Hope…
Things are looking brighter
This rollercoaster definitely has its ups and downs. Monday morning everything looked dark and I had to fight just to get out of bed. Almost no response from sales efforts. 3 cancellations for our customer event. Technical problems with the startup we’re working on. I felt like giving up.
But today.. Only two mornings later, I’m on top of the world!!
I had an unexpected meeting yesterday. Someone I thought was a startup wanted to meet. I assumed they wanted advice, or perhaps discuss bringing me onboard as an employee. I took the meeting to consider my plan B, but wasn’t expecting much from it. Turns out I was wrong.
The company I thought was a startup, is in fact a large, growing, ambitious corporate. They’ve recently rebranded, so I hadn’t heard of them, but they’re leaders in their field with grand plans of world domination. Even better, they’re planning a new product launch in Q4, and need help with market validation. Enter Seed Nordic!
They’ve turned down established consulting houses because they are too slow, too analytical, and too far removed from the customer. Instead they’re looking for someone who can help validate the product with real customers. Figure out the value proposition. Figure out what customer segments to start with… Figure out how to quickly get the product to market. Enter Seed Nordic!
Can you believe it? They heard about our offering from the blog. They got in touch. We met yesterday. They’re coming to our customer event tonight, and we’re meeting again tomorrow to discuss if there is anything we can do together. If there is, they want us to start early June… That’s next week!
Ok, hold on. Nothing is sold. We haven’t even pitched yet. But let’s at least celebrate that we have our first warm lead. There are good days and bad days, but this is a good one. There is hope!
Product development — Like a startup
Also, tonight is our big customer event. We’ve invited 10 product developers and innovation managers from Sweden’s largest corporations for a roundtable dinner. We’ll have case study presentations from Klarna, SJ and NCC, to showcase how to develop products at half the time, at half the cost with twice the hit-rate, by acting more like startups.
The intent is not to sell, but to give. I want everyone to leave feeling they’ve learnt something, or even feel inspired to test new approaches. I won’t give away to much info about the event today, as I don’t want to ruin any surprises, but I’ll follow up with another post later in the week. Wish us luck!
Oh, and if you haven’t already — don’t forget to signup to our newsletter!
Thanks for being awesome!
Kenneth
