My Startup Failed and it's all Marketing's Fault

A presentation from TechCamp Memphis, 2014.

Transcript

1. My Startup Failed
   And it’s all Marketing’s Fault!
   

   View Slide

2. Brad Montgomery
   Hi, I’m
   

   View Slide

3. –Marc Andreessen
   “The number one reason that we pass on
   entrepreneurs…is their focusing on product to
   the exclusion of everything else. Many
   entrepreneurs who build great products simply
   don’t have a good distribution strategy.”
   !
   

   View Slide

4. 2011 -2013
   

   View Slide

5. Work for what?
   Goal: Better Technical Recruiting
   Starting with Developers
   (open source)
   

   View Slide

6. Corp.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   3rd
   Party
   Job
   Listing
   

   View Slide

7. Corp.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   Dev.
   WFP
   

   View Slide

8. Work for what?
   Product: Developer Portfolios built
   upon existing developer tools/
   communities.
   

   View Slide

9. Developer Profile
   

   View Slide

10. For Companies…
    Goal: Expose Great Companies
    

    View Slide

11. For Companies…
    Product: A developer-focused
    “brochure” for each company.
    (inbound marketing)
    

    View Slide

12. Company Page
    

    View Slide

13. Who would use this?
    Number of Employees
    0
    250
    500
    750
    1000
    Number of Companies
    10 100 10k 1M
    

    View Slide

14. Work for Pie, actually.
    Phase One: SaaS Model!
    (company pages)
    

    View Slide

15. Work for Pie, actually.
    Phase One: SaaS Model!
    (company pages)
    

    View Slide

16. View Slide

17. Work for Pie, actually.
    Phase Two: “consulting
    services”!
    (Pie Works: getpieworks.com)
    

    View Slide

18. View Slide

19. Work for Pie, actually.
    Phase Three: Sell Out.!
    (we tried to be recruiters)
    

    View Slide

20. View Slide

21. So… Marketing
    

    View Slide

22. Marketing
    mar·ket·ing!
    /ˈmärkədiNG/
    !
    noun
    the action or business of promoting and
    selling products or services, including
    market research and advertising.
    

    View Slide

23. Marketing
    • Everything you do.
    • Every word on your website.
    • Every Tweet.
    • Every Email.
    • Every Interaction in your app.
    

    View Slide

24. How we thought we should
    do “marketing”
    • Twitter.
    • Hacker News/Reddit
    • Meetups/Conferences (attending & sponsoring)
    • Email.
    • Our Blog.
    • Press.
    

    View Slide

25. WTF Goes on the
    Homepage?
    • Who do we speak to?
    • Companies?
    • Hiring Managers?
    • Developers?
    • “Internal” Recruiters.
    

    View Slide

26. We spoke to no one.
    

    View Slide

27. –Scott Case
    “I have no idea
    what you guys
    do.”
    

    View Slide

28. Hindsight.
    

    View Slide

29. Email
    • We were way too shy (with our developer side)
    • We should have been more analytical about
    sending email.
    • A/B Test copy, track calls to action.
    

    View Slide

30. Life Cycle Emails
    • There’s a non-annoying balance…
    • #1 way to keep your users engaged.
    

    View Slide

31. Sales
    The process of generating leads,
    qualifying them, and converting them
    into paying customers.
    Then being able to repeat this.
    

    View Slide

32. Sales
    • We sent a lot of cold emails. To lots and lots of
    companies.
    • We hired a “sales as a service” company.
    • Heed the Maxim: Never hire until you can’t DIY
    

    View Slide

33. Sales
    • We sent a lot of cold emails. To lots and lots of
    companies.
    • We hired a “sales as a service” company.
    • Heed the Maxim: Never hire until you can’t DIY
    

    View Slide

34. Press
    • We made friends with a couple journalists and got
    in Mashable and The Next Web.
    • Great for new features.
    • Not Sustainable.
    

    View Slide

35. Paid Advertising
    • Lots of targeted Landing pages.
    • Target ads to those companies/managers/people
    that we wanted to work with.
    • Focus on Exposure.
    

    View Slide

36. Content Marketing.
    • More Blogging.
    • Developer Interviews.
    • How-To articles.
    • Fewer here’s what we’re doing articles.
    

    View Slide

37. Engineering as Marketing
    • We had technical ability
    • Build Useful Micro-sites.
    • APIs
    • “Widgets”
    

    View Slide

38. BD: Business Development
    • “Strategic Partnerships”
    • Most large/successful startups did this at some
    point.
    • Team up to make both of your services/products
    better.
    

    View Slide

39. BD: Business Development
    • “Strategic Partnerships”
    • Most large/successful startups did this at some
    point.
    • Team up to make both of your services/products
    better.
    

    View Slide

40. Build Market Sale
    

    View Slide

41. Build Market Sale
    

    View Slide

42. Build
    Marketing
    Sales
    

    View Slide

43. Resources
    

    View Slide

44. Thanks!
    brad@bradmontgomery.net
    !
    Twitter: bkmontgomery
    IRC: bkmontgomery
    

    View Slide