5 reasons to persevere through start-up obstacles

They said it was going to be hard. But you had no idea it would be this hard. Exhaustion, a poor diet, a parade of ‘no’s and disappointments. Plus mentors and advisers, including me, listing reasons to pack it in. It isn't easy to maintain your enthusiasm and energy in the face of all that.

So when should you not shutter your start-up?

The only thing I hate to see more than good people burning cycles on lost causes is to see good people giving up too early on good ideas when in reality the opportunity was far more promising than they could see from their trendy co-located office loft.

Persevere

So when are the discouraging obstacles not an apocalyptic sign, but simply short-term hurdles, perhaps requiring just a bit more effort and diligence? Here are just a few clues that it’s time to stick it out and renew the energy and resources to continue:

1.      Required capital was initially under-estimated (this is common) but doors are still open to you for additional resources, even if from friends and family.  You may be reticent to ask again, and that's a fair concern... and indicative that you are being wise with investors' trust and money. Still, it is your responsibility to manage your enterprise wisely and to sell your vision. But never confuse your very real fiscal responsibility with imagined guilt of the risk both you and investors are taking together.

2.      You’ve not yet introduced your MVP (minimally viable product)... but it is because you’ve made a valid pivot from the original plan. If the delay from these pivots are based on honest and useful customer feedback, the delays are valid and a good reason for asking for more runway. 

3.      Your reasons for delays and obstacles are not excuses. There’s a difference between a problem you cannot control and therefore must accept and overcome, versus a crisis you created or could have changed but chose to ignore.

4.      The market gap that your product/service is intended to fill is still not being adequately filled by established competitors. As long as it will fill a genuine need in the market (presuming you’ve done that diligence) then there is still an opportunity to be exploited.

5.      You can identify all the voices telling you that you cannot do it - because they all sound remarkably like you. They are all inside your own head. Take a step back and look at yourself in the third person. Is the negativity you are hearing from yourself the same you’d tell someone in your identical position? Or would you be kinder, more encouraging while still realistic? 

Like my earlier post giving you good reasons to shut the doors, there are no hard and fast rules, and of course, any one of these are not a guarantee of a successful start-up deserving your continued effort. But just as it is unwise to continue to pursue a start-up out of obligation, it is unwise to make a permanent decision about shuttering it without taking a moment to review the real reasons for your current discouragement.

Few if any start-up situations ever meet ideal expectations. But with a deep breath and a little introspection, you might find that the reality of the situation is far from desperate. 

5 reasons to shutter your start-up.

There's no lack of enthusiastic blogs, posters, and gurus out there encouraging you to follow your dreams and strike out on your own. So I am aware that my contrarian posts can be a real downer, as I’ve written several posts that discourage potential start-ups from, well, starting up, including the fallacy of expecting a ‘better’ product to succeed, or the idea that you should chase your dreams.

But there are great ideas that deserve your attention and enthusiasm. Yet once you’ve already sunk your heart and soul and 401K into your business, when is negative thinking just ‘nattering nabobs of negativity’, and when does it become a warning that something is wrong and you need to get out? After all, the sage tells us that ‘everything is temporary given enough time’, and we all know that even expected obstacles cost more and take longer to overcome than ever often predicted.

So when is enough enough? There are a few clues that it’s time to recognize that it’s time to close the doors:

1. You, yourself, are exhausted and cannot continue to infuse your discouraged team with requisite energy to soldier on through the current circumstances.
2. Resources are spent. This seems obvious, but resources are never really ‘gone’, just harder to raise - but if you are spending more time raising funds instead of selling an MVP (minimally viable product), you are on a slippery slope.
3. You’ve made little progress in overcoming objections from potential users either in fact or positioning.
4. You’ve missed initial, and extended, deadlines and milestones.
5. The market gap that the product/service needed to have filled is beginning to be adequately filled by established competitors.

There are no hard and fast rules, and any one of these are not indicative of a start-up needing to be shuttered. But any two or more create an uphill battle that takes the joy, enthusiasm, and health and finances of founders down with it.

Unless your start-up is a cruise line, there’s no glory in going down with the ship. 

Fear itself.

Only a few times in my career have I had to address fear as a key obstacle to a new product introduction.

Of course, fear is ever-present in doing or buying anything new, but not often is it in the top three. And rarely fear, as such. In marketing, that is, in encouraging a buying decision, fear is more often wrapped in something less... well, absolute. Uncertainty, not fear. Caution, not fear. Inertia, not fear.

Fear is more real, more certain, and more an obstacle than any other faced by marketers. Fear as represented by the perceived lack of control. A lack of control is never overcome in the real sense, but only mitigated through trust.

Trust in turn is encouraged through understanding, established with a relationship, built through consistency, preserved through responsiveness, and confirmed through repetition - selling to and buying of - a loyal customer.

That is nothing new, as although it takes longer to overcome, the fear obstacle is addressed by simply doing what we as marketers know we ought to be doing all along... understand our market, develop a relationship with them, deliver products and services with consistent quality, respond quickly and appropriately to problems and questions, ... and repeat. Other than that, it is, ironically, out of our control how quickly we can make customers feel sufficiently in control to try something new.

So when management, sales, or product grow concerned that uptake of a new product or service is slower than predicted, you'll know that all things being equal, simply staying on track and by doing the right things right, it will happen in time.

Comfort them with FDR's words: "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."

Can I hear an Amen?

So, the other day I was thinking about an upcoming sales meeting and product launch plan. My attention turned to sales enablement, branding, and the difficulty in getting salespeople just as fired up as, say, the engineers are, over the latest incarnation of their product. "C'mon, guys, our new AXT4000 Johnson Rod has four times as much monkey oil as the competitor's Johnson Rod!"

Yeah, well, I'm not excited either. And I write this stuff.

So who is excited? Who is so danged fired up that they'd get dressed to the nines and go door to door during their free time to talk to desperate housewives? Who's so convinced of the value of their product that they'd tote their entire families and a forest worth of pamphlets with them to be certain everyone had a chance to share their enthusiasm, including their kids? Who's so completely convinced of the superiority of their value statement that they'd give up everything to take two years to do nothing but sell, sell, sell?

Girl Scouts, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormon Missionaries, respectively.

For me I marvel at their commitment even as I brush them off. (I am a salty snack favoring Methodist so thanks, but I'm covered.) When was the last time you encountered a salesperson at your company with the earnestness of a Girl Scout, the persistence of a Witness, or the commitment of a Mormon? Before you complain, maybe you should start with a mirror.

I understand that in technology sales as in other industries, we aren't talking about salvation and deep set belief systems. But that's the point, right? Perhaps we need to approach sales enablement with the fervor of a Chautauqua preacher converting the heathen masses. When was the last time YOU got excited the latest version of software or throughput on a server? And if not, why not?

As you prepare to talk to salespeople about a new product, service, or feature, first answer for them the question they must answer all the time: "Who are you and why should I care?" If you can't answer that with the enthusiasm of an itinerant preacher, you can't expect it from your congregation of salespeople, either.

Even if you threaten their eternal soul.

Noisy launches

Here's something startling obvious that often gets lost in the noise of an exciting product launch:

The product is the thing.

The company is not the thing. (An exception perhaps is Apple - which uses its powerful corporate brand to great effect.)

The distribution channel is not the thing. (Your distributors may incorrectly argue the point, especially VARs.)

And most certainly, the ad is not the thing. (Your agency's creatives may disagree, especially if the ads are spotlighted in an article like this one in Advertising Age.

Once you go down the path of suggesting that a "creepy" and "unsettling" advertisement is "doing its job" because people are talking about the advertisement (and not the product per se) you can quickly find yourself sliding down a slippery slope trying to quantify 'mindshare' and 'visibility'.

To be certain, if the ads are effective, they'll be talked about... but more importantly, so will the product. A truly effective advertisement quickly steps back and allows the product to take the spotlight.

After all, no one wants to hear the announcer keep talking once the band takes the stage.

Pepsi for Obama?

Here's the new look for Pepsi. I know I'm not alone in recognizing the logo as something strikingly familiar to a select number of yard signs around town this time of year. Pepsi and Obama - are both the choice of a new generation?

Frankly, the design does nothing for me, as I'm old enough to recognize the type design as something retro from the time when my college roommate was experimenting with 'Flock of Seagulls' hair, and my sister wrote her 'e's like that back in the late 70s. Alternatively, there is something modern and Anglo/European about the look, so the ads for this sugar water may eventually feature sublime smiles, pastel dress shirts and objectionable ties.

In an interesting use of new(est) media, to get the word out Pepsi released the design to thought leaders in social media. So the fact that now I'm blogging about it means the new look is viral. I'm officially a marketing virus.

(Photo courtesy Peter Shankman)

Supercomm Returns

Remember Supercomm?

'Back in the day', as I catch myself using phrases my father once did, Supercomm was the 'it' event of the telecom industry. It was the type of event where if you were in the business you had to launch something, or close a deal, or both, and then come back year after year with a bigger, better display - this show sucked the life out of many annual marketing budgets. And like car shows and builder shows, long before American Idol it was a haven for singer-dancers to take a break from waiting tables and be discovered in an exhibitors booth – by showcasing their unique talent of staying in key while rhyming "Motorola".

Sponsors TIA and USTelecom had split the event years ago, each claiming the mantle of Supercomm to fair to middlin' success, but in recent years their shows came together again as NXTcomm. Now, realizing that even years on from its heyday the name Supercomm has cachet, and with the June 09 Chicago event Supercomm is once again Supercomm.

According to the news release, TIA and USTelecom say the name change reflects recent developments in communications. That's a political statement in a political year. It's clear to me and other observers that the Supercomm cachet means a return to old style 'if you aren't here, you're not anywhere' power the organizers would like to regain. The demise of Supercomm was followed by confusion, weakness in both events, and general dissatisfaction with trade shows in telecom. I count myself among many irritated exhibitors who wanted TIA and USTelecom to reunite – which they did as NXTcom, then, now, properly, again as SuperComm.

Bring out the rented ficus and double padded orange carpet. I've clients to call.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

All that planning, all that preparation, the harried last minute changes. The product launch ‘event’.

Then, whew, it’s over. Watch it sail forth like a balloon released in the park, bidding the new product a farewell with little consideration of where – how – when – it lands.

Product launches are critical, and by and large there is a critical date or time attached to the launch, the GA (general availability), the press tour, the cocktail party, the trade show demo. All this requires planning, preparation, and harried last minutes adjustments to the plan. But then what?

Without proper consideration of the next steps, the product is just as likely to fade as that balloon will drift to the ground. A product launch is not the end to itself, but rather should be treated not as balloons but like launches of space craft, the start of greater exploration and understanding of the world around it. Product refinements are determined, distribution strategies adjust, the environment changes.

Or not.

Your launch can resemble a balloon release, a faint effort without consideration for the direction the winds may take it, hoping as we do that the winds will be favorable and our carefully planned launch will result in organic interest.

Treat your launches like a rocket, with the fanfare and resources required not only to capture the imagination, but with a longer term plan in mind for long-term revenue contribution, expanding market share, and to continue to address the problem it was created to solve.

That requires an additional step, but offers a giant leap in the promise a new product can have on the bottom line.

When did the guys from Delta House start running Microsoft?

"Fat, dumb, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

These immortal words, uttered by Dean Wormer in the classic Animal House, could be applied collectively to many companies today. Many come to mind, the most obvious is Microsoft, where last year in the rush to get a new product launched, it wasn't so much 'fat, dumb and stupid' so much as 'hubris, avarice, and... okay, stupidity'. It isn’t often easy to distinguish between those three. Too often, all are a part of a lousy decision, and the launch of Vista illustrates all three.

Twelve months following the launch of the Vista operating system there remains a significant reluctance among consumers and enterprises to ‘upgrade’ to the new operating system. Heads in the sand, Redmond executives are quick to suggest that price alone is a deterrent to sales. Yet anyone who knows anyone who has used the operating system likely knows one or more of the dozens of horror stories associated with Vista. In short, the stories caught fire and the Vista brand now precedes itself. No amount of new pricing strategies will change that.

In recent court documents stemming from a class action lawsuit, it is discovered that even Microsoft’s own executives were victims of Vista, either through a lack of drivers for peripherals, certification of underpowered hardware, or a host of other issues common to all Vista users… the executive types from Redmond voiced their frustrations in revealing internal emails obtained by the court.

The reason for the failure of Vista is, as stated above, actually three-fold: hubris, avarice, and stupidity. According to a recent article in the New York Times, all three were in play in Redmond at the time before, during and after the launch.
Hubris:
In the run-up to launch, Microsoft lowered the requirements for hardware, changing required wording on the ubiquitous sticker from “Vista Ready” to “Vista Capable”. (The latter is actually on the notebook on which this is being typed. I run XP, as after having deloused a neighbor’s Vista machine, I elected to stay with what I know).

Avarice:
Internal documents obtained through the legal action reveal that the decision to dumb-down the hardware specifications faces even internal protest in Redmond, including, according to the Times article, Anantha Kancherla, who as a Microsoft program manager was in a position to know that the configuration was so minimal that “even a piece of junk will qualify.”

Stupidity:
Anticipating customer revolt after the hardware requirements were compromised, Microsoft’s own staff prepared for the certain complaints in internal discussions, including a comment from a Microsoft sales manager who wisely – and obviously – wrote, “It would be a lot less costly to do the right thing for the customer now, than to spend dollars on the back end trying to fix the problem.”

It’s too late for Vista, and my humble prediction is that it will go away and undergo a retooling - perhaps a later integration of key features into a different OS release. (There is precedent for a failed OS... anyone running ‘Windows Me’? Didn’t think so.) As for Microsoft, to borrow another Animal House reference, they are now on "double secret probation" with the marketplace. Microsoft needs to be schooled in the threat posed by its competitors – not the least of which include Google, and of course, open source. The days when consumers would accept whatever Redmond dished out are past . Vista is just a symptom of the whole of the Microsoft brand.

To paraphrase Deam Wormer, “Hubris, avarice, and stupidity are no way to run a company, son.”