or inaction.

Let’s breakdown a few of these myths …

Market Analysis: Go Specific-to-General

Great startup marketing goes from specific-to-general, not the other way around. And, yet, we often see too many startups that make assumptions the other way around (general to specific). In a sense, this is a situation quite unique to startups. Larger organizations have the resources to understand general market opportunities in order to target specific segments with products that fit those segments. Startups do not have that luxury. Yet, we frequently hear startups say, “the market for XXX is YYY and so we’re going to get just ZZ% of that and then grow into AA in BB years.” If often doesn’t work out this way.

Startup Lessons From Albert Einstein (Sort Of, But Not Really)

Here, I thought it’d be interesting to view some startup and marketing concepts within the context of basic qualities discussed in physics. Believe it or not, there are lots of similarities about physics, startups, and marketing.

Influencer Marketing: Basic Model

What exactly is Influencer Marketing? And, why is Influencer Marketing so important? In this post, I’m going to lay out some viewpoints and “answers” using a couple charts I slapped together to illustrate a few key concepts. You’ll notice that I do not use three dimensional magic slides or Venn diagrams. This is not because interrelationships or multitudes of external factors and internal dependencies are non-existent. This is just one way you can view the world. I tend to create and use simple diagrams quite frequently and typically don’t waste a lot of time on bells and whistles.

On Company Evolution, Survival, and Start-Ups

While studying the evolution of animal species, Charles Darwin made some incredible insights that translate remarkably well to the world of business. Here is one of my favorites:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change."

This is a fascinating statement that has important implications for both the large and the small.

Basics of Product Launch Planning

The product launch is probably the most time and sweat consuming activity that anyone in marketing ever engages in. Here’s a very short version of the basics in launching a product.