Marketing for Startups - Crafting Your Story

@WebbJS © John Webb 2013
John Webb
Marketing for Startups:
Crafting Your Story
© John Webb 2013

“Great stories happen to those
who can tell them.”
Ira Glass

Determine Your
WHY
Define The
PROBLEM
Build Your
PROPOSITION
Create Your
CONTENT

DETERMINE YOUR WHY
“Let him who would move the world
first move himself.”
Socrates

WHY
HOW
WHAT
Simon Sinek: Start With Why
Traditional, product-led marketing
OUTSIDE - IN

Innovators / Early Adopters engage with beliefs first
WHY
HOW
WHAT
INSIDE - OUT
Simon Sinek: Start With Why

What
Compaq 1996
IBM 1997
Why
Apple 1997

Rockstar)Games)
When your WHY is seen as a
“Noble Cause” people will follow

Getting to your WHY?
Cultural
Context
Audience
Insights
Business
Mission
Brand
Values
WHY
EXTERNAL
INTERNAL

Keep
going
back
to
first
principles
Why?
Why?
Why? Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
(Image: Shutterstock)

To make tools for the mind that advance humankind.
To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible
and useful.
To give people the power to share and make the world more open
and connected.
To provide the best customer service possible.
A world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum
of all knowledge
Transforming how products are built and launched
To make it easy for people to do themselves some good (whilst making
it taste nice too)
Where people can come to find and discover anything they might
want to buy online

DEFINE THE PROBLEM
“If I had one hour to save the world, I would
spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem,
and only five minutes finding the solution.”
Albert Einstein

Who
are
you
solving
for?

Problems worth solving for are usually for you
What problems do
you understand
uniquely well?

WHY?YOU
YOUR
DESIRED
CUSTOMERS

What’s the nature of the problem?
UTILITY
(Need to complete a task)
GRATIFICATION
(Need to gain emotional
satisfaction or pleasure)
IDENTITY
(Need for expression
or recognition)
RESPONSIBILITY
(Need to be accountable)

Customer Intertia
• Cost / effort
• Satisfaction with existing solution
• Apathy
• Lack of awareness or comprehension
• Perceived risk

• Cost
• Time
• Effort
• Attention
• Reputation
• Risk
• Satisfaction
• Enjoyment
• Time
• Achievement
• Social
recognition
• Revenue
• Reputation
• Competitive
advantage
• Security

BIG
Problems
=
BIG
Opportunities
Pick a
BIG
FIGHT

Qualifying the problem
• Is it addressing a real and valid pain point?
• Is it a problem that lots of people have?
• Is this a discrete group that you can delimit and effectively target?
• Can you reach and serve these people?
• Are these people willing or likely to spend money to solve this
problem?
• Is the problem likely to remain or even grow over time (on a
universal level)? Is the market sustainable?
• Could someone else easily solve this problem? Is it a defendable
space?
• Is it easy to articulate what the problem is and how you can solve it?

Startup ideas fall into 2 groups
NEW-MARKET
DISRUPTION
LOW-END
DISRUPTION
Clay Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma

• Don’t disrupt for disruptions sake
• Look at real-world contexts
• Consider the ecosystem as a whole, not just
your slice
• Products and technology do not disrupt,
business models do
• See different problems

BUILD YOUR PROPOSITION
“The meaning of a proposition is the
method of its verification.”
Moritz Schlick

A
N
S
W
E
R
AUDIENCE – Who are you solving for? Target Audience
NEED – What need are you fulfilling / problem are you solving?
SOLUTION – What’s your elegant solution to this need / problem? What
are you providing to the customer? What value are you adding?
WHY IS IT BETTER? – Than what the customer is currently doing / using?
How do you differentiate versus the competition?
EVIDENCE – How are you credible? Why should customers and partners
believe you?
REDUCE IT DOWN – To first principles and express in it’s basest form. Keep
it simple and succinct

Reduce It Down
Audience
Need
SolutionWhy is it better?
Evidence
The
Value Proposition
Framework

Does your
business model
support the
value proposition?

CREATE YOUR CONTENT
“Traditional marketing talks at people.
Content marketing talks with them.”
Doug Kessler

Content is the raw material of stories
Bringing it to life…storytelling

CONTENTPull People In

The Content Deluge

Where’s your audience gone?

Standing out
takes time,
energy, focus
& perseverance
“The instrument that I never learned how to
play was my fans. You know, they are the part
of the story that nobody teaches you. I just
want to do the right thing; I want to be a
voice with them, among them.”
Lady Gaga

High quality content, make it…
• Problem-solving
• Unique
• Shareable
• Compelling
• Topical

Be Relevant & Compelling
CONTEXT

CONTEXT is being redefined
Social Data Location Data
Human “API” DataSensor Data

Be Relevant & Compelling
CONTEXT
MASS Personalisation

Segments
of
ONE

Crafting Your Story Checklist
 Determine your WHY? by going back to first principles
 Define the problem you are solving for
 Build your Value Proposition and ensure that your Business
Model is aligned
 Create a Content Strategy focusing on ‘quality’, shareable
material that adds value for your audience
 Understand how the context of that content is being
redefined for your audience, and look to create ‘Segments of
One’ in its delivery

John Webb
Startups Lead @ Rackspace
john@get2growth.com
@WebbJS
uk.linkedin.com/in/johnwebb
slideshare.net/johns_webb

Marketing for Startups - Crafting Your Story

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