🚦 3-2-1 Traction — March 26th, 2024
In this issue: your customer isn’t who you think; what you measure signals your intent; runway is measured in pivots; go-to-market strategy; first impressions; and the right next question to ask.
Hey friend 👋
This is 3-2-1 Traction — 3 ideas from me, 2 quotes from others, and 1 question to help you focus in your journey to scale your startup.
Let’s go 👇
3 ideas
one: what’s your go-to-market strategy?
The most valuable go-to-market question at any time is: where are you getting your next 10x customers?
At first, where are you getting customer 1?
Then 10 customers?
Then 100 customers?
Then 1000 customers?
And so on.
If you can do 10x math persuasively, congratulations: you have a go-to-market strategy.
two: your customer isn’t your customer.
If you’re looking to raise substantive equity investment:
Your customer isn’t your customer; and
Your product isn’t your product.
Instead:
Your business is your product; and
Investors are your customer.
three: pirate metrics!
The inherent intention of any business is to find customers (acquisition), to meet their needs (activation), to be eagerly paid for it (revenue), to be used frequently (retention), and to be recommended heartily (referral).
Fast. In that order. With little waste.
2 quotes
Eric Reis on runway, in The Lean Startup:
The true measure of runway is how many pivots a startup has left: the number of opportunities it has to make a fundamental change to its business strategy.
Donald Miller and J.J. Peterson on first impressions in Marketing Made Simple:
Most brands make what I call an invisible first impression. It’s not that they make a bad first impression—but it’s also not a good first impression. It’s just invisible.
1 question
On what have you been struggling to make progress lately? Can you reframe it? What it would it look like to come at it from a completely different angle, or to take a wildly different approach?
As always, thanks for reading. And keep on hustling!
— jdm
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