Don't start with the customer, start with attention. | The Berkeley Innovation Group posted on the topic | LinkedIn

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The Berkeley Innovation Group

1,672 followers

1w

Most founders are told to “𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿.” But what if that’s not where success actually begins? In this week’s Minisode of The BIG Strategy Podcast, Colin Matthews flips the script: “𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐’𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳.” If people can’t find you, it doesn’t matter how great your solution is. Start where attention already exists, then build for the people who are already there. It’s a practical, grounded take on building smarter, faster, and with less guesswork. 🎧 Listen to the full conversation https://apple.co/3Gz8o7v #TheBerkeleyInnovationGroup #TheBIGStrategyPodcast #Strategy #Entrepreneurship #AI #Innovation #BusinessGrowth

Transcript

For someone who's considering this side hustle or starting something and, and struggling with the framework like you talked about, what, what are some of the key lessons you've learned along the way in terms of building that framework to that you set a business on top of? Yeah, there's a couple of things here. The first one is starting with distribution. So this is, again, this isn't my idea. Like you'll hear other people talk about this as well, but I've experienced it, so I can tell you. Of kind of like first hand experience that this is true that every time I've succeeded with anything it's because I I started with distribution and and not the customer. So a lot of like traditional advice says, start with the customer, start with the problems and try to figure out a solution to that. I think for most people, you as an individual and not able to figure out how to reach those customers, it doesn't matter how good your solution is, how well you understand the problems if people can't find out about you, right? And so you're competing for attention on the Internet or whatever distribution channel, probably the Internet. And if you're starting from zero like you have, I don't know, 500 connections on LinkedIn and that's it. Like how are you going to distribute your product? It's it's almost impossible, so. Rather than starting with the customer and the problem, start with a distribution channel, right? And there's lots of existing distribution channels. A good example of this, the one that I like the most, is Airbnb because it's somewhat non-technical and non conventional. So like if you wanna rent out a property, you can do it on your own through Craigslist or something, or you can put it on Airbnb and like actually make some money. And the reason that works is because there's an existing distribution channel of customers who are looking to solve their problem and they're trying to find a solution and you offer a solution on that platform, right? And so there's lots of platforms on the Internet. There's lots of ways to kind of tap into existing distribution channels. But that's my number one piece of advice is like, find an existing distribution channel that fits the product that you're trying to. Build towards the idea that you have and then and then from there, look at like who's performing well on this distribution channel? What types of products perform well? What why do customers like this product? So we'll go back to Maven. Maven distinguishes itself on quality and and also on a actually like less time spent but higher return on your time. Where Udemy, for example, is like basically cost conscious consumers. So you can buy any course on you for $15 and the best, best performing courses are 30 hours in length, which is much, much longer than the average Maven course. But the average Maven course has a much higher price tag, right? The reason why is because you as the consumer of the Maven course get a higher return on your time by taking this course than you do with you. You don't want to sit through 30 hours of content, right? I have no interest in 30 hours of. Of edutainment exactly and so these are two completely different personas, right in terms of who's buying what product and a different way to position yourself as an instructor or as a consumer or producer of the product. So this is true across like every single distribution platform where there's like winners and losers and you can just go and look who's winning and then figure out how to match that look at like. What types of customers are already on that distribution platform? So maybe it's extremely popular for AI and product. So you're building an AI or product course and you want to target like mid to high level kind of ticket, right? Tech professionals are working at large tech companies. You should be able to Maven. There's no reason to be anywhere else because they will find you, right. And so yeah, this again, it applies to every single thing you could think of. But tapping into existing distribution channel is so important because. Unless you have a very clear marketing strategy on like how you gonna win and getting attention, then this is almost a substitute for that. And it also helps you focus, right, because you have to figure out who is coming to this distribution channel, why are they there, what do they care about? And it kind of narrows your focus to a specific customer persona by default. So yeah, that's my number one piece of advice is like distribution first, customer 2nd and then still everything normal after that. Like who's the customer? What are the problems? What solution can I build out them, solve those problems? How do I execute on that? Well, but it has to start. With distribution.

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The Berkeley Innovation Group

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