If you build it, will they stay?
Two sort-of conflicting (but oft-quoted) ideas prove how weird the startup space is: (1) build a great product and the customers will come and (2) a startup that’s achieved product-market fit needs to grow, and fast.
Here are my issues with these two extreme ideas.
Point #1: If I build it, they will come
This is asinine.
To think a never-before-heard-of product can be so amazing that future customers will drop what they’re doing, shove one another out of the way for nothing more than the privilege of buying, is complete fantasy. To extend the fantasy even further, customers don’t care whether you market to them or not. They’re not impressed that you passed on Facebook ads, or thumbed your nose at the idea of doing PR. I can assure you, they won’t notice or care.
Side note: I think all of the gymnastics around coming up with alternate names for “marketing activities” just to avoid calling them “marketing activities” is super comical. It’s literally an exercise in re-branding. Anyway…
Think of how much free content, music, experiences, and games your new product will contend with. Then think about your own buying habits. Don’t just think of the last app you downloaded, or new show you started binging. Think of the last new company that you became a true believer in. Think of the last time you fundamentally changed your thinking on how the world should work and adopted something new.
I can count on one hand the number of game-changing products I adopt each year. The last major one was probably Slack. Sure, I flirt with new gadgets all the time… and lord knows I’ve tried to incorporate Flipboard into my daily routine 5 or 10 times since its initial release (it’s so damn good looking!). But the reality is, most new products we try, don’t stick.
The Master
When I think about the best marketer of my generation, I only really think of one name — Steve Jobs. Sure he was a tremendous Product/Design Thinker and CEO. But marketing is about creating demand, and no one did it better.
Years after his passing, the feelings within customers he was responsible for drumming up still exist in our hearts and minds. That’s crazy.
So in short, if Steve gave 100% when it came to marketing, I promise, you won’t build something so amazing that you won’t have to.
Point #2 — Growth at all costs.
As any marketer knows, the potential customers are out there. And there’s no customer growth target that an experienced marketer can’t hit. To look at a growth chart, without understanding Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a waste of a perfectly good PowerPoint slide.
So why do we still view things through this growth-crazy lens? Do old habits just die hard? I’m not particularly interested in unpacking why (although I’d love to hear thoughts in the comment section).
What is important is whether or not the customers we marketers acquire, stay. Because again, acquisition is the easy part. It’s simply a function of your budget.
At Hockeystiq, we’re always weary of deploying large marketing spends when we know poor retention could be an issue. Great features designed to delight and retain users usually deliver more long-term ROI than huge marketing campaigns. Since I’m a marketer, you can trust me on that.
In the digital music wars, I am a total Spotify evangelist. Shortly after New Year’s, Spotify created a playlist for me called “Your Top Songs 2016” — it’s literally all I’ve listened to this month. An incredibly simple, yet creative, idea that was super delightful and has already brought me tons of value and utility (not to mention that it makes for a super cool time capsule I can crack open in the year 2026).
This was a feature shipped by a company who is clearly thinking about what I don’t even know I want, just so that I stick around.
So next time you put on your design thinking hat, or think about the various jobs-to-be-done, ask yourself…
