Show me your customers, and I will tell you who you are.

There is an old saying that you can tell a lot about a person by knowing their friends and the company they keep.  The same is true for startups and why it is critical to target the right markets and customers to define what kind of company you are or will become.

The right customers varies from company to company or even product to product within a larger corporation.   It some cases it might be small businesses, or 18-24 year old consumers, or Fortune 1000 financial services firms (although in today’s market you want to be real sure about that as your target…).   What matters is figuring out on which is the right market segment to first focus and establishing a wildly successful reference-able set of customers upon which you can then build a foundation to further expand and grow the business.    Read more... (957 words, 1 image, estimated 3:50 mins reading time)

Following the puck can give you a black eye

Wayne Gretzky is one of the greatest hockey players of all time.  I remember reading somewhere that while watching hockey games on TV, his dad made him draw on paper where the puck was going in order to teach him to “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is”.  That quote is often good advice on how to compete.  But it does beg the question, “What if someone’s stick is winding up to take a shot right at your face?”  Well, at times like that maybe the right competitive strategy is to play a different game.  And that is exactly what Nintendo did with the Wii.  Read more... (822 words, 1 image, estimated 3:17 mins reading time)