Start-up Go-to-market is a dance between searching for that market/product fit and opportunity. The more “functional” your product is the more everyone you meet will have a new direction sand application for your widget. The challenge is weeding out the many to find the few.
Keep in mind the bowling ball structure, seek one or two industry segments that promise high returns and rapid adoption. This is the nose under the tent balanced with a segment that can influence.
Many make the mistake of choosing “lead pins” that are not so willing to promote you and the gains you have delivered to them. If your solution is not publicly visible, then your customer may want to keep their competitive edge to themselves as long as possible This does not help you create the constructive collisions that allow you to extend the efforts of that first application to others.
Leads that turn quickly create revenue and revenue is what it is all about. But if you have two leads in different segments the company needs to choice which has more opportunity at creating kinetic energy. When you are starving for revenue everything looks like a great game changing opportunity. This is where mission and documented, universally understood goals are important.
Some day you will have staff and cycles enough to chase every blue sky opportunity that your lead generation churns from the market, but Not until you have the flywheel running on its own energy not that of the first investors.
All marketing is roadmap driven if it is to be effective, this is why I still believe in Product managers and founders investing in “Fuzzy Front end“ work. I often hear that this is a waste of time and energy or that one can not plan what will happen so do not waste the time. If you drive down the street and have no idea of where you are going and suddenly turn left have you made a change or a choice.
Change happens when you knowingly move from path A to path B based on information. A recent state-up I helped Pivot was on a chosen path to B2C distribution when a new study came back and showed that the market was not going to pay for the service directly they wanted to have it supported by a larger trusted entity. On the other side a few years ago there was a start-up that was convinced that the B2B path was their future even after being refused by almost every major player at the executive level.
The market is the king, your ideas and concepts are suggestions. The market is right and always will be. Pivot and be willing to listen to the markets. The company that moved to a B2B approach had a few Consumers open to trying but that was not sustainable nor had it the promise of generating sufficient revenues. It was tempting to use funding to “just sell more” vs. change. Changing was the right choice in the end.
