Nesheim Online

SPONTANEOUS STARTUPS (PART 3): Pivot - Iterate - Spin - Loop whatever you call it, just "Be First to Get it Right"

I've been fascinated with the buzz around the "pivot" word.

It has captured a lot of attention and stimulated much discussion. Even the Wall Street Journal writes about it.

The word means to do something, to take an action (that's a verb). Action is good, that's what "execution of your plan" requires.

Others use words like "iterante" or "spin" or "loop". To me, they are all about the same action.

Yet I find little discussion about "What is the objective of pivoting a startup?" The purpose for doing something should be part of the action. So just what is the objective for pivoting a startup?

I suggest you'll find the Prime Objective (for pivoting a startup) is this: "Be First To Get It Right".

All the pivoting in the world is useless unless you end up in a strong competitive position. The best position is to emerge from all the dizzying pivoting and arrive at one point: Be First To Get It Right.

Facebook, Zynga, Starbucks, Qualcom and Chipotle are some examples whose founders pivoted and became First To Get It Right.

Arivving at that position opens the door to the Prime Goal: Become the Gorilla of a New Space within 5 Years of Launch. When you attain that Prime Goal, you have succeeded with your startup. Everything that follows is easy.

BOTTOM LINE: The Prime Objective of pivoting is Be First To Get It Right. The Prime Goal of pivoting is to Become the Gorilla of a New Space within 5 Years of Launch. That is what all the commotion is about. It is central to building an unfair competitive advantage. You can do it.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

SPONTANEOUS STARTUPS (PART 2): Learn from a real $300 million example

Spontaneous Startups just happen. Often very well.

Today I'll share an amazing example of a real new enterprise that spontaneously rose from nothing to sales of over $300 million (and climbing).

EXAMPLE

The startup is Wayfair.

Its on-line service sells "everything for the home."

Why don't you know about them? That's part of their story and it's a clever one, filled with excitement, risk and extraordinary success.

I highly recommend you read the well written story (just click on the Wayfair link above) in which the two founders, Niraj Shah and Steve Conine, tell how they moved from startup idea to startup idea until one day they found a very special idea for their new enterprise would become Mayfair. It simply "occurred to them".

As you dissect this amazing saga (it took years and a lot of hard work), keep the following characteristics in mind, they'll help you glean extra value from your thinking, they will generate things to apply to your own startup:

• Stalled with several startups, bailed (wisely) one after the other, until they got The Big Idea.
• Took no venture capital until success was very clear, years after starting.
• Stayed focused, did not get distracted during early formation years.
• Looked and looked and looked for a better idea than the one they had at the moment.
• Techies made the move to marketing savvy as a natural consequence of their processing of ideas.
• Settled on a very simple idea, yet one with huge potential.
• Bold vision: "determined to think big -- really big."
• Flanking Strategy: moved into uncontested territory, a new market not yet dominated by a Gorilla.
• Profitable from Month One.
• Quick to follow successful step after successful step (and to not repeat failures).
• Creative with cash flow management.
• Learned how to do the (retail merchandise) business by doing it.
• Avoided attacking Gorillas.
• Figured out what customers were frustrated with, solved that problem.

I'll leave the rest of the story thinking up to you. Read, think and repeat several times how you analyse this Wayfair story. Each reading offers to you the chance to glean a fine harvest of stimulating ideas for how to do a Spontaneous Startup.

BOTTOM LINE: Wayfair is a find example of how to do a Spontaneous Startup. You can do the same. Study the process the founders went through. That is where the low hanging fruit is waiting for you. When you "get it", you'll know the secrets that made serial entrepreneurs serial winners. And you'll be able to use your idea to build an unfair competitive advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

SPONTANEOUS STARTUPS: They just happen (and often do, well)

Spontaneous Startups are a special class of new enterprise.

They are the ones that just happen.

One or two people. No business plan, no MBA, no VC money, no whatever else, just that sudden "Hey, why don't we do XYZ?!" And they go do it. Often very well.

I've recently realized there are a lot of amazing entrepreneurs out there who "didn't have a clue" about what they were getting into. Something triggered in their brain one day and presto! Out came a clever idea that became a clever new enteprise.

They are so fresh and different from the classical venture capital backed startup to IPO model that I had to pause and dwell upon them. Like a breath of fresh Spring air, I found them stimulating and inspiring.

My research has revealed so many of these Spontaneous Startups that I decided today to reflect on them for you and supply a real example to think about.

SPONTANEOUS STARTUP IS

Here is what makes a Spontaneous Startup so special:

• Sudden. There is no gradual effort leading up to the formation of The Idea for the new enterprise. It springs up with a loud "Surprise!"
• Wherever. The Idea can occur anywhere. On a plane, in a classroom or shower, watching television, during a sporting event, even on the job as you work.
• Instantly compelling. The Idea is immediately appealing to the founders who sense it is will also be appealing to many paying customers.
• Personal Product/Service. Sports clothing, baby seats, racing bicycle parts, casual digital games and other ideas resonate naturally with the founders.
• Mostly consumer. Industrial startups can be born as Spontaneous Startups, but most are ideas about selling something to ordinary people (or they are about supplying a product/service free to end users and making money via the classical Internet advertising business model).
• Clever. Something is triggered that jumps out as at least novel, or very new, if not extraordinary.
• No Special Education. While founders of this kind of startup range from high school dropouts to PhDs, the founders appear to include relatively high portion of people with no college education.
• Venture Capital Missing. Founders got started with their own savings, typically in the form of going without salary. They begin work in their homes and rented apartments. Cash is precious.
• Quick Time to Launch First Product. Months rather than years are consumed to get from start to first sales.
• Quick to Profit, Mostly. Most are profitable after a few months of first sales. Exceptions are in Internet centric businesses (e.g. mobile photo sharing: Instagram) which race to be first to get the gorilla share of end users in the new market category.
• Hyper Growth, Mostly. The first product/service catches on and spreads like wildfire, with sales following with the same remarkable growth. Exceptions like Linkedin do seem to require decades to get established before the hyper growth occurs, and thus have to get additional funding from wealthy angels.
• Friends Do It. The founders and early core of employees are friends. They may have worked together, but more are simply social friends, often very close friends.

 EXAMPLE OF A REAL SPONTANEOUS STARTUP

I have a real Spontaneous Startup for you to think about. It was born in Norway and is thriving. It is Onepiece.

Here is their story, from the startup's spontaneous beginning.

Early one Sunday morning in 2007, Henrik, Knut and Thomas, three Norwegians in their twenties, fantasized about the ultimate chill-out wear that would be perfect for a lazy day at home.

They all agreed on the merits of the sweatsuit for recovering from a night on the town. "But without the tight waistband and the pressure to go jogging," Thomas said. Knut had been staring at a light bulb when, eureka, it all became clear:
"Why not sew together a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants? Let's make it so big that no one in their right mind would think of working out."
"If we can skip the waistband, I'm all for it," said Thomas. "But how are we going to get into it?"
"No sweat," replied Henrik, "we'll just put in a big zipper."

And with that the OnePiece Jump In was born. The three friends dropped everything and invested all their savings to realize an idea they believed was unique and brilliant. They made the loose-fitting, all-in-one hooded sweatsuits in soft, thick cotton fleece in a wide variety of colours and patterns.

For two years they sold the OnePiece to friends and marketed it to high-school seniors in Norway. Then, in autumn 2009, some bloggers wrote about how much they loved the OnePiece, which triggered other bloggers to rant about how much they hated it. Fuelled by massive debate in social media, the OnePiece Jump in became a huge trend in Scandinavia in 2010, and is now catching on in England and other European countries.

"We were as surprised as anyone when people started wearing the OnePiece at clubs and it became a fashion and lifestyle statement," says Thomas, who has left university to devote all his time and energy to the OnePiece. "I think that the versatility of our jumpsuit and the fact that it is extremely comfortable are the main reasons for its success."

Even as the OnePiece wave hits country after country, gaining a foothold, Knut, Thomas and Henrik are busy developing new ideas and concepts. To be sure, the OnePiece won't be their last innovative fashion item.

BOTTOM LINE: The class of new enterprise known as Spontaneous Startup is large and filled with exciting fresh business ideas. This kind of startup is able to be created by nearly anyone. The specialness of a Spontaneous Startup opens doors for many budding entrepreneurs looking for a way to do a real startup. The ones that succeed seem to be intuitively able to build unfair competitive advantages (which says a lot about the intuitive brains of the founders of this class of startup). Think about a Spontaneous Startup for your own new enterprise. It may be just what you are looking for.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

FINDING AN OPENING FOR A STARTUP: Blaze alternate trails

"Where do you begin when looking for an idea for a startup?" is a question that I often get from first-timer entrepreneurs.

One way is to start with a problem, then look for an alternative path to solving it. Research shows it much wiser to flank into uncontested territory than to attack the existing market leaders head-on.

EXAMPLE: Doximity.com

I found the insighful analysis of what one entrepreneur did to find an opening for a startup (March 26, 2012 Investor's Business Daily):

1. Ease their pain
       "15 billion faxes are sent annually from doctor's office to doctor's office." So says Doximity.com founder Jeff Tangney. The fact that sharp professionals rely on decades-old technology amazed the entrepreneur.
       With Doximity, CEO Tangney created a social network for physicians. "They can't really use the same tools we do" beause of patient confidentiality issues, he said.
2. Clear hurdles
       Tangney aimed to make Doximity as simple as Facebook, but as confidential as a closed-door discussion through stringent encryption techniques. "We're taking the best Silicon Valley has to offer to health care," he said. "Our goal is to make it effortless."
       Since launching the site in 2010, Doximity has added 8% of the country's physicians as active users.
3. Increase the chatter.
       Doximity members can send secure faxes from the Web, iPhone or Android. Members also get second opinions and give referrals through virtual curbide consultations.

 That is a simple example of how one entrepreneur moved from big problem to clever solution. The result is a successful startup.

BOTTOM LINE: When looking for an opening to get a fresh company started, look for as large a problem as you can find (I did not say "most complex problem").

Then find the point of pain (exasperation, frustration, anger, disappointment, etc.).

Start thinking up ways to reduce the pain. Keep inventing alternatives to the existing solution (avoid words like "quicker, better, cheaper" because "er" words have no staying power).

When you find an alternative solution that could touch a lot of potential customers, figure out how to build and launch that solution (that's your business plan).

When you build a solution that is exciting ("compelling to customers"), the customers will email, Tweet, and phone the buzz around the planet about your wonderful solution. That's how serial entreperneurs do it. So can you. It is central to building an unfair competitive advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

THREE BASIC HARD-KNOCK SCHOOL LESSONS FOR STARTUP CEOS

Streetsmart CEOs learn lessons from the struggles of others.

Here are three for your brain to cogitate on today:

1. Never sell Swiss Army knives. The new Galaxy Note is a "phone-tablet hybrid" making its debut. What are reviewers saying about the device? Here are one harsh declaration: "makes you look like your're talking into a piece of toast." And it is seen as "all of the above", meaning it is mixing smart phone with tablet with mobile device. In other words, it combines a lot of gadgets into one device. What is a Swiss Army knife used for? After opening all the gadgets, the user sets it on the desk and soon it is a great paperweight. Period. End of wonder. What does your product need? That is simple: it must have Focus + Wow! One thing done with wonder. You win. Swiss Army knife products lose.
2. Winning Number 2 companies (Chimpanzees) have to be radically different to thrive. RIM's Blackberry is a great example. What does it need to do? Not be better than or similar to the iPhone. No. Instead be crisply different. Let Apple sell to kids. Rim is "For adults only" or "Industrial strength". RIM's security is much stronger than Apple's. Corporations prefer that. So contrast the adult phone with the kid's phone. And thrive as a strong Number 2, a healthy Chimp existing in the shadow of a strong Gorilla. And try to pick a market for your startup that is not yet dominated by a Gorilla. In an early emerging startup market, if you begin to fall behind a leader, remember to strive to be clearly different.
3. Confidense with how your business model can make money trumps jumping off the cliff blindfolded. Pinterest has $37.5 million of venture capital invested in it. It's VCs are bragging that the startup's "monetization strategy isn't in the oven and i's not even off the baking table." Do you believe that? I don't. And neither do the VCs. They did not invest with their eyes closed. It is simple to calculate right now the amount of regular users needed by Pinterest to generate the annual revenue needed to create the huge value required for an IPO needed by the VCs to get rich. That is simple arithmetic, a simple Excel model to build. Sure, the precise method by which the company sets up the ads will be a work-in-action (think Facebook's on-going experiments and slap-backs by the privacy-sensitive Facebookers). So get out Excel and build your Business Model for your new enterprise. Investors (and smart potential employees) will be asking you "How will your startup make money?" The stronger your answer, the lower the risk and the higher the value of your startup will be to investor and talented employees. It's worth the hard work.

BOTTOM LINE: Watch, read, and listen to other entrepreneurs and innvators. Study the marketing wars. Then apply what you learn to your startup. It's how the Great Ones rose to success. It became part of their unfair advantage. You can do it too!

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

STARTUP LESSONS FROM TODAY'S "APPLE BLOWOUT QUARTER" AND "THE CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD OF THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS"

A few minutes ago Apple announced a "blowout quarter" of sales and revenue (Tuesday afternoon, January 24, 2011).

Twenty four hours ago the Republican presidential political hopefuls debated in Tampa.

Startups can learn a fundamental lesson from both events:
"You have to stand for something" to win.

==========================================================================

STAND FOR SOMETHING

Apple sells products that are exciting in their elegant simplicity. There is no confusion. The positioning in the mind of the consumer is clear. The message is short and crisp.

Each of the Republican hopefuls has yet to take a stand on what he stands for. Each of their messages is a combination of many words (attempting to appeal to the most voters without offending too many others). That's the ultimate compromise and a sure way to not win. Voters stand aside, confused, with over a third saying they are undecided hours before each voting deadline. Everyone knew what Obama stood for ("Change, Yes We Can"), he owned that wording. Perhaps the Republican victor will be able to eventually do the same kind of focused messaging. But until then, voters will continue to scratch their heads.

It has been my experience that serial entrepreneurs quickly figure out what their company should stand for (in less than four words). That is difficult, but is a mark of the grand winners.

Is there something else required for a startup to win? Yes, there sure is!

Must Have

Serial entrepreneurs tell me there are three Must-Have things your startup requires to win:

1. Products that "WOW!" your customers. Exhilarating substance, not boring fluff.
2. Execution with excellence. Doing your plan brilliantly.
   
3. Moving target that keeps competition behind.

Products that are okay, but not exciting, produce Number 2 (Chimpanzee) companies and start a slippery decent into the group of a dozen starving Monkeys. Gorilla status requires products that get the end user highly emotional, eager, compellingly driven to get their hands on those products (Riots at the Apple store in Beijing). Startups with me-too products ("better, quicker, cheaper") cannot become great winners.

Execution by your company must deliver everything on time, well done, month after month after month. If you err, you end up losing your momentum. Lululemon missed executing inventory deliveries, angered customers, and their stock was crushed. Apple has continued to deliver with brilliance, in spite of wildly unexpected demand by consumers for phones, pads and computers. Startups must do the same, under even more challenging circumstances.

Once a Gorilla of a new market, the leader must keep up the momentum with more great product inventions and continued, amazing, execution. That moving target makes competitors cry, unable to leap over and take the lead. RIM failed to do that with its Blackberry. Apple leaped over and never looked back. Android phone suppliers (Number 2, or Chimpanzee status) are running at feverish levels to just keep closely behind Apple's constantly changing leadership position.

 NOT ENOUGH

The above Four Must-Haves are required, but are not sufficient to ensure startup success. You have to have one more thing to win:

Number One is "You have to stand for something" to win.

A clear, short message about what your startup stands for is what end users are seeking. That is the foundation on which all else is built. Then your WOW! products become branded, never to be forgotten by end users. Your execution is appreciated by customers, reinforcing your growing position as The Leader of the new market. Your ever changing, constant innovation leaves your competition standing (behind) in awe of your startup. Bloggers spread your message around the globe (at no cost to you.)

That is what marketing is about in this new era. It is mandatory for startups.

Done well, you are shooting a rifle at a clear target.

Done poorly, you are shooting a shotgun in a circular firing squad.

BOTTOM LINE: Serial entrepreneurs figure out swiftly what their new enterprises should stand for. They deliver fresh products/services with quality and timeliness appreciated by customers. Further innovation surprises competitors, leaving them continually behind. That's power marketing. That's the basis for building your unfair competitive advantage. Veteran entrepreneurs do it all the time. You can do the same.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

MANAGING MORPHING A STARTUP: Lessons from the lastest shifts at startup Foursquare

I've been discussing "morphing" a startup in recent blogs.

Morphing a startup is all about movements and focus.

My blogs on startup morphing are aimed at delivering special tips to founders of today's startups -- because they are under very intense (read that as acute) pressure in this current era of "rapidly scaling startups". Investors (and increasingly experienced startup employees) expect a founder to swiftly move from initial idea into an established new enterprise that moves swiftly upward in users and revenue. If not, they start moving to the exits. Life has become very impatient for slow moving founders.

So I thought I'd pick apart today's story about the latest change at startup Foursquare and list a few tips that might add to your skill set as leader of a new enterprise.

FOURSQUARE STORY OF THE DAY

Here is the story headline from TechCrunch: "Foursquare Outgrows Mobile, Wants to be Your City Guide".

Here are some things to ponder that I noted in the blog:

• Startup Morphing is a continuous process. Note how the company has moved on from its initial catchy "check-in" feature:

"The Foursquare.com site redesign is the third major product development that aspires to move Foursquare beyond the check in; The company recently launched Explore to derive value from all the checkin data it has accumulated over the past three years, then Radar which allowed users to take advantage of that data with minimum effort."

A serial entrepreneur I respect recently remarked to me that Foursquare had shifted from a generic location based service into "a place people go to brag where they have been."

• Startup Morphing is focused on generating user-driven revenue growth. That means the number of unique daily users must remain loyal, continue growing (faster than competitors) with new ones arriving by the hour, and be attractive to advertisers and merchants.

"One million daily unique visitors is a terrible thing to waste."

So the company has been adding more features aimed at keeping existing users clicking on the service, while the new offerings become more and more attractive to hesitant users. "Growth, growth, growth" that 's the mantra chanted by Foursquare founders 24x7.

• Startup Morphing demands that Marketing figure out how to convert user clicks into Revenue. The next trick is to convert a growing number of users into real $$$$$$ in the form of revenue. That's the job of Marketing. 

Now Foursquare Marketing has made a major change in the focus of the business: The new New is focused on leaving "check-in" behind and moving on to being a "city guide service".

"And it just might succeed too, with the wealth of more than a billion checkins from which to draw conclusions about the destination predilections of its ten million users, “[We want to do whatever] we can do with this data to make people more aware of the world around them in real-time and geographically relevant way,” Foursquare Head of Product Alex Rainert said as he gave me a tour of the site earlier."

• Startup Morphing changes the branding of your business (and thus is frought with risk). Foursquare owns the word "check-in" and always will (Search = Google, etc.). But now the company wants to become The Gorilla of "Your city guide". That is definately a move, a big move. And it is into a market that is crawling with solutions (search for "city guide mobile" and you'll get 53 million items). And if you add to the search "recommendations" you run into another crowded space. Yet that is what the Foursquare is going to do next.

Foursquare is making a concerted effort be more than just an app for checkins, as we and every other person who covers this stuff has noted before. The difference here is the mobile-first startup is expanding its horizons way beyond its iOS roots in order to become a location-based city guide and recommendation service, sort of moving towards Yelp while Yelp ironically moves towards Foursquare.

The danger is that these moves create a generic city guide out of the Check-in King, one whose unique appeal ("bragging"?) is lost to a not-so-exciting-city-guide.

But if successful, we might find ourselves observing an new category of "recommendation-based city guide" or something along those lines (web and mobile accessed). The growth they are seeking might be there. I for one am forever amazed how much time I have to take to research a city I am going to visit in order to add a bit more enjoyment to my time there. Perhaps this New Foursquare is my solution.

• Startup Morphing calls for guts, soul-deep courage. . . Or reveals ignorance. Marketing branding is based on end users instantly recalling one simple thing when they think of your name (that's what becomes branded by that single, special thing: Social Networking = Facebook). To loose that indentity with that single thing is death to a brand (what is a Sony?). To keep that identity is central to creating a brand that is recalled by your Ideal End Users.

Thus there is a critical trick to morphing from that initial branding focus: each move has to build onto that focus, that word, and thus retain in the end user's mind the identity that has been earned and that is the reason for millions of clicks/uses on/of the service. That takes guts, real courage.

So I commend Foursquare's leaders. They have made a major move with boldness. That reflects the intensity of their personal drives and ambitions, and their guts and courage. It also resonates the intensity of competition that surrounds them, competition that is moving daily, attempting to encroach on Foursquare's success in its current space (market segment). It is a story unfolding, well worth watching and learning from.

BOTTOM LINE: Startups that move from an entrenched market position into a crowded space have to have leaders wise in strategic planning and skilled in execution of bold moves. That happens to be central to what serial entrepreneurs are very good at ("brilliant"). Studying moves made by new market leaders can teach you how to gain such abilities. When you can do Startup Morphing, you are well on your way to building an unfair competitive advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

CAN STARTUP CEOS BUY "GOING VIRAL" OR DOES IT OCCUR NATURALLY?

"That startup is boosting users by buying traffic for its app!" is what a serial entrepreneur observed this weekend during our discussion.

He meant that a related new enterprise had recorded rising numbers of users. That suggested a sign that the app was staging to go viral. But after some research the findings revealed the growth numbers emanated from hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to purchase traffic and users.

That reminded me of a trustworthy adage from wise serial entrepreneurs:

"You can't win a race running on crutches."

Neither can startups.

Unless you are competing in the Special Olympics, your crutches are a sign of a fundamentally weakness: you are in an undesirable position, unable to compete to win.

In other words, if your app is not compelling to end users, all the extra things you to to try to get users to get excited and use it are doomed to flop. A dead horse is a dead horse.

All the PR and blogging and shouting will not produce something insanely great if it is not insanely great.

If it is insanely great, you'll find users quickly raving about your app, spreading the word "Gotta have it!" to friends around the planet, all at no cost or effort to you.

After that it's up to you to reenforce their enthusiasm, contribute to the viral momentum (by continuing to deliver what your Ideal Customers eagerly are seeking), and enjoy the fruits of your hard, creative work with the users. That's what "marcom" pros, marketing communications professionals, are skilled at.

I don't mean that the app/product/service will sell itself. You'll have to put in a ton of hard work, be very creative and execute with skill and great effort.

I do mean that dressing up a dog in a beautiful gown does not overcome reality: it's still a dog.

This is why serial founding CEOs focus on making an app/product/service so "insanely great" that end users rave about it and can't wait to Tweet, Facebook Like, email, blog and spread the word around the planet. The startup winners avoid artificial traffic generation efforts, pushy PR work, and blog influencing because they have their hands full keeping the servers from crashing as thousands of end users/customers make accelerating purchases by the hour.

BOTTOM LINE: Going viral is a natural phenomenon. Trying to artificially boost traffic and end users only produces a brief rise in the inevitable curve of a mediocre app/product/service. As founder CEO, it's your job to morph what you have into what the end users rave about. Then your startup will "go viral" naturally. That will be the sign eagerly sought for by experienced startup employees, strategic partners and investors, as well as eager bloggers and reporters. When you can produce products like that, you are onto the path of the winners. It's a key part of how serial entrepreneurs build their unfair advantages.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

STARTUP DISCOVERY = FINDING YOUR "TRIGGER GROUP" IS KEY TO GOING VIRAL

Got an email from a founder testing his new social app service. It is in a pre-beta state of operating. He had found responses to this testing session resulting in a much larger usage volume than he had anticipated. It looked like the service might suddenly be looking "viral" and wondered about the pattern in his users that had begun to emerge.

So I called him to see what it was all about.

His statistics revealed there was an ethnic group that had picked up the service and was rapidly spreading the word among that group. The result was a spike in traffic and rapidly growing numbers of users and usage per person.

We discussed his numbers, the facts we could find, and concluded the following:

• Geographical concentration: It was in the US, in the ABC regional sector of a cluster of US states. That area was both broad, yet more concentrated than "the entire USA."
• Ethnic concentration: XYZ ethnic profile clearly dominated. It was easily identified, and one existing throughout the USA. It was not "everyone."
• Age range concentration: That could use more facts and numbers, but the founder was confident "the younger adult ages" would dominate. I preferred he find out more.

So here are some take-aways from our work to apply to your "going viral" plans:

Point 1 = Look for a Trigger Group to Start your Viral Surge.

• Think in terms of where and who. Note that "everybody" is not the user profile for a service. It seldom is for any service or product.

Point 2 = Why is this Trigger Group eager to use your service/product?

• This needed research for the startup in the above example.
• Is it eagerly used for convenience, entertainment, simplicity, cost reduction, personal efficiency, or?
• In what circumstances are people using it: emergency, bored, alone, with friends, in a vehicle, or?
• We discussed how to do simple phone interviews with first users to learn how they are using the service and what else they want changed and added. About a dozen will give you a lot more information. Jennifer Dulski worked over weekends reading emails from customers and went on to alter her businesses and emerge a big winner (see my last blog, October 18, 2011).

BOTTOM LINE: You go viral with focus. You find a specific profile of people who are eager to use your service/product for a specific reason in a specific situation. Then you pour your efforts into serving them so they are eagerly spreading the word like wildfire. That's how you end up with "the world" using your service/product. The Trigger Group is your "Ideal Customer", that person the serial entrepreneur eagerly seeks to find ASAP. They start the avalanche, the tornado, the yeast that spread throughout the whole dough. It is a skill that leads to great winners. It is part of building an unfair advantage.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!

WINNING STARTUPS MORPH FROM FIRST IDEA TO WIN: Consider the example of Jennifer Dulski and The Dealmap

Winning startups cross the finish line looking very different than what their founders imagined on Day One.

I have found the histories of famous (and lesser-known) enterprises support that finding.

• Facebook moved from males ogling local college women to the global social networking gorilla.
• Google morphed from search engine to on-line advertising behemoth.
• Intel climbed the value added ladder from individual transistors to integrated circuits to complex microprocessors.
• Think how different Apple has become from its first personal computer days.

What started out ends up very different.

That's a characteristic of startups that serial entrepreneurs quickly learn.

EXAMPLE

Last week I listened to an impressive founder whose hard work and wise decisions led to some recent significant success. I've had the privilege of watching her leadership in action over several years and have concluded that the company's history also maps the above startup characteristic.

I was attending a Cornell Entreprenerial Network event in Silicon Valley and on the discussion panel was the founder and CEO of The Dealmap, Jennifer Dulski. She recently sold her startup, The Dealmap, to Google. 

Her success is the story of a determined and very able first-time founder CEO who began with an idea for a new enterprise and ended up with a very different -- and winning -- business. She showed that it is not too difficult to get started, but it definitely is difficult to grow an idea quickly into a very large enterprise.

The process she followed I label a "startup morphing". She began with Business 1, launched it, watched it grow, assessed its future and decided to significantly alter that idea into what became Business 2. (Bear with me as I make my point with these simplified examples -- leading real startups is both complex and very difficult).

Business 2 was launched a short time thereafter and like its predecessor, was modest in its appeal to users, yet also was growing and moderately popular. So Jennifer made another decision, to morph from lessons learned and launch Business 3. That one became The Dealmap (now owned by Google).

All this took place in less than four years. Fast, yes indeed. Successful, right again. Different than the first idea, you bet!

That is how it is done.

And it is being done right now all around this planet. (I just got an email from a serial entrepreneur I've been following: "We've gone viral!") That's Business Number 3 for him.

BOTTOM LINE: So that's how it's done in the real world of real startups. The first idea is just the starting idea. What you end up winning with is going to be very different than what you began with. Veterans of new enterprises make on-the-fly changes, morphing from change to change until they have The Great Thing that propells the lastest version to greatness (It's got "WOW!"). That startup morphing is a special skill they use to build their unfair advantage. When you can do that, you'll stand out from the herd competing for employees, venture capital and customers.

I wish you The Best on your Adventure!