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GutenBOOM! How Being First To Market Powered the Most of My 2018

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Johannes Gutenberg “Yes, it is a press, certainly, but a press from which shall flow in inexhaustible streams, the most abundant and most marvelous liquor that has ever flowed to relieve the thirst of men!”

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@jcasabona Gutenberg was coming.

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@jcasabona Photo by Sheri Bigelow “Learn Javascript, Deeply.” - Matt Mullenweg in 2015.

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@jcasabona By 2017, we were seeing real demos. Target: April 2018.

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What I learned by being 1st to market: • Stay ahead of the news • Partnerships are important • Keep an open mind • Do the work • Establish authority quickly

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@jcasabona Stay Ahead of the News • You can’t be first to market if you don’t know what’s coming • Attend WordCamps, listen to talks • Have conversations with people in the space • Read blogs / news articles • Find what people are asking for!

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@jcasabona I knew Gutenberg was coming, but needed a little push.

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@jcasabona Partnerships are Important! • You can’t do it all alone • Find people who compliment your skills • Make sure you like & trust them • Talk to them about ideas you each have.

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@jcasabona Zac Gordon approached me after WordCamp 2017 and told me I should make a course.

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@jcasabona Keep an Open Mind • Look for opportunities • Listen to ideas • Consider them before just saying no* • If you like it, figure out if you can make it work *Some caveats apply

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@jcasabona I thought it was a brilliant idea! And it fit in with my mission.

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@jcasabona Do the Work • Don’t just talk about it • Make time to create an MVP • Release that MVP as soon as you can

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@jcasabona Zac and I released our courses in early January 2018. Then we iterated.

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@jcasabona Establish Authority Quickly • We became a deFacto source for Gutenberg education • This lead to related work and contracts • We both built our audiences

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@jcasabona Rinse, Repeat! I followed this cycle within the Gutenberg space until it officially came out in December.

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Powering my Year • Launching the Course • Iterating • Consulting Gigs • Licensing • Launching Related Products

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@jcasabona Launching the Course • I knew I was getting early adopters, but wasn’t sure about much else. • Based on feedback, audience, and value, I iterated • I didn’t do that much marketing in the beginning

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@jcasabona Biggest Takeaway: Stay on top of 
 fast-changing markets.

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@jcasabona How did I Iterate? • Stayed on top of Gutenberg news for big changes • Added new modules regularly • Completely updated the course twice • Broke it into 2 courses: “Intro” and “for Freelancers”

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@jcasabona Biggest Takeaway: Listen to your audience.

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@jcasabona Consulting Gigs • Course made people want to hire me to train their clients and users • Got hired to do webinars, workshops, and write documentation • This helped my bottom line more than sales

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@jcasabona Course Licensing • Organizations like Automattic and WP101 wanted to license my content • Agencies wanted to work with me on creating similar, extended content

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@jcasabona Launching Related Products • Over the summer 2018, Zac and I launched a “Theming for Gutenberg” course to supplement our other offers • I created a workbook and checklists to help

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@jcasabona Biggest Takeaway: Be aware of the secondary opportunities.

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What should you do? • Look for opportunities • Keep an open mind • Find partners to work with • Do the work

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Joe Casabona Educator, Developer, Podcaster @jcasabona casabona.org/wordsesh/