Yesterday, I introduced the Developing a Lean A3 Marketing Plan for review and comments. I encourage you to review it before proceeding with this post.
Every startup has different nuances and may be reviewing this post at different times in their development, I have found outside of having a bad idea, the area that distinguished startup marketing more so than any other area is developing product/market fit or your target customers. Most startups are affected by what might be called the China Syndrome. There are x amount of people, I will get x amount of market share. So if there are a billion people in China, I certainly should be able to get a handful for my product/service. All I need is a little marketing.
Since, I don’t believe the above, I think finding your beachhead market is the most important thing you can do. Even more so than have a minimum viable product. If we have a MVP and an established Target Market/Customer, we can develop the appropriate personas that we believe our correct. I like to use a persona or even a scenario type structure in the early stages of a start-up or a launch. It provides better clarity and focus in moving a plan forward. When you do by markets and even Key accounts to some extent, you tend to generalize more or make broader assumptions. I would rather adjust because of too much focus versus adjust because too little focus. It is also cheaper this way, if that has any relevance.
