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Archives for June 2020

Why early stage virality can indicate product readiness

June 26, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer Leave a Comment

In the early days, when I was just polishing off the manuscript of Launch Tomorrow, I gave it to a friend who also lived and breathed startups. I specifically requested that he keep it quiet and just asked for feedback. Professionally, he was a marketer but in this case I was hoping to get some honest “tough love” from him. To make sure the book would be good.

After speaking with him in person, I dropped a pdf into gmail, and forwarded it on to him. Coincidentally, I also happened to have an early trial version of Streak installed on my gmail account, which is an app which measures email opens, now primarily used by salespeople.

Over the next week or so, it turned out 37 people had opened that email 56 times in different locations around London and Europe. This simple indicator was enough to convince me that the manuscript is definitely at least a minimum viable product. If not a bit more. There were a lot of tweaks I wanted to make, but clearly my idea audience was enjoying and using it. Even though this viral spread was accidental, ultimately I was pleased that my friend had effectively proven to me that my product was ready.

This was a special case of someone who knew me well, the fact that he forwarded it without my consent and that it was re-forwarded so many times implied that my soon-to-be released product will be able to generate word of mouth referrals when I do launch. This was particularly poignant, given that this was a B2C product. Like most impulse buys, books (on their own) tend to be low $ value products. There is little margin for error with a high customer acquisition cost, yet you need to be great at generating awareness and discoverability. So you can only use channels that have a fixed cost up front but little additional variable cost of reaching another person.

Going Viral

While virality seems “free” from a financial point of view, it’s expensive in terms of your time. The idea is to create enough product (content in my case) which people naturally want to share. Once you have their attention, you include some kind of call to action which then turns into a conversion , like a sale. Or at least a micro conversion, like getting an email subscriber.

Your riskiest assumptions are probably related to your prospects and customers. Establish empathy quickly with your target prospect, figure out what's valuable, and get your innovation into the market.

Filed Under: assumptions, metrics, modelling Tagged With: faster time to market, growth, launch

Why department boundaries matter so much when aligning

June 19, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer Leave a Comment

Kinda Disproved: the myth of the startup garage

June 10, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer Leave a Comment

Going back to revisit my old post The Myth of the Startup Garage, I wanted to verify my statements quantitatively. In that post, I argue against garages as this magic place where entrepreneurship starts.

Vivint Solar - Solar Panels on small home with driveway from street.

Filed Under: assumptions, innovation Tagged With: market risk

Mind the (alignment) gap

June 5, 2020 by Luke Szyrmer Leave a Comment

Here are a couple of troubleshooting questions to start thinking about how aligned you are in the current remote working environment:

Filed Under: alignment Tagged With: covid, planning, work time

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  • About Luke

    Luke Szyrmer is an innovation and remote work expert. He’s the bestselling author of #1 bestseller Launch Tomorrow. He mentors early stage tech founders and innovators in established companies. Read More…

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