This past week in the Flashstarts office has been a blur. Teams are traveling to conferences, testing their UI/UX, practicing pitches and returning from China.
Our entrepreneurs have essentially been busy, trying to be cockroaches.
Mango on the Map
Last week, Mango, one of our 12 startup teams, went to China for market research. Co-founder Kevin Wang shared a bit about his trip.
China was overwhelming. From the sheer number of people traveling the streets to the various Chinese dialects that people spoke, its culture proceeded to strike me with awe as well as with inspire fear. I thought I would get lost. I was afraid, I wouldn’t be able to make my meetings. The primary focus of this trip was to talk to our advertisers and understand how we can best maximize our search engine optimization (SEO) in China.
Different companies have different policies when it comes to boosting visibility on their site. We had to make sure that what we were doing qualified as white hat SEO and that our strategy remained compliant with the advertising etiquette of these tech companies.
When I walked in to the building of the first company we were meeting with, the lobby looked no different than any other lobby of an American business building. In the elevator, a video monitor promoted various Chinese ads for food, toys, etc. We got off on the fifth floor. There were two security guards standing in front of the entrance of the Sina offices.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for the advertising department,” I said
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” I replied.
We negotiated with the security guard for half an hour. We then took the elevator to the twelfth floor hoping that the administrator could help us reach out to someone who would speak to us. The administrator had us wait for an hour before someone came out to get us.It didn’t matter; we were ready. This was our moment to put our startup on the map.
Food for Thought: Product-Market Fit
One of this week’s reoccurring lessons for our entrepreneurs is to focus on the customers’ needs. Flashstarts mentor John Knific, founder and CEO of Decision Desk spoke about the important role of the customer in your business strategy when developing your product-market fit.
Here’s the advice he shared.
Sell a Good Product in a Good Market.
Rule #1: Don’t be a “college entrepreneur”.
A “college entrepreneur” is someone who aspires to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, rather than aspiring to create a sustainable business. You might be a “college entrepreneur” if you consistently do the following:
- Do everything, but pick up the phone. Whether it’s to make connections, sales, or get advice, you just won’t put in the hard work.
- Over-analyze the nonessentials. Common ‘business discussions’ may include the phrases “Which CRM system should we use?”, “What new tool should we try out?”, or “Let’s have t-shirts printed with our company logo”.
- Solve problems with brainstorming. Not that brainstorming is wrong, but real problem-solving involves deeper strategic thinking.
Rule #2: Listen to the Customer.
If you want to make sales, your product should serve your customers’ needs and wants, rather than your most recent cool idea.
Rule #3: Create a solution, not a feature list.
“People buy holes, not drills.” This oft-repeated saying says it all. The real, valuable customers aren’t going to buy from you because your product includes a great list of exciting features.They’ll buy from you because your solution to their problem is better than anything else they’ve seen–because your product meets their needs.
Rule #4: Make a Sale.
You can’t build a business on something people aren’t willing to spend money on. Making a sale and receiving real money for it is your validation that you have a product people want.
To achieve a solid product-market fit that you can build a business off of, you need a defined product that is wanted by a defined market. You don’t have a business without unless you have solution that is valuable to someone with money.
