Free Webinar at 11am PST – Click here to find out more
“I’ve developed some really innovative technology, now tell me how to sell it?”
After barrelling through the uncertainty, the trials and tribulations of technological invention, you’ve reached a cross road.
You’ve now got the solution and your thinking about channels to market for your technology.
Although we’d hate to admit it, startup founders know something that the majority of technical founders undervalue.
Product development is only half the work necessary to launch a successful startup.
The marketing and distribution strategy for a startup is as equally important to success as having a valuable product. Knowing the laws of physics we know that you can’t have an instantaneous reaction with out first applying a equal and opposite force. Newton stated that in a system where no external forces are present, every action force is always opposed by an equal and opposite reaction force. To relate this back to startup principles this means that you can’t expect your product to sell unless you have exerted sufficient marketing efforts to create demand for it.
What does this have to do with my go-to-market strategy??
Stay with me, here. If your product is launched with out exerting a marketing force on the world economic landscape you can’t expect it to sell. Demand for products is not created out of a vacuum. Demand comes from exertion of energy and building hype. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So for every product improvement there needs to be an equal and opposite marketing and distribution improvement.
Sound unrealistic? – I bet that some of the products you use on a daily basis are not the best performing products. You bought them because it was a brand you trusted or one that everyone uses.
Cleantech marketing involves targeting specific customers for the onset. This is because highly innovative companies take some time to be adopted by the mainstream market.
Let’s look at Tesla. It’s clear that the world needs more electric vehicles from an engineering stand point. We need to reduce our fossil fuel consumption and EV’s allow us to do this. Telsa is a company that is a great example of balancing technological improvements with go-to-market strategy. Tesla knew that to begin targeting the mass market they need to first dominate a market niche and then venture out once they have acceptance with a specific group. So they chose to target customers the luxury/sports car market. By choosing a specific niche they were able to gather momentum and continue to grow from a well selected go-to-market strategy.
What does this mean. Whether we have the best solution is sometimes not as important as the go-to-market strategy.
I’m not suggesting that you create poor quality products and focus on purely on marketing and distribution. Quite the opposite. Creating quality products is essential, but what is important for the success of a startup is that you balance your time between development and go-to-market planning.
In order to build a strategic marketing and distribution plan, you must be aware these 6 things. You’ll learn the key principles behind cleantech marketing below.
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Want to get started? – Effective marketing is one of the essential startup skills that all founders need to learn. It’s all good and well to spend your time developing your product, however you are going to need to balance that with effective marketing efforts, if you plan to sell it.
Free Webinar at 11am PST
I’m hosting a webinar at 11am PST on October 1st where you’ll learn how to gain an education in marketing and other essential startup skills… and the best thing is - you don’t have to quit your day job!
Here is a Sneak Peak of what it will include…
- 3 Hat’s of a Startup Founder
- Fatal Mistakes Most Engineers Make in Business and How to avoid them
- Essential Startup Skills you can gain on the side (Including marketing!)
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