A Bootstrapper's Take on Competitive Analysis

It's all about finding market fit. What if you started finding your market before you even had a product? Start your competitive analysis before you start your business.

Transcript

1. Competitive Analysis Finding a Market Fit From The Start Monday, September 26, 11
2. Your Market • Your market are your customers • Your market is not your community • Your customers are your audience • Your market is your audience Monday, September 26, 11
3. Where a Business Comes From • Find a Good Audience • Get to Know Their Needs • Learn to Understand their worldview • Define their - and your - constraints • Use it all to craft a compelling offer Monday, September 26, 11
4. Where a Business Comes From • Find a Good Audience • Get to Know Their Needs • Learn to Understand their worldview • Define their - and your - constraints • Use it all to craft a compelling offer Monday, September 26, 11
5. Notice something? Monday, September 26, 11
6. No Ideas Yet Monday, September 26, 11
7. Businesses don’t start with ideas Monday, September 26, 11
8. What happens when you start with an idea? • Verify • Explain • Find people who will pay • Revise based on feedback (if there’s even customers) • Guess and check the price • Always wonder about other similar ideas Monday, September 26, 11
9. Are you serving an idea? Monday, September 26, 11
10. Are you serving customers? Monday, September 26, 11
11. hint: your idea keeps asking to borrow money Monday, September 26, 11
12. Exchange don’t you want somebody to love Monday, September 26, 11
13. Problems with Problems • No idea who wants a problem solved • You lack the ability to sell it to people. • They don’t know they have a problem. • They don’t care. • They don’t see it as a problem. Monday, September 26, 11
14. Your Audience • Will you enjoy working with them? • Do they pay for things? • Do you understand the audience? • Do they understand you? Monday, September 26, 11
15. Good Ideas Come From Good Audiences • What problems do they have and want to solve? • What are they missing? • What do they need? • How do they want to hear about it? •How do they look at their problems? • Can you solve it and solve it well? • How do they think about and quantify value? Monday, September 26, 11
16. And that’s where ideas come from. Monday, September 26, 11
17. Learn Quick from Levi Strauss Monday, September 26, 11
18. Learn Quick from Levi Strauss • Look for gold rushes, not gold • Serve the prospectors • Seek the gold in what you already have and know Monday, September 26, 11
19. DFCR Monday, September 26, 11
20. DFCR • Demand How badly they want it • Frequency How often do they want it • Cost How much does each sale require to acquire • Revenue How much money each sale generates Monday, September 26, 11
21. DFCR for Indy Hall 1.0 • $4000/month Target • 25 x $160/per member • Demand - Low • Frequency - Monthly (membership) • Cost - Moderate to high • Revenue - $160 (moderate to high) Monday, September 26, 11
22. DFCR for Indy Hall 1.0 • $4000/month Target • 160 x $25/per member • Demand - Moderate to High • Frequency - Monthly (membership) • Cost - Low • Revenue - $25 (Low) Monday, September 26, 11
23. Reality? Monday, September 26, 11
24. 3 levels of Membership • Basic $25 = 50+ • Lite $175 = 15+ • Full $275 = 30+ • Bonus points - membership presales Monday, September 26, 11
25. Where to find a Good Audience • Signs of life. • Signal-to-noise ratio. • Do people talk to each other? • Are there regulars? • Themes & topic patterns. • Helpers. Monday, September 26, 11
26. The Marla Singer Effect Monday, September 26, 11
27. Where to find an Audience? Monday, September 26, 11
28. Use Keywords in the Google your audience name + Monday, September 26, 11
29. Listen & Lean Monday, September 26, 11
30. Now is not the time to pitch Monday, September 26, 11
31. Things you need to learn • Do these people try new things • Do these people pay for things Monday, September 26, 11
32. No? Move on. Monday, September 26, 11
33. Yes? Learn more Monday, September 26, 11
34. Having trouble? Monday, September 26, 11
35. You’re not special Monday, September 26, 11
36. Excuse #1: It seems hard • No shit. Put in the time, it’s worth it. Monday, September 26, 11
37. Excuse #2: It’s taking forever • What’s your hurry? It’s not any more fun to stand around all day with a product nobody wants or you can’t sell? Monday, September 26, 11
38. Excuse #3: My Audience Isn’t Profitable • Is there a business counterpart to your audience? Think creatively. Monday, September 26, 11
39. Excuse #4: My Audience Doesn’t Seem To Buy Things • Remember, you don’t need your ENTIRE audience to buy things. Just some of them. • Turn the audience around. Monday, September 26, 11
40. Excuse #5: I don’t Like My Audience • They probably don’t like you, either • Turn your audience around Monday, September 26, 11
41. Excuse #6: I Can’t Find My Audience • Look for more specific versions of the same name • Look for in-industry terminology Monday, September 26, 11
42. Questions? Monday, September 26, 11
43. Thank You! @alexknowshtml - alex@indyhall.org Monday, September 26, 11