(2011-01-20) Mckenzie Startup Marketing Adoption Hacks

Patrick McKenzie thinks a Lean Startup that's not doing direct Selling (like where Steve Blank's experience comes from) needs a Customer Development iterative plan to succeed. Some tactics he notes:

• Pricing structure designed to work better than existing competition

• online marketing to compete against offline competition

• strong SEO strategy (note his Bingo Flash Card history of paying for content development which then drives lots of long-tail SEO value).

We often accept previous experience or minimal proof-of-concept prototypes/MVPs in lieu of a functioning product when evaluating whether someone is capable of executing on building something. Why not do essentially the same for proving that one is likely to get customers? A previous background in revenue maximization through negotiating cross selling deals for banks, or evidence that you have enthusiasm from a few bankers who like the concept and want to hear more when you have something to show, demonstrates a certain likelihood that marketing challenges will be overcome like technical challenges will be overcome... However, this doesn’t mean you can’t innovate on both the marketing and the product. Indeed, since they feed off each other, that is probably substantially more effective than innovating on one or the other. (Viral)