A Bootstrapper's Take on Competitive Analysis

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Competitive Analysis Finding a Market Fit From The Start Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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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

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Notice something? Monday, September 26, 11

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No Ideas Yet Monday, September 26, 11

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Businesses don’t start with ideas Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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Are you serving an idea? Monday, September 26, 11

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Are you serving customers? Monday, September 26, 11

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hint: your idea keeps asking to borrow money Monday, September 26, 11

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Exchange don’t you want somebody to love Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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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

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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

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And that’s where ideas come from. Monday, September 26, 11

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Learn Quick from Levi Strauss Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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DFCR Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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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

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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

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Reality? Monday, September 26, 11

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3 levels of Membership • Basic $25 = 50+ • Lite $175 = 15+ • Full $275 = 30+ • Bonus points - membership presales Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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The Marla Singer Effect Monday, September 26, 11

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Where to ﬁnd an Audience? Monday, September 26, 11

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Use Keywords in the Google your audience name + Monday, September 26, 11

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Listen & Lean Monday, September 26, 11

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Now is not the time to pitch Monday, September 26, 11

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Things you need to learn • Do these people try new things • Do these people pay for things Monday, September 26, 11

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No? Move on. Monday, September 26, 11

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Yes? Learn more Monday, September 26, 11

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Having trouble? Monday, September 26, 11

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You’re not special Monday, September 26, 11

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Excuse #1: It seems hard • No shit. Put in the time, it’s worth it. Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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Excuse #3: My Audience Isn’t Proﬁtable • Is there a business counterpart to your audience? Think creatively. Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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Excuse #5: I don’t Like My Audience • They probably don’t like you, either • Turn your audience around Monday, September 26, 11

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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

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Questions? Monday, September 26, 11

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Thank You! @alexknowshtml - alex@indyhall.org Monday, September 26, 11