Simple to complex vs. complex to simple product strategies

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Keep this in mind – it is always easier to go from a simple product to a more complex one than the other way around. 

A classic 'shoot your dreams' down critique of start up pitches is that something is a feature vs. a product.  Newsflash – all products start as features.  How you grow them, make them valuable to your customers, and position them within a broader ecosystem of other products is what makes a company scale and a product roadmap shine. 

Start simple.  If you are trying to take something complex and "dumb it down" make sure you have both the support and tolerance of investors as well as other members of the team as it is a tough road.

Things are tough all over

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

As a tribute to Google's news that they will be subleasing 1/3 of Googleplex North here in Kirkland, I thought I would highlight a Gary Allen song sharing the title of this post. 

I like Gary's music and suggest you check him out – sort of a back to basic country heavy on the soul.

Video goes in and out of focus but best I could find…

One of my favorite words

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Tenacious.

This word has been used to describe me in the past and while it may be a euphemism for other less flattering adjectives, I'll gladly take the label. 

Merriam-Webster's definition of tenacious:  persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired

Will Price posted on tenacity today highlighting the ups and (mostly) downs of Abraham LIncoln's career. 

Look no further for inspiration and be comfortable knowing you must fail to ultimately succeed.

Elections ARE marketing campaigns

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And the fine folks at the Harvard Business Review agree with me.  John Quelch puts forth a great article talking about the marketing aspects of this most recent Presidential election going so far as to call it a case study in "marketing excellence."  Quelch lays out eight ways Obama and his campaign nailed it but the final sentence of the article caught my attention:

"But like any brand, he has to deliver now on his promises, both actual
and perceived. In the current economy, that will not be easy."

One of my main concerns about all of this (as a US citizen, not a partisan) deals with the reality that the best packaging, positioning, messaging, and branding might not always generate the best leader for the United States.  And, all this costs money…and lots of it.  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the spend for the 2008 federal contests will top $5billion when it is all said and done.  That's billion with a 'B' and five of them with the Presidential contest being about half of that.  Wow.

The role of social media in B2B marketing

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This is a good article via destinationCRM about a recent report from Laura Ramos of Forrester Research on the role of social media and the like in B2B marketing entitled  "Making Social Media Work in B2B Marketing." 

I think it's a good write up and consistent with some of the things I have experienced as I have tried some of the new tools and techniques available.  Of the many good nuggets, I think this one is very telling both in terms of the challenge and stage of maturity of these tools:

Although 25 percent of respondents say that they think
social networks and online communities help to build brand awareness,
they can't connect these tactics to the sales pipeline, which remains a
barrier to adoption.

Life event

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Took a bit of a blogging hiatus to welcome the newest member of our family to the world.  We are now the proud parents of another little girl.  She joined us Friday and everyone is doing well.  Getting reconnected and caught up so will resume posting shortly.

Stay customer focused when building a new product

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I have stated my affection for Steven Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany
 several times on this blog and came across a couple of items relevant to it today via Venture Hacks.  The first is a rather lengthy Powerpoint presentation embedded below that walks through the methodology and process laid out in the book.

As I have said previously, this book is now required reading for my team members because I believe it lays out the challenge and steps for conceptualizing, building, and launching a successful product as an early stage company.

Focus on the customer, iterate often, and be prepared to have your assumptions be wrong are among the key takeaways.

Customer Development Methodologyhttp://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=customer-development-methodology-1225861832082350-8&stripped_title=customer-development-methodology-presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: market customer development)

I’m not sure the ‘good times’ were ever here

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Doom and gloom is pervasive in both press and company outlooks and the venture community as been abuzz about the end of the 'good times.'

Having worked consistently for early stage companies working to penetrate the enterprise for the past decade or so, I'm not sure there have been any recent 'good times.'

I have not found enterprise IT budgets to be lavish nor have I found sales cycles to be short or decision criteria to be lax.  I have experienced quite the opposite.

Building an enterprise focused business is hard and the good times have not been seen since the euphoria of the '98-'01 time frame if you define good times as the suspension of basic business principles and a welcoming market for broad innovation.

Actually, I would argue that there is still a hangover due to all the new, new things enterprises consumed during that period creating significant skepticism and caution in the following years.  The bar has already been high and will only get higher going forward.