I recently blogged about 4 anti-lean startup archetypes. These are people who, in my opinion, are at first blush, unwilling (or unable) to adopt Eric Ries’ lean startup principles, and specifically, Steve Blank’s customer development methodologies.
The four are:
- The renaissance salesperson – He or she can sell a sno-cone to an Eskimo; they don’t need no stinkin’ customer development.
- If you build-it, they will come Engineers – Our product rocks, therefore we win.
- Madison Ave marketers – All we need is some advertising, PR, branding — mix in a little social media marketing, and you’re good to go!
- The “you don’t get it” entrepreneur – If you don’t see the billion dollar win the CEO sees, you simply lack the vision. See?
I think I’ve met one of each in the last week. Continue reading '5th Anti-Lean Startup Archetype – We Already Do It'»
A technical CEO learning marketing is the equivalent of a sales/marketing CEO learning development engineering.
Not.
I am not a developer. If push comes to shove, I can code in PHP, or develop shell scripts, and truth be told, I did take a couple of ECE courses in college; courses which inexorably told me I was not going to be a developer.
My path to becoming a marketer was unusual, I think, which has had both its advantages and disadvantages. I like to think I’m a “technical marketer,” rather than what I call a “Madison Ave” marketer; not to dis the later, since they have their role to play in the grand scheme of marketing. By technical marketer, I don’t mean one who only markets technical products, or who does only “product marketing” in the industry vernacular, but rather a marketer who uses processes and actionable metrics to achieve near term business objectives that lead to realizing company vision.
IMO, development is harder than marketing. Continue reading 'The Truth About Evil Marketers'»
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