For Startups, Target Audiences can be a Challenge

Within a marketing strategy, it goes without saying that target audiences are a key consideration.

For all the focus on nurturing an idea, addressing a point of pain and developing a product, the ability to achieve traction hinges on the ability to connect with target audiences. Again, it’s an obvious statement.

The trick and challenge is identifying target audiences, their demographics, needs and buying behaviour. For some products, target audiences can be straightforward, while other products appeal to a variety of target audiences with slightly different needs.

For startups, getting a good grasp on target audiences can be a challenge because they may not have the resources to conduct in-depth research – be it through surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.

It means developing target audiences can be a quasi-guessing game that include a number of assumptions. In an ideal world, these assumption are pretty accurate so a startup’s sales and marketing activities are aimed in the right direction.

It also possible the target audiences that had been identified are either not right or a startup attract customers who weren’t originally identified or seen as a priority.

It is important to continually get as much information about their customers. Who are they? How did they find you? What are their needs and motivations? How did you find you? What alternatives or competitors did they consider?

Getting this information provides valuable insight that can confirm target audiences or deliver eye-opening information about new customers and new sales opportunities.

So how does a startup begin the target audience process?

It begins with creating personas that identify a customer’s age, education, needs, goals, purchase risks, how they get information and do research, and the buying process. This will help you create a pretty good buyer profile. Keep in mind, there can be multiple buyer personas for your products.

Buyer personas provide direction and insight into the ways to reach the different parts of your target audiences. If possible, you can interview people who fall into these buyer personas to test your assumptions and, if necessary, tweak or overhaul them.

The reality for startups is nailing their target audiences can be difficult to achieve out of their gate. But by taking the right approach, you can establish a good foundation upon which to build.

Editor’s note: This is a cross post from Mark Evans Tech written by Mark Evans of ME Consulting. Follow him on Twitter @markevans or MarkEvansTech.com. This post was originally published in Sept 18, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

What makes a startup “disruptive”?

Some rights reserved by Kevin Krejci

I had coffee recently with a VC who talked about how “disruptive technology” was a key part of his firm’s investment approach.

On the surface, it makes sense. After all, “disruptive” is impressive because it sounds like something that could make a difference and, in the process, attract a lot of users and be worth a lot of money.

But after thinking about it, I began to wonder what “disruptive” really means and, in particular, what makes a startup truly disruptive. Is it a product that leaps ahead of the competition in a major way? Is it a product that solves a problem or a need in a new or different way? Is it a product that’s easier to use or less expensive than what exists?

Is Wave Accounting, for example, disruptive because it launched a free online accounting service into a market in which most players were offering a fee-based service?
Is 500px disruptive because its elegant and service displays photographs so beautifully.
Is Engagio disruptive because it offers a “social inbox” at a time when people are getting messages from multiple sources.

In many respects, “disruptive” can be defined in many ways. This makes it an alluring but, arguably, difficult creature to discover and identify. For one investor, disruptive may be one thing but it entirely different from another investor.

The problem with “disruptive” is it’s a sexy term for entrepreneurs and investors to throw around. Suggesting your product is “disruptive” is easy to do and get away with because it can be difficult to argue otherwise because “disruptive” is so slippery. How many times have you heard an entrepreneur proclaim their technology is “disruptive”?

The reality is we love “disruptive” because it’s elusive, multi-faceted and difficult to pinpoint until a startup enjoys success. Then, everyone can confidently say: “I know Instagram/Pinterest/Path, etc. was disruptive when I first saw it”.

So, how do you define “disruptive”?

When Does a Startup Stop Being a Startup?

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This may be a question of semantics but here’s a question for you: When does a startup stop being a startup? At what point does a startup become a small company or a plain and simple company?

It’s an interesting question because it’s easy – and probably lazy – to describe less established high-tech companies as startups. As well, the word “startup” is lot sexier and appealing than “small business”.

So how should a startup be defined? Does it have to do with the evolution and life-cycle of its product? Is it the number of employees? Is it linked to revenue? Does it have to do with how long a company has been around? Can a startup have 10s of thousands of customers even if none of them actually pay for a service?

For example, is Freshbooks a startup despite the fact it has been around for several years, it has 80 employees and sales of about $10-million give or take a few million dollars? It’s sometimes called a startup but it’s more accurate to call it a small company.

For the sake of argument, here are some possible criteria for startups:

Less than 20 employees. Once you get more than this number of employees, a company starts to have “departments”
A product still in development (pre-launch) or in market as a beta for less than six months.
No sales or sales of less than $1-million, which means it’s a mini-business as opposed to a small business.
It’s less than a year old, although there are companies that do go from zero to sixty in less than 364 days.
No customers or only a handful of customers, who may or may not be significant clients dollars-wise.
It has raised more than $5-million in venture capital. With this kind of cash, a company can support having a large team.

For more thoughts, check out this Q&A on Quora, as well as a recent blog post on Business Insider.