startup secrets - finding your first and best users

T.A. McCann –Strategies for market and customer research

@tamccann

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• Customer research vs. market research• Know your users/customers• Find and nurture the new influencers• Bake customer engagement into your

company• Build a tribe – engage and communicate

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Market research

• Market research is basically bullshit – invest limited time, customers and traction are more important

• Find a few numbers that work, stick with those, then move on– E.g. - 400M people have MS Outlook, but there is no

social network integration

• What are the key trends that support your marketspace growth?– E.g. – more connections, more networks, more posts…

(users need a way to focus attention)

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Find your market-space/competition

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Build a map toward success

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A valuable target customer• Business professional• Places high value of relationships (>8/10)• Has significant (>50%) of key relationships outside

company• >5 meetings/week with outside people (more/new is

better)• Uses technology to gain information advantage• Actively builds and manages his network

• Pays monthly information service fees (mobile, CRM, wiki, contact manager… (more is better)

• Roles include (execs, sales, recruiter, PR, journalists, lawyers…)

• Influencer of others and/or small teams• Technical, early but not bleeding edge adopter

• Often fits in GTD category as well• Reads books like “never eat alone” or “4 hour work

week”• Attends “networking” events or activities

People like this include;T.A.BradBuzzKendallBrandtMiles Austin Dave Thomas (WSGR)

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Use a survey to capture and scale

Gist survey – with over 6500 responses - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZTH5BJR

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My post with a process - http://tamccann.com/finding-the-right-beta-users/Tim Ferris/Noah Kagan - http://twurl.nl/vquqtg

Kevin Spidel

Managing DirectorPatriot Strategieshttp://patriotstrategies.comWashington, DC, USA5300 contacts, 1279 companies

"I am the Managing Director of an international PR firm and am very active on the social web. Gist allows me to cut through the noise and manage my contacts directly. I am able to monitor what matters... the relationship."

Map real people <--> personas

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Leverage your network to find more

Influence the influencers

Develop a culture of engagement

Friends of Gist – customers are people too

Create moments of delight and AMPLIFY

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Send regular status (2 weeks)

Go make something great!T.A. McCann

tam@gist.com@tamccann