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Growth Stacking Show with Dan Martell

Dan Martell is a Canadian serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Subscribe now and learn his best strategies to build and scale successful products and businesses. Now hit that button and start the show. It's FREE.
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Now displaying: September, 2017
Sep 25, 2017

Wow, did I ever butcher this joke.

“The CEO, CFO, and Marketing Manager walk into the bar…”

You can watch the video below to see how I killed my stand-up career before it even started…

…but here’s what I was trying to convey.

Depending on WHO you are, you probably have a different need for the same outcome (i.e. a drink).

When I was building my startup Flowtown, we had customers who bought our product at $20/month, some at $200/month and even a few at $2K/month!

Were they the same? Yes and no.

Yes, they all had the same need….

… but no, they all had a different motivation and reality they were coming from.

That’s why I think it’s important to map your marketing strategy to your buyers.

Fail to do this and you’ll only be speaking to one type of customer – or the one stage of the buyer’s journey.

The cool part is there’s a simple framework you can use to clearly identify the type of content that you need to create to help customers move through the funnel quickly to purchase.

Here’s a mental model you can use to think through the process…

… starting with each role and the type of information they need.

The CEO wants to learn about problem space so he can be better informed to evaluate his need against his vision for the company.

The CMO wants to learn more about the specific solutions available and companies using them so he can feel good about his timing decision, and the specific vendor to avoid looking stupid.

The Marketing Manager needs to understand the specific features and benefits of each platform so he can map his strategic goals to the product’s key strengths.

Each one is potentially looking at your solution under a completely different lens, and searching to answer their questions from a different type of position.

Many in the industry call it TOFU (Top of Funnel), MOFU (Middle of Funnel) and BOFU (Bottom of Funnel).

My buddy Sujan likes to call it Kung-Fu! :)

Regardless of where you’re at, you need to address each stage of the journey with the right content.

That’s how you map your marketing strategy to your buyer’s journey.

So what stage of business do you have the hardest time creating content for?

Post your situation in the comments and let’s get some ideas flowing.

Just remember, no more bad jokes – I’ve butchered enough for the day.

--

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

Sep 18, 2017

Steve Jobs (Apple) had Steve Wozniak.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) had Dustin Moskovitz.
Bill Gates (Microsoft) had Paul Allen.

Even though they could all code themselves, the greatest business leaders of our generation, all had a technical co-founder by their side.

Why?

They knew they’d need help building the actual product as their focus shifted to growing the business.

I had the same experience in my companies.

How did they find these people?

How did they convince them to join them in their vision?

That’s what I want to teach you.

First off, if you want to connect with someone at the level of having them potentially quit their job and join you, then you’ll need to build a deep relationship.

Can you do this remotely? Yep, it’s possible.

Is it fast? Nope.

Where do you go to find these code-cranking unicorns?

That’s what I share in this week’s video.

Now, even if you find them – and you will – you can’t just show up empty handed.

You need to bring “the goods.”

This typically comes down to 3 things that will help you install the Ikea Effect.

  1. Your Clickable Prototype.
  2. Some pre-sales of your product to customers.
  3. Excitement and passion for what you’re building.

The truth is, these programmers have many of their own projects they could be working on.

For you to convince them to invest their talent in building YOUR vision is going to require some serious ammunition.

Bringing these silver bullets to the party will help ignite the conversation.

Asking them to give you advice on your idea will get the process started.

Have you ever recruited someone brilliant?

What approach did you use?

How did you get them to join your team?

Leave a comment with your story, would love to hear them.

--

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

Sep 11, 2017

Did you know that age 13, John D Rockefeller – the richest man in the world – built his family a house?!!!

As a teenager I was definitely not a productive member of society.

Quite the opposite actually.

That being said, I continue to believe that we all underestimate what kids can accomplish at every age.

If you have teenagers in your life, this video is for them.

Over the past few months I’ve got dozens of emails and comments on my videos from young entrepreneurs (9-15 year olds) asking for advice.

So after a few emails I decided to create a video sharing the 8 ways I would start making money if I were starting over in my teens.

In many ways this video is for my two boys.

Each idea is simple, focused on a passion they might have, and gets them generating revenue without requiring any money up front.

(aka the money they’d be asking you to lovingly invest) 

Also, I wanted to start off sharing the 3 phases of financial leverage.

1. Time for Money
2. Money for Time
3. Money for Money

Be sure to watch the video to learn how you can apply those lessons to your day AND come up with some practical advice for the teenagers in your life.

One of my passions is working with at-risk youth helping them build their confidence through building businesses.

It’s a magical thing to watch.

To show them how something they love doing, can become extra money on the side or even their primary income.

I’ve listed 8 ways in this week’s video, but there are way more.

What would you add to the list?

Leave a comment below with your ideas, and together I’m sure we’ll inspire a whole new generation of teenagers to get out there and start selling :).

Have an amazing day!

--

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

Sep 4, 2017

A few months ago I had lunch with a bunch of highschool aged entrepreneurs to give them feedback on their idea.

They were planning on building an energy generating play park for kids.

Now, I don’t mean to come off as a direct poo-pooer of dreams…

… but after 15 minutes of listening to their pitch I decided to ask some questions that I knew were going to shatter their excitement.

  1. Have you figured out the average time a kid plays on a play park?
  2. If they did play with your version of a swing, how much energy would it generate?
  3. Does that amount generate a sizable amount of energy?
  4. What’s the added cost to build a swing your way vs. the existing way?
  5. Does the assumed energy production cover the additional cost?

“But, if this works this could change the way communities power their houses.” one blurts out.

He was clearly high on his own supply.

And look, I don’t mind overly enthusiastic founders building something never before seen.

It’s what the world depends on for progress.

But what bugs me more is waste.

Waste of time, talent and energy focused on solving a problem that they haven’t de-risked.

When I work with founders building high-tech software, I teach them the “Riskiest Assumption” framework.

That’s what I want to teach you in this week’s video.

(Before you hit play, I want to apologize for my hair sticking out like that – it annoyed the crap out of me too. My bad. :).

At a high level, here’s how I work through the steps:

  1. Assume I’m wrong
  2. Make a list of all the assumptions
  3. Break em’ up into categories: Customers (Who), Marketing (Where), Costs (How Much?), Technology (How)
  4. Sort by riskiest assumption (Highs go first)
  5. Use a validation step to get feedback: 1) Expert (fastest), 2) Experiment

Now, the reason most people don’t reach out to experts to validate their ideas is because they’re worried someone will steal it.

Don’t worry about that.

The fastest way to move is to reach out to those who would know the science, the best practices or the model that you need to validate ASAP to move forward.

I’m sure over the years you’ve tested some of your own assumptions…

… got any funny stories?

Be sure to leave a comment with your best ones.

I’ll add a few more of my own as well.

--

Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

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