New Market Or Thrilling Product Challenge

When building Finalysis, a company that used AI for capital markets, we had multiple weekly sales demos with a zero percent close ratio. A similar occurrence happened with Estimand, another AI startup, where we had 200 people sign up for the MVP with zero converting into paid customers. Here is what I learned from those experiences:

Market or product

Selling is impossible for a new company when it is building a market instead of a product. It takes brand and marketing to create a new market where a few phone calls can generate revenue with a new product.

Almost there

Before the iPhone, Steve Jobs launched the iPod, a portable music device. At the time, the portable music market was in shambles as personal CD players proved less than ideal due to skipping and battery usage.

Competition

Jobs used the Apple brand to promote music and the associated device before launching a phone with an almost identical interface. The reason was competition. At the time, Nokia and Blackberry controlled the mobile phone space. However, Sony, the long-time owner of personal music players, had yet to launch a new device that people wanted.

The lesson

Steve Jobs' strategy with the iPod is a perfect example of this. Instead of trying to create a new market, he made a significant improvement to the existing portable music market. This allowed Apple to dominate the market, and later, they used their revenue and customer base to build a new market with the iPhone.

Hope this helps

- Todd

I desire to help companies scale with investment, advice, and support. If you need help, have a question, or are seeking funding, email me at [email protected].