Are You Ready ?

Business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005)
 
You have this great, unique, innovative idea, maybe already a model or prototype, perhaps even an MVP. Or you are further, with traction: commitments, customers and first sales.
You think to know what marketing is all about, but admittedly you don’t really.
You read books and articles, went to seminars, who knows, you may even gotten yourself an MBA, but you figured out, theory and practice are not synonymous.
You got your company in place, perhaps not (yet) with an office, but in an accelerator or incubator, or you work from home and have your meetings in coffee shops and mingle during conferences.
You are self-financed, and managed to get seed money from family, friends or an amenable angel investor.
You have done your homework, and got the necessary legal, financial and tax advice.
You may have written an executive summary crammed with grandiose verbiage, drafted a business plan, designed a stylish website, and created a splendid investors presentation.  
You think you are ready.
 
But are you really ready? Did you do your Upstream Marketing?
Upstream Marketing enables you to:

• understand your target users, markets and competitors,
• uncover problems & needs of your targeted users,
• modify your product to meet needs & requirements,
• prove there is a market,
• determine if your product is the solution,
• validate the benefits of your product .

 
What are the courses of action?

• Needs Research
• Patent Research
• Market & Competitive Intelligence
• Market Analysis
• Proof of Market
• Proof of Concept
• Value Proposition
• SWOT Analysis
• Marketing Strategies

 
With the outcome of these steps you can eventually design and develop your product, write your business plan, and create your other presentation and  marketing materials. Yes, only now! Too many startups and new product launches fail because of the lack of a solid upstream marketing assessment. Your product must be a Must-Have, not a Nice-To-have.
 
Next is Downstream Marketing, divided into the prelaunch market development steps, the launch, and the subsequent market introduction steps. Though plentiful, I will not go into the nitty-gritty detail of downstream marketing here.
 
There is much more in Marketing than people are aware of. Marketing is the link between your company and the market, hence the word MARKETing. Marketing starts as soon as you come up with an idea, and continues during the design, development, production, promotion and sales of your product. Marketing never ends. Marketing also includes monitoring of your product’s usage, remaining aware of competition and other external factors, customer relations, and user feedback for product improvement and innovation.
 
Let me assist you with your Marketing.
 
Engage me for a fixed period: a quarter, half a year, whatever it takes to work on some or all of your marketing needs. No, I am not suggesting to recruit me full-time. You need someone younger than me with a long-term objective to help put your company on the world map and become a success.
 
What I can do, and have done so plenty of times before, is assist you with your marketing and business development, and at the same time find the right person to do this eventually full-time. I can assist with such a person’s recruitment and coaching, so he/she can be fully ready when I go on my way.
 
Talk with me.
Robert Barzelay