«
»

founders, beware

every once in a while you read an article or a book that changes the way you think.

almost like falling in love, you think of it several times a day.

a month later you are a changed person.

please read this blog post. it was published 8 weeks ago, and its comments are very interesting as well. it claims that israeli startups fail because they do not understand and do not invest enough in marketing.

steve duplessie, from my experience is:

  • smart
  • a thought leader
  • like many great people, not full of himself

a great book on a related matter is 4 steps to the epiphany, by steve blank, founder of… E.piphany, once a big company.

here is an abstract, from chapter 2 of the book

my comment to founders and management, before you start spending like crazy on marketing:

  • try to create some measurements. cost per lead is a great start
  • you will not win ‘the game’ if you do not build the best customer acquisition engine in the industry. no matter how good your product is
  • engage with customers. listen. challenge your assumptions. engage with customers some more
  • build a portfolio of marketing activities and test which ones work. start this early and slowly
  • when you spend big, which you should, ask yourself: ‘am i  in good position to know what i am getting for this?’

since you are by now doing something repeatable and scaleable, it is less entrepreneurial.

so founders, beware.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on January 20, 2010 at 20:04 and is filed under books, US and israel, VC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “founders, beware”

  1. Ran Arad Says:
    January 22, 2010 at 01:27 | Reply

    Duplessie’s article was extremely interesting, and indeed I now keep thinking about it… Thanks!

  2. adisababa Says:
    February 3, 2010 at 17:30 | Reply

    hi
    i was told people associated the picture with israeli founders
    this is by no means my intention
    what was the thinking behind choice of the picture?
    first, i was looking for a piggybank. a safe for money. trying to state the under-investing or saving in marketing
    when i saw this picture, i thought it is a good reflection of what our work as a high-tech industry sometimes looks like from the outside-in as opposed to how we see it, inside-out.
    this definitely includes my work
    so apologies if the picture looks derogatory, but it is self-reflecting
    adi

Leave a comment