When I met Ryan, his problems were radically different…
They were growing quickly. His team was doing a fine job. They implemented Growth Processes, but after a few months, they realized that they weren’t moving the needle.
Ask people what makes entrepreneurs successful and you’ll hear a familiar list of adjectives; agile, tenacious, resilient, opportunistic, etc.
While on vacation I had a phone interview with Kevin Ohannessian of Fast Company who wanted a few “funding stories.” Here are two of them. Apologies for the rambling stream of consciousness. The original interview in Fast Company can be seen here.
Product marketers function as CEO’s of their products, product lines, or entire product portfolios. We are responsible for (feel free to steal this for your job description writing):
I was having breakfast with Radhika, an ex-grad student of mine who wanted to share her Customer Discovery progress for her consumer hardware startup. She started by sketching her business model canvas on a napkin, but somehow the conversation quickly shifted to what was really on her mind. “After reading your post on Why Founders Should Know How to Code it looks like web/mobile startups have it easy. They seem to know the right mix of skills on their founding team is a hacker, hustler and designer. But what about for us, a consumer hardware hardware company? Trying to figure out what the right set of co-founders isn’t so clear. How do I decide who I need to have on board on day one? Who can I hire later? And what can I outsource?”
If you’re bootstrapping your SaaS, you should drop your free tier.
Foreign visitors to Silicon Valley continually mention how willing we are to help, network and connect strangers. We take it so for granted we never even to bother to talk about it. It’s the “Pay-It-Forward” culture.
As Founders we’ve all more or less come to the conclusion that if we work really hard and make lots of sacrifices, one day we’ll actually be able to pursue our real passions.
We’re willing to trade a painful now for a pleasurable later.
A company will only survive as long as it continues to have a strong customer base. Even the best products will fail without a steady stream of users. Luckily, once a company has attracted its first customers, maintaining demand becomes considerable easier.