Features and Futures

When starting your competitive research, the first order of business is creating a list of your competitors. Since this task often falls to someone who’s doing this for the first time, I thought it helpful to list some tips to complete the list:

1. Ask your (sales) team who they encounter in their work. Who do we win or lose against?

Don't overthink your initial branding needs. Keep it simple. 

Simple colors, simple shapes. Why? Because it has to be recognizable anywhere, in big print, in small print, on textile, digitally. It has to stay recognizable even when it’s shrunk.

 Every company can benefit from thorough Competitive Research. Ideally, you collect enough information to be able to position your products and services in a way that gives you an edge with your ideal client persona. If you get enough details, you could even try to complete the following:

 Getting high-quality demand generation from content and organic search optimization is no longer a volume game. It's all about adding real value and end-to-end funnel discipline.

 Creating the first batch of content to fuel your marketing programs is actually not that hard.  The main challenge is to not overthink it. Just get started. I hope the following will help you get on your way.

Content Marketing is not easy to commit to, master, scale or even start with. To build a scalable demand gen engine, and drive brand awareness, it's no longer optional though. Especially in B2B where Account Based Marketing and Funnel Nurturing depend heavily on great content.

 How to best get ready for your first pitch?

What content to put in your pitch deck?

How to craft your story?

These are just three variations of the same question that I get asked often by CEOs, Founders and Startup Executives. They ask for help telling their story, preparing for a round of fundraising or to build their first “Company Deck”.

 Are you a software company? Or are you (at risk of) becoming a professional services company?

 Once your startup has passed Series A territory, your expected to grow your ARR at 2-3x rate per year.  The term T2D3 is sometimes used to describe this ideal 5 year period of exponential growth.

How to do this?