THE ART OF THE STARTGUY KAWASAKI
(AND MARKETING ENTREPRENEURSHIP)
Charlie Hammerslough
Lunch Ann Arbor Marketing (LA2M)
February 3, 2010
So, who is Guy Kawasaki?
Americanb. 1954
Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist
Author, Blogger, Computer Marketing Pioneer, etc
Pioneered Product Evangelismfor High-Tech Products
On the original marketing team at Apple for MacIntosh (1983-87)Created passionate user-advocates
Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist
•Garage.com(Garage Technology Ventures)•Alltop•Slideshare•Posterous•Tripwire•Visible Measures•ACIUS•Fog City Software•Truemors•Jajah
Author and Prominent Blogger
The Art of The Start (2004): Core Premises Entrepreneurship is a State of Mind
Next great new company in a garageWithin companies bringing new ideas to lifeStarting schools, churches, not-for-profits
A Totally Practical GuideLong on practical advice, little theory
Entrepreneurship should be an elegant, artful undertaking
This “Review”
Concentrating on the “Start of the Start” Highlight some useful suggestions A couple of opportunities I see for new
marketing ventures
Why Do It At All?
It’s hard. Financially: uncertainty. Emotionally: facing rejection,
responsible for others’ jobs. Professionally: the work can be endless.
According to GK, there’s really only one answer, which it took him 20 years to find.
To “Make Meaning”
Not money, power, prestige, or even to have fun.
For instance:Make the world a better placeImprove quality of lifeRight a terrible wrongPrevent the end of something good
“If my organization never existed, the world would be worse because _____.”
But HOW to start? Observe the world: what need improving? Think BIG Find a couple of “soulmates” for the journey Design different Use Prototypes as market research AND, how are you going to make money?
(business model) Weave a MAT (Milestones, Assumptions,
Tasks)
DemoMetrics:“But What Do You Do?” Original answer:
“We use proven embedded real-time marketing
predictive analytics in the call-center space to improve upsell
and cross-sell from inbound call marketing opportunities. Our SaaS methodology continuously learns from agent-caller interactions to improve underlying models to make automated coaching suggestions to the agent about the best product to offer and the best verbal sales strategy to use …”
Now, we just say:“To make calling customer service less annoying.”
Some Useful Suggestions on Bootstrapping
Manage to Cash Flow, not ProfitabilityShort sales cycle, piggy-back Recurring revenueFills an obvious need, “auto-persuasive”Product markets itselfRiding mega-trend
Bottom-Up ForecastingWhat kind of revenue can we expect?
“Ship, Then Test” (careful) Consider starting as a service business Understaff and Outsource Invest in the Big Stuff
Some Useful Suggestions on Partnering
Do it for “spreadsheet” reasonsTo improve cash flow/revenue or reduce costsNot the wrong reasons (prestige, etc.)
Buy-In at the Middles and BottomsSingle, dedicated resource in each partner
Cut win-win deals that build on strengths, not cover weaknesses
Work with “enabling” lawyers, not “preventers”
Some Possible Opportunities(In Marketing Ventures)
Cross-Fertilization: Taking an idea from one area to anotherFor instance, applying ideas from cultural
anthropology to market researchOr MarCom principles to social media
Find niches where no “best practices” yet existSocial media wave yet to crestHow to measure, monetize, integrate
w/other marketing?
Some Possible Opportunities(In Marketing Ventures)
“Envelope” MarketingDeliver traditional offers inside non-traditional
wrappers Adapt and simplify big-company practices
for small- to mid-size companies Social entrepreneurship
For example, raising charity funds through Twitter
Peer-to-peer transactional models, micro-finance (kiva.org)
Crowdsourcing, crowdcasting
Some Possible Opportunities(In Marketing Ventures)
Newsletters to make sense of it allAggregate, simplify and create value
Location-based geomarketing Find niches in the “Long Tail”
Find markets by selling more of obscure items (Anderson, 2006)
Virtual communities and social networks reach the long tail of consumers
Applied behavioral economics