With an email list, it is easy to make the assumptions that the people who signed up to it are aware of:

1. who you are. How long ago did they visit your holding page? How many other holding pages might they have visited since then?
2. what your product is all about. Related to 1. but with the added complexity that most holding pages don’t actually contain much information about the product. Which is fine, given that most startups have no idea where they’ll be when they put it up. Or the product might have changed despite a descriptor.
3. the fact that they dropped their email address into a mailing list. Do they think they signed up to something instead?
4. the general startup scene and how it works. Who are the people on your mailing list really? How much awareness do they have of how things (usually) go?

The thing about making these assumptions is that it affects the way you message your launch announcement email. ‘Message’ here refers not to PR-type branding/image/general announcement language, but knowledge transfer. The information you convey to your mailing list is critical to the conversions you get from email subscriber to product user.

Your first mailout upon launch needs to (re)inform people about your product. What it is, what problem it solves, and what value it offers to them. It needs to prepare people about what they face once they click on the link in the email. Do they need to sign up? Does sign up involve filling in a form? Will they be automatically logged in? Will they only be able to log in using 3rd-party applications?
It is best to be upfront about the process and I’d suggest writing up a step-by-step guide. When people know what to expect there is less friction when going through it.

TL;DR version: be aware of the assumptions you’re making and do as much as you can to address these in your communications with the rest of the world.

1. National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA)
2. Queensland University of Technology – Creative Industries Faculty (QUT)

We’re excited to announce that Opera Australia is one of our latest Founding Customers. This is a notable strategic win for StageBitz as Opera Australia is an internationally recognised performing arts company, and the largest theatre company in Australia with tremendous influence in the industry.

We have customers lined up from the major professional performing arts companies and tertiary trainers who will sign up for the next version of StageBitz that includes the multi-product feature. This feature is strongly desired by the industry, and enables the management of more than one user working on multiple productions at any one time.

It’s not just the producers and tertiary trainers in the entertainment industry taking an interest in StageBitz, but media and industry bodies are following our progress. The Australian Design Production Guild, the national body representing stage and screen design professionals, recently wrote about StageBitz.

Watch the StageBitz product screencast.

But we want to do things a little differently, so we’re holding a DARE-FEST to raise money for one of our favourite charities, Kiva.Org an amazing organisation that helps people ‘help themselves’ and their community through micro-loans and entrepreneurship.

Join us for drinks, laughs and fun at the Pollenizer Hive from 5:30 pm, Friday June 4. You must RSVP!

Although the book mostly markets itself to workers keen to stand out within an organization, there are important transferable messages for entrepreneurs.

In Linchpin Seth introduces a new way of thinking around artistry. An artist, he says, is not just someone who creates works with paint, clay or photos. An artist can be anyone, in any industry. What makes them an artist is the passion and ambition with which they work. If you adopt this artist mindset and approach, you eventually become a linchpin (and, as Seth argues, successful).

Entrepreneurs are, in many ways, artists by definition – wanting to create something new and different. But as we know, there are successful entrepreneurs and unsuccessful ones. So what’s the difference? Seth discuss some fundamental attributes:

Artists ship their ideas out early and often
Successful workers don’t get to where they are by being perfectionists. They launch early, fail fast and learn even faster. They aren’t afraid of getting laughed at.

Artists say No to the Resistance
The Resistance (image below) is the little voice in the back of your head which talks you out of doing something. Successful people have the guts to say no to the resistance, and take the leap.

Artists choose to do the work
Artists have control over their work. They’re the ones that put in the 10,000 hours. They’re the ones who decide to make sacrifices in order to get the work done.

Artists give gifts
They know it’s the little unasked extras which make the difference between a good service and a great one. People like extras. They’ll come back wanting more. And one day, they’ll pay for your services, and even wait in line.

Artists do things differently
Artists aren’t cookie-cutter compliant. They respectfully challenge the rules, and dare to live outside the square.

And in the end, this is Seth’s main point. He urges you to stand out. Don’t be scared to be different – from your friends, your colleagues, your family. Give your startup its best chance of success, and put it out there. You never know, you might just succeed.

Have you read Linchpin? What are your thoughts?

And for more on this approach, download Seth’s manifesto Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent from Change This.

Long Answer – It depends (doesn’t it always?), and don’t under estimate inertia.

When you’re starting a new product you start with no customers. You have to go and get your first one. OK, the first one is you, then your colleagues, then your friends, then your family.

Some will try you because they love you, but the real test with this crew is if they stay. That’s when you’ve earned them.

At some point (unless you’re Trib with 1 million ‘friends’) you have to find some strangers, get them excited and get them to try you out. There are generally two options with potential users. Those that have no existing solution or those that have a competitive or substitute existing solution. Both pose problems.

No Existing Solution

If someone isn’t using anything to solve their problem then maybe they don’t think the problem is really worth the trouble. Or it’s not worth the cost if there is an expensive or major hassle solution. Just because they look like they have a big need, and even if they say “Yeah, it really sucks that I can’t ______” doesn’t mean that they care enough to spend money or time to get up off their comfy couch of doing nothing and have it solved.

Time and time again I see new apps on Read/Write Web, try them, like them and know that if I used them my life would be just that little bit better. But I don’t. The little bit better isn’t worth the mental weight of yet another little bit better app.

So how much will get someone off the ‘using nothing right now couch?’ – we’ll get to that later.

Using Competitor/Substitute

In a lot of ways, someone using something already is a better prospect. At least they care enough to use something.

But, instead of apathy costs, you’ve got switching costs. Obviously some types of apps are very easy to switch from because their is nothing invested or locked into it. I can watch videos on any app all day long. I really don’t care as long as it plays. However, uploading my own vids or commenting may form a more long term relationship/archive making it worth my while to hang around. Email is the same. Blogging is the same. Feed readers too.

So how much does it take to get someone to move from one product to another? Let’s look at it now.

Breaking Customer Inertia Formula

I’m going to see if we can try and solve this mathematically just to really mess it up.

Of course this maths is done in the blink of an eye and the click of a mouse. But it is done.

It’s the reason why you can’t just be better than the existing apps. Or you can’t just be really useful. You have to be insanely, grossly, massively, obviously, simply and wonderfully useful.

It’s why I say to the startups we work with at Pollenizer Why don’t you start by charging people $100 a year for your app? “$100, no way anyone is paying that?” Well, if no one is going to pay $100 for your app, there is very little chance 1 million people will use it for free.

I’m serious. Start off aiming to make it $100 worth and worse case, when you offer it for free, people will be lining up in droves. Start off thinking it’s free, and you’ll get what you expect them to pay for it.

So the answer to the question – how hard is it to get a new user? Very easy if you create seriously significant value. Impossible if you create marginally good value.

However, these executive summaries have varied from average to amazing, and average just isn’t good enough. So to help these entrepreneurs out I have shared with them an executive summary template. It’s a template we use at Pollenizer to help our clients raise funds and for our own projects. It’s clinically proven in real-world testing.

Instead of giving it out one-on-one, I thought: why not give it out to the world? Very happy to.

Download The Pollenizer Executive Summary Template for Startup Capital Raising

Updated – May 2009

Now, this is only our base template and you will need to customise it, perhaps a lot. Plus, you should do what we do and get a designer to make it look pretty. But the bones are all here and they have good structure.

Some things to remember about executive summaries;

1. The person you’re giving them to may have seen lots of them before, possibly hundreds. They know what they are looking for and you’d better give it to them. This also means you can’t BS them. Chances are, they know more than you do.
2. The investors have very little time (they’re the ones with the money to blow on hats) which is why ours are never longer than one page. It should also read like a newspaper. Give them a decent heading so they know what to read first and make sure it’s hot, so they keep reading.
3. The objective of the executive summary is to secure a meeting. It’s not to get a cheque. It’s a promotional tool. Get them excited. Whet their appetites for more and make them want to call you.
4. Be open. Tell them everything. It’s going to come out in the wash anyway. And everything is negotiable later.

There is plenty of good reading on executive summaries for raising capital.

1. Guy Kawasaki and the Art of the Executive Summary
2. More links here

There is no one best way to do a great executive summary, but hopefully this template can give you a good start. If you have your own ideas, feedback on how we can improve it, please let us know.

Get it done!

PS: I have to shout out a big thanks to DK from Zapr for introducing me to the discipline of writing one page summaries for all occasions. DK was brutal with content, getting the messages down so they were so short, simple and clear but holding onto the excitement and passion of the business and its founders.

We were talking about how everything goes nuts when you launch and how you never really have enough time to think through about what you’re doing. Embracing the chaos is good, but sometimes it means that you end up just fighting fires as fast as you can, instead of taking solid steps in the direction you want and need to go in.

So we wrote up our priorities for the post-beta period on the whiteboard.

Post-beta launch priorities

1. Test real use – end to end.

This means get as many people as you can from the target market into the system to really see it working. Your end-to-end test should cover the spectrum – finding you, evaluating, registering, using, coming back, inviting, buying, etc. Everything that is in your core utility (and I hope that’s a small set – because you’re focused right?)

2. Drive depth in one geographic and vertical segment.

Just by being online you’re seeding into the wind. Buds will grow in fertile areas but you mustn’t try and cultivate them all. You’re small, new and no one knows you. Give yourself the best chance to build community and viral strength by focusing on a single group (uni students, car salesmen, left handed female doctors) and a single geographical location (SOMA, Barcelona, Broome).

Geography is important (even though you’re online) because the strongest relationships and the best opportunities for longer conversations are still local. You want to increase the chance of the ricochet effect – good customers meeting each other and initiating and enriching a relationship on your platform.

3. Collate and Prioritise Development

There will always be 100 new bugs, 1,000 change requests and 10 new features you want to add. Make sure a single person is using a single system to collate these and a few people are prioritising what gets done. Don’t let great feedback slip through the cracks and don’t try to do it all at once.

Remember: you need to balance listening and ignoring. Customers are great for telling you want they want but they are often bad at innovating and taking big steps forward, if that’s what you’re trying to do. As Nick Hodge reminded me, Henry Ford once said if he’d asked his customers what they wanted they would have asked for a faster horse.

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So that’s my take on the priorities of a new web business immediately after they’ve launched their beta.

What’s yours?

What are the post-beta dangers?

Finishing your product and releasing it to the public is NOT the same as launching your business. You have to test that thoroughly. Keep your product lean and focused so you can iterate faster.

Let me explain;

In working with a number of startups over this year, there is one thing I’ve noticed time and time again. It’s a team working hard to get their first final version ready to hit the public arena and saying “Phew, we’re done, let the cash roll in.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason why startups are risky is because of multiple factors, not just the technology. Getting the product free of bugs is only the first step in testing. Now you have to test, iterate and be agile on the business side.

You have to see if people can find the product, if they like it, if they can use it, if they continue to use it, if they’ll tell their friends, if they’ll pay for it, if they’ll click on ads.

It all has to be tested, generally multiple times, to get it right and smooth.

You wouldn’t come up with a new recipe for beer, and then have a Super Bowl ad before getting anyone to taste it? So why would you try and get on TechCrunch until your product was really hot. Do you really need lots of people trialling to begin with to tweak it?

I repeat, you must, must, must test the business as well as the technology.

Of course this relates back to focus – it all does!

If you try and put too much into the first release, then you have more you have to test, more you have to maintain and more you have to tweak. It’s another reason to stay brutally focused on just the core set of features required to create the value for your very focused target segment.

Keep it simple and you’ll iterate much faster.

Make it too heavy and you won’t be able to shift the battleship.

Go get it done!

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Gratz to Shaun and the team!

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