I had dinner list week with Sean Ellis. I wanted to talk to him about an advisory role at ShopWell, and we spent most of the dinner talking about metrics-driven marketing. It was interesting enough to prompt the first post here in a few months.
I've spent a fair bit time recently thinking about the point where a start-up can and should stop focusing exclusively on the product and spread its energy across marketing and other efforts. My analogy is tennis - there's a strong natural impulse to look past the ball and across the court (towards the opponent, and the spot you want to hit) before you make impact, but its critical to look at the ball all the way through impact to truly crush it. Federer is a great example. In the photo below, you can see he's left looking at where the ball used to be well after the stroke.
Similarly, I think its critical to follow-through in a start up, focusing manically on the product until the company finds product market fit.
Continue reading "Why Roger Federer should run your start-up" »
