The state of the Internet Startup Economy and How to Survive… Part Deux

Yep, economy still sucks… what are you doing about it?

When you are building your product, you need to be thinking about every piece of the business as it relates to sales, marketing, operations, and the internal business operation.

Now an important piece that can help you save money and be truly effective in the market place…

As we reflect on our marketing plans, I’ll share a little bit with you about my plan. In yesterdays blog post, I bragged a bit on how my partners and I have reduced our burn rate to all time lows, and that is an important point in that we dictate that no money be spent if at all possible. How is it that we can market our service with out money? Our strategy has been to integrate our marketing right into the actual product. Yes, thats right, our marketing is built right in and integrated through out. Now I’m not going to go into specfics as I feel we need to protect what we are doing for a short while, and I promise I’ll share once we go to market with the full service. What is important is that our product design, feature set, functionality, and even its cost structure are all built around a comprehensive marketing plan. Ultimately, we have employed a form of affiliate marketing, but the cool thing is that our affiliates are also our paying clients! Who better to market a product that those who are using it right! So, when you sit down with your team, it is important to stop and think “SO WHAT” about everything that your service does… Does your product really matter? Is it something that your clients will love so much that they will tell everyone about it? Your Job is to make your product or service so damn good that your client will no longer even care about your competitors. If you do that, your marketing, as you may or may not be aware, will cost less and be more effective.

More later… off to a quieter coffee shop!