GROWtalks in Toronto Feb 21

Debbie Landa, Clare Ryan and the Dealmaker Media team are part of the reason that I love GROWConf and GROWtalks. They put on amazing events by putting entrepreneurs first, foremost, and front and centre. They are bringing GROWtalks to Toronto (Feb 21) and Montreal (Feb 19). And we have a discount code at the end of the post.

“A hands-on playbook for creating startup success”

I like learning by example. It’s a mixture of seeing what worked for someone else, and then trying the appropriate tactics customized for my situation. The challenge is trying to do with more efficiently than 9 or 10 coffee meetings. GROWtalks brings together the best entrepreneurs, who are killing it, and has them present what is working for them. THis is what GROWtalks is, an event for entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs sharing their strategy, tactics, metrics and successes, even the failures. (Full disclosure: I am MCing the GROWtalks event, however, I am not being compensated for this, but I do get the opportunity to participate and learn).

Check out photos from the 2012 GROWtalks event in Vancouver:

It’s rare we get this many awesome startup founders all talking about the hard part of their business. I know that all of these folks will be around throughout the day, they’ll be hanging out, answering questions. It’s going to be a fantastic day. Check out the line up:

I might be biased. My employer is an investor in some of the presenters. My cofounder is one of the presenters. But I’m honestly stoked about the speakers. I’m really looking forward to hearing Beltzner, Rutter, Fitton and Morrill. The mix of product, early customer acquisition and understanding lifetime value are converations I have with almost every founder. I’m very curious to hear the opinons, experiences and thoughts of this group.

Part of my MCing was to request StartupNorth logo tattoos for all the speakers (we’ll see if that happens), and a discount code. Register before Februrary 1, 2013 and get 10% off (use promotional code: startupnorth). It reduces the ticket price from $195 to $175.50.

GROWtalks Toronto

February 21, 2013, 10am-4pm

Size: 200-300 people
Speakers: 9 Industry leaders
Time: 10am-4pm
Website: www.growtalks.com
Toronto: http://www.growtalks.com/events/toronto/

GROWtalks is a one day conference focused on how to create simple, actionable metrics, and use them to make better product and marketing decisions for startup success. Industry experts will share actionable advice to startup teams on how to improve design, product and customer development, acquisition, retention, and more.

Topics Covered:

Customer Development
UX/UI Design
Growth Hacking
Customer Retention
Fundraising
Customer Engagement
Product Development

Nail it before you scale it

Editor’s note: This is a cross post from The Meaford Group written by Peter Smith (LinkedIn). This post was originally published in January 28, 2012 on The Meaford Group.

I love working with Robin Hopper, my co-EIR at the Innovation Factory, for the simple fact that the guy has more catchy cool acronyms and phrases that make me sound so smart when I repeat them. “Nail it before you Scale it” is one of his latest.

Put simply, too many start-ups try to scale their marketing and sales organization before they have nailed their value proposition and the sales story that goes along with it. The consequences can be disastrous. Over a beer, ask Robin about the story of how he blew through $3,000,000 in investment capital on one of his early start-ups because he expanded too early without really having the customer-compelling value proposition figured out.

Howard Gwin talks about the need for first time founders to create momentum and velocity in order to overcome the investor bias against funding first-time teams. (The Three P’s of a Technology Company). If you haven’t read his blog, do so now. He offers sage advice to wait before seeking VC funding until you have “proof points and a traction story that is damn near breathtaking”. Beyond that, don’t fall into the trap of trying to create that momentum before you fully understand why the market wants your technology and how you package it for consistent, reliable and predictable sales.

At the Innovation Factory, we work with many start-ups. Most go through one or more “Pivots” before they find the kernel at the core of their product or idea that will really sell. Unfortunately, some will never find it because even though the idea or technology was interesting or cool, the product will never be compelling to an intensely competitive marketplace. Good entrepreneurs figure this out fast and kill the idea but then move on to another.

I recently met one of these entrepreneurs. He built and sold his first company when he was 19 for $100,000. (It may not sound like much but I wish I had a hundred grand when I was 19). His second company was a professional services company. He built it, had success and then killed it because he realized he could never scale it fast enough to fulfill his dream. His third company was a software company and dealt with project management infrastructure. The idea and technology were good but the market was crowded and more importantly, the sales process would be long. There also were too many factors out of his company’s control in the value chain of customers getting value from his product. He had arranged Angel funding and was ready to launch but instead he listened to advice and killed the company before taking the investment. His fourth company looks like a winner. It is in a hot space, has uniqueness, has the ability to scale quickly around a solid value proposition and he has surrounded himself with a good team. He has also already pivoted at least once on his value prop in order to get ready for traction.

So, if you are early in your game, my advice to you is simple:

Figure out your value prop
Keep pivoting it and your company until you have proof points that you can create massive momentum and traction quickly
Use Friends & Family and Angel funding to keep you going through these phases
Then go talk to VC’s.

In other words, “Nail it before you Scale it.”

Editor’s note: This is a cross post from The Meaford Group written by Peter Smith (LinkedIn). This post was originally published in January 28, 2012 on The Meaford Group.

7 Startup Customer Discovery Questions

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by serial entrepreneur and marketing executive April Dunford who is currently the head of Enterprise Market Strategy for Huawei. April specializes in brining new products to market including messaging, positioning, market strategy, go-to-market planning and lead generation. She is one of the leading B2B/enterprise marketers in the world and we’re really lucky to be able to share here content with you. Follow her on Twitter @aprildunford or RocketWatcher.com. This post was originally published in April 26, 2010 on RocketWatcher.com.

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Folks at startups have different levels of experience when it comes to working with customers. At the early stages when you are identifying the problem to solve, the key features of the solution and the customer segments that are the right fit for the solution, you’re spending a lot of time with customers trying to tease out as much information as you can. Last week I was asked by a new founder what types of questions he should be asking in these meetings. Here are a few suggestions:

What does your typical day look like? – This one is especially useful at the earliest stages when you are still trying to get a deep understanding of the space, the customers and what the key pain points are for those customers.
If you could change anything at all, what would it be? – This is a good one to get at the most pressing problem that a person is experiencing with a particular task or process.
What is the biggest pain you have today? – This will have to be framed within the context of the broader space you are looking at of course. The key with this question is to probe around the characteristics of the pain. Why is it painful? What is the measure of that pain (time, effort, etc.)?
How are you solving this problem today? – Again, try to ask a lot of open-ended questions around this one too. When was the solution implemented? Why was it done like that? Who made the decision?
What is this problem costing you? (lost revenue, lost customers, increased service costs, etc.)? – This is your first indication of how the customer might measure ROI no a solution in this space.
Who would you expect to solve this problem? – I like this one because it tells me a bit about how a customer would define the solution in terms of market space and also starts telling me something about channels. For example, in a recent set of interviews I did the customers said they would expect their phone carrier to deliver the solution to the problem (vs. getting it directly from a software provider) or they would expect to get it from a local VAR. In another set of interviews I did for a different product the answers were IBM, Oracle and Microsoft – with clearly a different set of expectations around that for service, price, etc.
Who else has this problem? – This might be different groups in an enterprise or different groups of consumers. It’s an interesting question to ask to see what else the customer is seeing in the space.