Author: Hany Fahim

For Startups, Target Audiences can be a Challenge

Bullseye by Joe Prosperi

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.

September 19, 2012
What makes a startup “disruptive”?
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 April 17, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

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”?

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 April 17, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.
April 17, 2012
Do Startups Need Community Managers?
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 March 26, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by leg0fenris

Do start-ups needs community managers to operate their social media activities…and a whole lot more?

It’s an interesting question. On one hand, social media is seen as a low-cost marketing and sales channel for lean and mean start-ups. On the other, every full-time hire is a major decision so start-ups need to decide whether having a community makes sense, or whether having another developer or salesman is a more pragmatic option.

If the right person is hired, a community manager can be a valuable asset for a start-up. There are, however, several important skills a community manager needs to possess. These include:
1. Have in-depth knowledge of social media strategy and tactics. It’s more than knowing how to tweet or post an update. It means knowing how to execute, when to get involved in a situation and when to lie low, and how to build relationships and connections.
2. Excellent communication and writing skills given so much of what a community manger does is engage and talk with a variety of people in a public forum. A good community manager has the ability to prepare blog posts, presentations, case studies, and speak at conferences.
3. Understand and appreciate the business development process. In talking with lots of people and consuming tons of information, community managers have the ability to discover, identify and nurture prospects, which can then be passed along to the sales team.
4. Provide top-notch customer service. It means having the knowledge and patience to deal with all kinds of issues and problems – big and small – that emerge. Some of them can be handled online, while some needs to be tactfully taken off-line.
5. Sell and, even, close a deal: There are potential customers who make it clear about the products they need. A savvy community manager will be all over these opportunities with the goal to complete a sale.
Like a stellar five-tool baseball player, community managers require a variety of skills to not only be effective but provide startups with maximum bang for the buck. They need to multi-task AND be good at all of the tasks that pop up during the working day.

Community managers who have these skills can completely justify their hiring and, in the process, serve a startup in many ways to support its operations and growth.

What do you think? Is there a right time for a startup to hire a community manager?

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 March 26, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.
March 26, 2012
2011: Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty for Canadian VC?

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 February 14, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by waferboard

First, the good news about Canada’s venture capital landscape. In 2011, investment activity climbed to the highest level in four years ($1.5-billion), a 34% increase from 2010, although it is still significantly below the record activity ($2.1-billion) reached in 2007.

The bad news is there’s still not enough supply to meet rising demand, plagued by “continued weakness” when it comes to fund-raising.

The good news-bad news scenario was spelled out in the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s annual report. For those of us in the glass half-full camp, the increase in investment and the number of deal is cause for optimism.

As well, 2011 saw a spike in M&A activity with 34 deals, including two each by Google, Facebook, Zynga and Salesforce.com. And there was a flurry of incubators and accelerators established, including Extreme Startups last week.

Before anyone gets carried away, Canada’s venture capital landscape is a long, long way from being solid, let alone robust. There’s still not enough venture capital for seed, series A or major rounds. And don’t expect U.S. investors to pick up the slack.

In a press release, CVCA president Gregory Smith said there is concern about whether enough fund-raising can be dong to support the demand for investments. This situation was illustrated by the fact new commitments to Canadian VCs were flat last year at $1-billion.

“Canada has a historic opportunity to become an innovation leader,” Smith said, adding that “in order to act decisively on this opportunity, we must first overcome challenges to supplying VC funds that, in turn, supply entrepreneurs.”

So what’s the solution? How can Canada’s venture capital community do a better job of supporting the startup community? There is not easy answer to a problem that has been around a long time and doesn’t look to be changing any time soon. It’s not going to be an easy fix from government or U.S. investors or institutional investors waking up to the idea of venture capital investing.

Perhaps the answer to the problem is this: success. If more startups and mature high-tech companies are acquired, that could (emphasis on “could”) encourage investors (angels, VCs and institutional) to get more involved. Success has a strange way of helping people to see the light or new opportunities that they otherwise would have dismissed or not seriously considered.

That said, success is a double-edged sword. Without enough financial support, it is hard for startups to have enough powder to become acquisition targets. If they’re not interesting targets, there’s no acquisitions and, likely, less interest from investors.

So which side of the fence do you sit on? Are you bull or a bear about Canada’s VC landscape?

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 February 14, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

February 14, 2012
When Does a Startup Stop Being a Startup?
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 January 11, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by Tiggywinkle

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:
1. Less than 20 employees. Once you get more than this number of employees, a company starts to have “departments”
2. A product still in development (pre-launch) or in market as a beta for less than six months.
3. No sales or sales of less than $1-million, which means it’s a mini-business as opposed to a small business.
4. It’s less than a year old, although there are companies that do go from zero to sixty in less than 364 days.
5. No customers or only a handful of customers, who may or may not be significant clients dollars-wise.
6. 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.

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 January 11, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.
January 11, 2012
Who Will Be Canada’s Hot Startups in 2012?
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 January 3, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by Eric Brian Ouano

The flurry of high-tech deals last year saw a bunch of promising startups snapped up – Zite, Rypple, PostRank, PushLife, Tungle and Five Mobile to name a few.

The encouraging part of the Canadian landscape is the growing number of high-quality startups being created and, thankfully, funded. It means that rather than having M&A activity “hollow” things out, there are more startups ready to step into the spotlight.

So, who are the Canadian startups that warrant our attention in 2012?

Who’s going to grow in a major way, attract a significant number of users and customers, launch exciting initiatives, or be acquired. Granted, it’s a subjective list but it is an interesting way to speculate on companies that will capture the spotlight this year. If you leave a comment, I’ll update the list.

To get the ball rolling, here are some of my choices for the “Hot Startup” list:
- ScribbleLive, the world’s leading real-time content creation and publishing company whose clients include Reuters, AP and FA.
- WineAlign, which cracked the 100,000 unique visitor mark for the first time in December
- 500px, one of the leading places to display and share beautiful photography
- Pressly, whose technology is helping publishers create mobile Web sites that embrace the “swipe and read” functionality of apps
- QuickMobile, one of the leading event and conference mobile application developers
- Atomic Reach, which makes it easier for brand to discover, publish and market content
- Wave Accounting, which recently raised $5-million to drive growth of its free online accounting service
- Keek, which offers a video-based social network
- Fixmo, a mobile security company that recently raised $23-million
- TribeHR, which develops human resources service for small and medium businesses
- GoInstant, which is creating technology that lets people co-browse a Web site at the same time.
Note: ScribbleLive and Atomic Reach are digital marketing clients of my company, ME Consulting.
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 January 3, 2012 on MarkEvansTech.com.
January 3, 2012
Should We Drink the Local Kool-Aid?

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 December 15, 2011 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by Eric Constantineau – www.ericconstantineau.com

In the post I wrote earlier this week about the demise of Thoora, there was a comment suggesting that “Toronto failed Thoora” due to a lack of community support to make it a “winning formula”.

It was a puzzling comment because it suggests a community has an obligation to support a startup so it can thrive. This strikes me as an absurd idea because startups should succeed or fail on their own merits, and the ability to attract an audience near and close.

Sure, it’s good to drink the local flavour of “Kool-Aid” but only if a startup is offering a product or service that meets a need or interest. There are lots of local startups, including some that pitch me directly, that don’t resonate because nothing something interests me or the product/service doesn’t resonate enough to warrant further exploration.

It doesn’t mean I’m not supporting the local community; it just means a startup has a service that didn’t pass the sniff test.

At the same time, I do think Toronto’s startup community is extremely supportive. There’s no lack of enthusiasm, energy and a willingness to share ideas, feedback, resources, real estate and time to provide startups with a boost.

This has been a fact of life for the past five years, even before we started to see a flurry of startups appear on the scene. There has always been a strong, support community that has pulled together in different ways. A great example is tonight’s HoHoTo party, which has become a major fund-raising machine due to tremendous support from the community.

The bottom line is if a startup needs to rely on the community to make it, it also suggests what it’s offering can’t survive without artificial support.

For startups, the market has to be bigger than its own backyard. It needs people to support it or not based on what’s being sold as opposed to a sense of duty or obligation.

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 December 15, 2011 on MarkEvansTech.com.

December 15, 2011
The Downside of Canada’s Start-up Buying Binge
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 September 12, 2011 on MarkEvansTech.com.

Some rights reserved by SteelToad

There has been a lot of euphoria and happy dances recently about the flurry of Canadian start-ups being acquired. The list includes Zite (CNN), Five Mobile (Zynga), PostRank (Google), PushLife (Google) and BackType (Twitter).

The positive news is that the flurry of deals (22 and counting, according to TechVibes) provide a huge boost to Canada’s start-up ecosystem, which needs all the support it can get. Acquisitions reward start-up founders, encourage venture capitalists and angel investors, embolden entrepreneurs, and provide a healthier landscape for people like myself who provide services to start-ups.

In short, Canada’s start-up ecosystem is on a roll and, hopefully, these deals will make things even better and more active.

But there is a downside to these start-ups being snapped up. Many of them are early-stage companies with interesting technology but perhaps not a lot of customers or revenue. Rather than a business being acquired, it is the ideas, intellectual capital and, as important, the people that are being purchased. Many acquisitions are fuelled by the need to add strong talent to jump-start the growth of a business or service. Zynga, for example, was looking to boost its mobile development capabilities so buying Five Mobile was a quick way to do it.

The problems with many of these deals are two-fold:
1. Many start-ups are snapped up before they get a chance to gain real traction and evolve into small or medium-size businesses that employ dozens or hundreds of employees. It means the loss of an opportunity to build a high-tech community that features a “middle-class” between start-ups and large players (most of them U.S.-owned) such as Microsoft and IBM. In an ideal world, some of these start-ups would grow into an Open Text or, heck, a RIM.
2. Many of these deals involve some or all of the start-ups’ employees moving out of Canada. PostRank’s employees, for example, moved to the Mountain View, CA. after the Waterloo-based company was acquired by Google. It’s an M&A-driven brain drain when the best and bright entrepreneurs, developers, etc. get sucked south of the border. Granted, many of them will likely return to Canada with more experience and some dollars in their jeans but, in the short-term, it’s a loss for Canada’s high-tech and start-up community.
I recognize that, in the scheme of things, these are nice “problems” to have. After all, it is better that start-ups are being acquired and investors rewarded as opposed to no M&A activity, which afflicted the start-up landscape for far too long. My point is it is also important to recognize there is a downside, even though it is something we can happily accept.
September 12, 2011