Thank for your expressing an interest in Launch Tomorrow, the first book on using landing pages as minimum viable products. I am available for interviews, articles, podcasts, and talks related to smoke tests in Lean Startup. Tim Ferriss came up with the idea of testing ideas with Adwords. Eric Reis popularized the use of a landing page to test demand. Yet Launch Tomorrow goes into depth on how to use landing pages as minimum viable products. It débuts on Amazon for an official launch on November 2, 2015 with a 5 day free download window.
- Download the full press_release.
- Download a sample chapter.
- Twitter: @LaunchTomorrow
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaunchTomorrow/
Early reader reviews
“This is a must read if you have an idea for a startup and you want to create the right landing page to sell your idea before spending a lot of money building your product.”
–Dharmesh Raithatha, Product Partner, Forward Partners
“When I first saw the title I thought ‘yeah, right – he’s probably going to tell me how to win the lottery tomorrow too.’ But by the time I finished the book I not only genuinely believed it could be done, but had begun furiously taking notes.”
–Glenn Livingston, Ph. D., former co-founder of advertising agency Rocket Clicks, online market research pioneer
“In my corporate consulting days, I used to tell my clients market research is a waste of time, because projects usually took 3 months and required a budget of $50-150K. But this stuff really changes the equation!”
–-Robert Grossman, Marketing Expert, Former Managing Partner, McKinsey & Co.
Who the book is for
- Early stage founders who have a product idea or early product
- Entrepreneurs who want to pivot to a new idea
- Startup marketing consultants
- Investors targeting high growth startups
About the author
Short version
After spending months of his life building a product that went nowhere, Luke Szyrmer discovered that he could have disproven the original product idea in a day using a landing page smoke test.
Full version
Luke Szyrmer spent a year of his life building on a software product that went nowhere. Then he discovered Lean Startup. Using Lean Startup, he successfully validated many product and startup ideas using landing pages and paid advertising. Amongst others, he retrospectively disproved his previously failed product idea in two days. He also confirmed that there was unmet demand for a book on using landing pages as product smoke tests, he wrote it.
In order to help founders sidestep the pain of launching mediocre or deadpan products, Luke Szyrmer is now a Lean Startup community activist in London. Doing so, he runs regular meetups to help founders apply Lean Startup principles such as testing to their business. He also co-organises Lean Startup Machine in London and mentors startup founders individually and at events like Startup Weekend. He’s also spoken at Google Campus and LeanCamp. He’s consulted for innovation accelerators like The Factory and Rainmaking Innovation.
Sample Interview Questions
WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS BOOK?
To help other startup founders find a problem worth marketing, before they even build a product.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM THIS BOOK IS SOLVING?
In between early discussions with prospects and conversion rate optimization there is a unique approach required, to run unbiased tests with landing pages. This book covers it.
WAS IT A PERSONAL PROBLEM YOU HAD?
Yes, absolutely. I tried building a product without validating demand for it. After 11 months of effort in building a niche youtube clone, I struggled to generate interest in the product. After becoming a Lean Startup fanatic, I retested the same idea a few years later. Turns out I could have saved myself months of my life and made better use of the money given as a wedding gift.
HOW WAS THE PRODUCT CREATED?
I dove deep into Lean Startup, direct response marketing, and conversion rate optimization and isolated the key ideas for founders interested in shifting from “validation mode” to “paid growth mode”. I ran tests on my own, to refine the process. I’ve worked with hundreds of tech founders as a co-organizer of Lean Startup Circle London and gotten feedback on how to improve the book.
HOW HAS THIS PRODUCT SOLVED THAT PROBLEM?
For one, it turns out–according to studies done by Ogilvy & Mather Direct–that audience selection & strategy has a much greater effect on sales and conversions. The landing page design and copy is actually 7x less important, than this single “off landing page factor”. This has significant implications for early stage tech founders, and it isn’t covered anywhere else.
WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY DO?
Launch Tomorrow describes a one-day soft launch process which allows you test out ideas on a small scale with paid advertising, and gives founders the analytical framework to interpret the results accurately.
DESCRIBE IT AS IF YOU WERE DESCRIBING IT TO A NON-TECH PERSON ON THE STREET:
Launch Tomorrow helps entrepreneurs match a specific product idea to a specific group of people who are interested in it, or to learn quickly that an idea needs more refinement. This saves them time, money, and stress levels.
WHAT ARE THE KEY DIFFERENTIATORS BETWEEN YOU AND OTHER BOOKS/APPROACHES?
Conversion rate optimization assumes the product is sound, and you’re trying to optimize a sales process that already works. At this early stage, you can’t afford to assume that yet.
Customer development (prospect interviews) techniques are great for initial exploratory work and generating divergent ideas, but at some point you need to start vetting the ideas quantitatively. Also, you’re much better off observing actual buyer behavior, as opposed to declarations of interest.
WHY IS THIS BETTER THAN THOSE OTHER APPROACHES?
For someone who wants to work out a market entry strategy and run sociological/behavioural experiments within a specific niche, the landing page MVP technique is an excellent tool to do so. And this book covers only this topic.
WHY ON EARTH WOULD MY AUDIENCE BE INTERESTED IN YOUR STORY?
Using this technique, your readers who are currently working on a startup idea (especially the ones who aren’t designers) will have a way to minimize the risk and downside of attaching themselves to an ugly betty idea, while gathering critical market data on where & how to find their specific early adopters and innovators.
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