Of the many things that are keeping you from getting traction with your early-adopter customers, Price is probably not one of them. The tendency to offer your product for free, especially in the enterprise B2B market, is very tempting but completely misguided.
Early on, one of the many things you need to be testing with your marketplace is their ability and willingness to trade their time and capital for access to your product. If you make a good enough case that the value of your product meets their needs, they will find a way to pay.
Explore a lot of options when you’re trying to get those first six customers and get some initial signal that you’re approaching product-market fit, but don’t jump right to free as a way to get around all the other objections; it rarely works.
I had the pleasure of joining Sergio on his Be Yourself Podcast to talk about startups, overthinking, and how a founder’s toxic certainty can kill even the best of ideas. You can view this episode at the link below.
Identifying and decreasing the risks that threaten your startup is job #1 for founders. Prioritizing these risks is your key to survival. Stay focused to stay alive.
Of the many roles that startup founders must tackle in the early stages of their new venture, Chief Focus Officer is probably the most important.
It is far too easy to get distracted by all the bright, shiny objects and side quests that seem intriguing but do not move the needle as you try to transform your new idea into an actual product.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that Focus is the number one hurdle that most startup founders are struggling to overcome. Some recognize this fact and are aware enough to seek help, but most do not and continue to be frustrated by their lack of progress.
They stay busy hopping from task to task, working on all the wrong things, without the ability to prioritize what is most likely to help them win or fail.
Building a tech community requires intentional and sometimes uncomfortable efforts. There can be a lot of hand-waving and noise generated while trying to garner attention, but two rather important criteria that often get swept aside are authenticity and humility. Hollow marketing efforts to create the illusion of success only encourage more noise that drowns out the actual progress of those putting in the work to build and ship meaningful products. Even worse are those efforts to deceive the public and the press by creating hallucinations in an effort to attract or placate investors.
This post by Alexis Muellner in the Tampa Bay Business Journal came as a bit of a surprise, but it was the culmination of many discussions and coffees over the past 15-ish years, where we discussed my personal observations of the rollercoaster ride that is the Tampa Bay tech ecosystem. I often mentioned the Savtira debacle in these conversations by asking (of the press) are we making an effort to highlight the actual technology innovators and business builders in our community or are we just waiting to hype up the next Savtira-type fraud?
And please stop referencing the Forbes Council “poll” proclaiming Tampa Bay’s position as the number one emerging tech hub. It is another sad example of wishing vs. working. The number of politicians and news outlets that gave this pay-to-play social media post credibility without fact-checking the source is yet another example of how we rush to be cheerleaders for the noise and drown out the signal.
Be authentic, be humble, and let’s put in the work required to support real progress without tripping over each other in an effort to take credit for the wins achieved by others.
Evolving a great idea into a sellable product requires a mix of innovation, instinct, and basic business discipline. My mission is to help early-stage founders understand start-up challenges, build their confidence, and establish their credibility. I’m not here to put lipstick on your pig or offer any silver bullets for venture funding; just grassroots experience blended with a little attitude and the occasional flinging of poo.
