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What is a product concept?

What can I be doing on the business marketing side for my startup while my partner, a programmer, is still building a proof of concept of  our product?

  • I am the Biz Dev/Marketing guy and I am a little bit farther ahead on my end of things which i think is normal. I have a full Biz model already built,with distribution and rev included, an estimated budget, market research, and several applications for grants/y-combinator like programs in the works. I'm not sure what my next steps should be for my side of things. Any suggestions?

  • Answer:

    A "model" is not particularly useful, so you are NOT actually ahead. As the paraphrased military saying goes, no business model survives first contact with the market. All this stuff: "I have a full Biz model already built,with distribution and rev included, an estimated budget, market research, and several applications for grants/y-combinator like programs in the works." Is only useful if you have a pipeline of prospective customers impatiently banging on the door demanding that you speed up product dev. Otherwise it is just spray-and-pray paperwork. The kind of paperwork that both investors and potential partners will look at for their due diligence/checklist needs, but those are the side dishes. The entree is the evidence of and crucially, privileged access to, live and growing demand. Or alternately, some other kind of real table stakes, like a signed agreement with Microsoft to buy X-million units of whatever you are selling. Even if you have major distribution channels lined up, your main job is to develop the MARKETING channels to generate and drive demand to those channels. You may make the most intellectually brilliant "fit" argument for a biz-dev partnership, or a knockout pitch to investors, but without the demand, that's like having great skills in poker, but not enough money to actually get to the right table. Whether it is a blog, a permission-marketing newsletter or a presence on the keynote/conference circuit (for enterprise type sales models), you need to start building up the asset, and keeping the relationship going while the product is getting ready. This is not easy, since you cannot do a product blog/newsletter. with no product You need something that keeps prospects engaged on a related theme. This is the basic strategy of content marketing.

Venkatesh Rao at Quora Visit the source

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Have you considered the idea of launching the product on a discount voucher site? I have been working with a couple of these sites and think are a great way to get your name out there. They usually require you to offer some sort of discount and of course they take a sales commission. However, they are a great way to spread the word and get people to your website. If you have a pop up on your website asking for people to sign up to your newsletter then you can also catch people's email addresses. My book is available free today on Amazon (until Friday 7 August 2015) which you might find useful - 'What other marketing books don't tell you. - A brutally honest account of marketing a small business.' In the book I try out different marketing strategies and share the results. Here's the link: http://amzn.to/1H5ELPa

Louise Palmer

You don't understand your industry half as well as you think you do (no one does). Educate yourself. That is the highest return on your effort.

Aaron Rubin

I'd get out of the building and start having conversations with customers.  Try and get some reference customers on board to add weight to your applications.

Michael Shimmins

Start selling to people you d not know.  Face-to-face sales with the objective of getting signed LOIs will teach you more and do more for your product / company than anything else.  Even though the LOI is not enforceable, it creates the feel of obligation and psychologically this is similar to paying money.  Create a SIMPLE one pager with a large screenshot and tell people that if the product does not deliver the value you describe, then there is no obligation.  This will let you focus your conversation I n the value prop.

Mike Allen

Step 1: Read Steve Blank's book The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Step 2: Apply Steve's advice.  Everything else will follow from that...

Phillip Rhodes

I agree with all the above suggestions. Great points to ALL of you. When developing bizodo I took the time to break my way in and get to know my target market as much as possible. I went to tech meet-ups and conferences. I attended trade shows and just spoke to people about what we were doing to sharpen my pitch. Every chance I got, I spoke about my product. It goes from a transition of "what is that" , to "I get it" to "awesome". At that point you know you have it. Good luck!!!

Jason Saltzman

What about customer validation? That should be your primary agenda.

Sramana Mitra

Talk to customers!  And provide feedback to your partner who is working on the proof of concept.  Sign up a few "early-alfa" customers to solicit real use case feedback, if you can.

Sasha Latypova

Having recently "planned" my business around my book about startups using Macs, I found a quote that fits your situation, "No plan ever survived coming in contact with your customers." This means getting your stuff in front of customers and you helping with product development, which actually depending on the feedback will change your product and change your marketing.

Kevin Cullis

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