What we’re typically taught -- we spend TOO much time on:

Secondary Concept:

Third main concept:

What George Kao doesn’t agree with from the book:

The 7 Day Startup Formula

Step 1: Come up with your idea

Step 2: Minimum Viable Product….

Step 3: Business Name

Step 4: Build a simple website.

Step 5: 10 ways to market your business.

Step 6: Decide the One Metric That Matters (OMTM)

Step 7: LAUNCH.

The book "7 Day Startup" by Dan Norris is excellent. It communicates what I've been trying to teach my clients for 6 years, but haven't quite said it so concisely and powerfully. Read this book. I don't agree with all of it, but the general concept is right on, and includes very useful tools.

Official website for the book:

http://wpcurve.com/the-7-day-startup

Resources related to the book:

http://wpcurve.com/the-7-day-startup-resources/

My youtube videos that “translate” the book to be more applicable for solopreneur service-providers:

http://j.mp/1EruLEn

Of course, you don’t *have* to do it in 7 days… but I hope the video above (or reading the book) will inspire you to launch sooner, so you can *really* know what the market is wanting, then adjust from there with real client data!

George Kao’s notes about the book:

How Dan Norris came up with 7 Day Startup … he *had* to otherwise he would need to get a job:

I avoided steps including: Sexy ideas. I wanted to solve a problem and sell a service. Fast.
My failure. I had failed a lot in fourteen years, but I didn’t have time to worry about my shortcomings.
Permission. I used to ask for opinions on my ideas, but not this time.
Assumptions. There was no time to make them or to test them. I had to launch.
The small stuff. I didn’t have months to agonize over a logo, business name or design— I put the site up in one day.
Pricing strategy. I set a price and would let my customers tell me whether it was worth it.
The perfect payment gateway. Informly’s payment gateway took six months to set up. This time, I used a PayPal button that I set up in 30 minutes.

Main Concept:

Wipe assumptions off the table. Stop doing more surveying, more niche interviews, and get the REAL data you need to pivot and improve your idea: LAUNCH. YOU DON’t LEARN UNTIL YOU LAUNCH.

Get real customer behavior data, not assumptions of your “ideal client avatar” … then pivot from there.

“It’s easy for someone to enter their email to be notified. It’s much harder for someone to sign up, try, and use a new service.

People Saying “It’s a Good Idea” Doesn’t Mean It Is.” -- NICHE INTERVIEWS (!)

How to do Niche Interivews...

https://medium.com/@georgekao/7108e7db96db

Just do 5 of them if you need to, then LAUNCH!

“It’s a great business.” (Startup veteran Jason Calacanis. I sent him a login; he never logged in).

“I’m not sure if this email will make it to you, but you’ve managed to build the software most of us wished we already did!” (Startup founder and angel investor; didn’t end up becoming a paid customer).

“Thanks for helping to solve a problem most of us face every day,” and “Great work man! I use this product frequently and have recommended it to quite a few people.” (Didn’t end up becoming a paid customer).

“I have just jumped onto the new platform from http:// inform.ly and love it!” (Didn’t end up becoming a paid customer).

“I’m in love with it. Let me know if you ever need a testimonial. I’ve been waiting for this all my life” . (Didn’t end up becoming a paid customer).

“Hey Dan! Informly is amazing! What an epic idea. You can manage everything that matters from one place” (Didn’t end up becoming a paid customer).

These are unsolicited . I had a lot of friends telling me it was a great idea and also giving me great testimonials. They are bad at predicting their own behavior and even if they think they will buy, it doesn’t mean they will. People don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Coverage in the Press doesn’t work --

He got coverage in major websites like “Mashable” and “The Next Web” as well as Australian Tech Sites like Startup Daily.

“I’ve read stories of getting 12,000 users from Mashable coverage. Combine that with the other coverage, and I should be onto a winner, right? Guess how many paid users were sent by the above traffic sources? Zero.”

Targeted Surveys Don’t Work

He surveyed his friends, colleagues, social media audience about whether they would buy. 22% said YES. 57% said probably.. so that’s almost 80% of the responders saying Yes or Probably Yes.

“Post launch, No one paid for it and, after launching it to the public, the signup rate (on-page conversions) was well below the previous version of the product.”

“As Steve Jobs said, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The opposite is also true: People don’t know what they don’t want until they are forced to open their wallets.”

Pre-Selling Doesn’t Work

“Your goal at this stage in the business is to test your assumptions. Making overly generous offers is only testing whether or not someone wants to pay you the heavily discounted amount. It doesn’t test your real offer and is therefore a flawed experiment.

People get excited about launches. Time and time again I get higher conversions on pre-launch pages than I do once products actually launch. The same applies to pre-selling. Just because you can get a few people to sign up for your “coming soon business,” it doesn’t validate the business.”

“Countless businesses have died after an over-hyped launch and a failure to build ongoing traction.”

What we’re typically taught -- we spend TOO much time on:

“Don’t bother with tactics to “find your ideal market” or “create your unique selling proposition” or “practice your elevator pitch.” These activities are pointless before you launch because they are based on assumptions.”

So Launch quickly, THEN learn:

“You can’t deliver on your whole grand vision, but you can launch something. When you do , you can start talking to people who are paying you money. This is when you start making sensible business decisions and avoid assumptions.”

How it is applied to Solopreneur ServiceProviders:

I originally assumed my target was like me.

Then I launched -- twice -- and found what works:

baby boomer women, learning social media.

Do something as simple as: call someone up, offer to help them on your thing. Ask for payment.

Secondary Concept:

To get a sustainable income level in a business, you have to Hustle hard in the beginning to get paying clients.

Avoid doing the little things when you don’t have some paying clients yet. FIRST GET TO SOME PAYING CLIENTS then worry about stuff like logo, design, business name, great website, perfect backend technolgoies.

“You have to relentlessly pursue your best method of getting customers, and not the stuff you naturally gravitate to. Anti-hustle is what wantrepreneurs do. They do everything other than what needs to be done. They keep coding. They design new features. They optimize their site. They think up new, world-changing ideas. They hang out at startup events discussing their idea. They go to startup weekend and launch a new idea. They do everything other than what they need to do— which, more often than not, is getting more customers.”

Examples:

Seth Godin sent out hundreds of book proposals… rejected by 30 publishers 30x in a row… 900 rejections.. then YES on the 901st one.

I wrote 250 posts in the first year, 13 in one day. Our content is now a lead generation machine to the point where we don’t advertise at all. For you, it could be networking. It could be calling people and asking them to pay . It could be working on relationships. Whatever it is, it has to be the best way for you to spend your time, to solve your biggest problem in the beginning which is getting enough customers.

How it is applied to Solopreneur ServiceProviders

Pick an idea that you are really interested in, so you don’t quit hustling hard for the first month or so… see if there really is a demand for your service or if you should pivot… but most of us approach 20 people and they all say “no” so we think there’s nothing there.

Third main concept:

“It’s proven in research. You work more efficiently when you are close to a deadline. If you are a long way out, you make tasks up that you think are important. As a result, you don’t get any of the important work done.

Before you start a task, your brain visualizes the hardest parts to come. It then tries to simulate real work by focusing on small mindless tasks. In other words, you spend hours and days fussing over logos and website copy instead of selling your product!”

“Once you aim for a week, you will start to question every assumption and figure out a way to make it happen.”

How it is applied to Solopreneur ServiceProviders:

What George Kao doesn’t agree with from the book:

This book seems to look down on solopreneur service-based businesses -- where the founder is the main person providing the service and running much of the show. Yes we may have some outsourced help but if we were to leave the business there’s no passive revenue. And we can’t really sell it because we are the secret sauce. He calls it creating a job, not a business. I don’t care what he calls it… if you can do what you love and make a living doing it, with some money to put into savings, it’s a great thing. You don’t have to aim to build something to exit/sell and move onto the next thing. You can always reinvent the business from within, as I’ve done every year or 2.
He says if you cannot market your business as well as the best in your industry, look for a co-founder. Disagree here. You can learn just enough marketing to have a full-time income, a sustainable business.

The 7 Day Startup Formula

(instead of 7 days I call it 7 steps)

Of course, you don’t *have* to do it in 7 days… but I hope this video (or reading the book) will inspire you to launch sooner, so you can *really* know what the market is wanting, then adjust from there with real client data!

Since 5 years ago before this book came out I’ve been telling my clients that any viable services business can be launched in 2 weeks. This book provides a great outline of those steps.

For a nice balance between thoughtfulness and practicality, use the 7 day formula and do it in 21 days. 2 days for each formula, 1 day rest between each. That’s launching a test in 3 weeks.

If you’re working full time and only building your business in your spare time, then do a 7-week launch… 1 step each week.

Step 1: Come up with your idea

“If you only spend one day on your idea, you’ll be more open to changing it if doesn’t work out.

You might already have some ideas— you might hear people complaining about a pain point, or you might have to start cold-calling people to find out what you can work on.”

What makes a good idea? Dan named 9 things but many of them I don’t agree with, e.g. it can operate profitably without the founder… something you can sell… etc. I only agree with a few of them for solopreneur service providers:

Imagine yourself doing the daily tasks of that business. Doing the actual service. If you don’t like what you see, it’s not a good business idea. (Remember you can outsource the side aspects of your business like the technology, outreach, bookkeeping, etc... but you’ve got to love doing the MAIN service.)

“Tap into pain or pleasure differentiators. Everyone will tell you to have a “unique selling proposition” or a “differentiator.” What they don’t tell you is it’s not enough to just be different. All that matters is what your customers care about.” George Kao’s business taps into the emotional pains of not having enough business revenue, and not being honest in marketing, of feeling slimy.

Solving Pain = necessity
Achieving Goal = luxury
It is easier to market necessities than luxuries

“Choose an idea that you can launch and modify quickly. Then when you start getting real data from paying customers, you can innovate and get the product just right.” For example, a 5-module course with live Q&A or coaching calls with you. Just write out the outline of the course, and build it module by module as people take it. Better quality anyway because you will be surveying them after each module, to build the next module more relevantly.

People might be saying that your idea is great, but look at whether or not they are currently paying for a solution to the same problem. “Steve Jobs said ‘People don’t know what they want before you show it to them.’ That’s correct but also extremely dangerous advice for a new entrepreneur. My first business failed. I’m not Steve Jobs. Playing the visionary is a privilege reserved for second- and third-time entrepreneurs. It’s fun, but it’s fraught with danger. As an entrepreneur you need something that people want to pay for, with their money or attention. Asking them will not work, because people are bad at predicting their own behavior. For your first startup, there is a much easier way: Solve problems where people are already paying for solutions.” Rather than try to convince them they have a problem they don’t already recognize.

This is “entrepreneur’s path” vs “artist’s path” see: http://www.slideshare.net/georgekao/niching-101-venn-diagram-spirals-artist-entrepreneur-paths
Holistic Healer … can replace traditional doctor if it can heal the same problem, often with less harm to the body
Relationship Coach … can replace traditional marriage family counselors
Life Coaches … can replace traditional psychotherapists, for certain issues
Holistic Business Coach … can replace traditional business consultants

Step 2: Minimum Viable Product….

...something you could create in ONE day.

“Rather than spending six months creating a product or service, do only the smallest amount of work required to truly test it.”

It’s not a crappy service. It’s a needed, excellent service but simpler at this stage, really solves a problem, and can be delivered without needing to have a team in the beginning.

The narrower the service, the more excellent it can be, the better the reputation will be. Then you can expand to solving more problems.

Another example:

Everyone knows two-sided marketplaces are one of the hardest business models to pull off, right? Well Stacey Jacobs didn’t get the memo. After deciding to start a home cleaning marketplace , she built the site, engaged the cleaners, started marketing and had her first customers in seven days. What I love about Stacey’s story is she only did what was 100% necessary at each stage. For example, to get the supply side of the marketplace sorted (the cleaners), she didn’t start a huge drive for signups. She simply put an ad on a classifieds site, narrowed the 60 replies down to 10 people to interview, and chose three. Three cleaners was enough for her to be able to offer the service in one region in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. To get customers, she ran enough online ads to sign up a few paying customers. She then focused on making them happy and getting them referring before moving on. Stacy is operating in a space where similar companies, like HomeJoy, are landing multiple eight-figure investment rounds and deals with the likes of AirBnb. That doesn’t mean she can’t take a lean approach, launch quickly, and with minimal risk.

Now it’s up and running at www.GoTidy.com

Here are some questions that you need to answer:

How can you perform a service or offer a product to real customers? (e.g. Deliver the service, online, yourself.)
How will you get them to pay you when you launch in a few days? (e.g. Paypal)
How close will your MVP be to the final vision of your product? (e.g. Service providers: an OUTLINE of your service or course. The full service will have much better customer service at each step but the main solution to the problem is doable to be delivered in a few days.)
What can you do manually (hint: probably everything)? Chances are you’ll need to do things manually in the beginning, to test whether people want it… THEN create automation if there’s enough demand later. Don’t fall for buying this automation system or that one… or this affiliate program or that one. Validate the value by seeing whether people will pay for it. THEN if you need to, hire people or buy technology as needed to fulfill the service.
What can you do yourself instead of delegating? (probably everything!)

Doing FREE coaching or services is to GET BETTER at doing it, to STAY IN THE GAME, to get testimonials, but it’s not a good enough test for whether people would pay for it.

Step 3: Business Name

“It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you.” Jason Cohen (founder of WP Engine)

There are a number of reasons why you don’t need to spend more than a day on your business name:

1. It will distract you from what is really important, which is creating a great service or product. That is ultimately what matters and will be what makes or breaks your brand.
2. Your business will probably change significantly by the time you get established. Nintendo started out making playing cards. Tiffany’s started out making stationery.
3. You will grow into whatever name you come up with. Most names mean very little when they are first conceived. Steve Jobs impulsively named Apple after the farm he dropped acid on. If that method works, then anything goes!
4. You can change your business name down the track— often quite easily. Even big brands have managed to do so successfully. For small, agile startups, it can often be done for virtually zero cost in a matter of hours or days. You are not stuck with your name for life. Google started out as “BackRub.” Creepy.
5. Your customers don’t care.

The irony is that a terrible name is often the result of overthinking it.

Here are some naming tricks to get started:

A place. Apple was named after an apple farm. Adobe was named after a creek that ran behind the founder’s house.
Combine two words to create a new one. Aldi is a combination of “Albrecht” (name of the founders) and “discount.” Intel combined “Integrated Electronics.” Groupon combined “Group Coupon.” IKEA was named after the first two letters of the founder’s name (Ingvar Kamprad 13 ) and the names of the property and the village in which he grew up (Elmtaryd Agunnaryd).
Use an acronym for your service. IBM stood for “International Business Machines.”
Look for industry terms. In our case WP Curve, “WP” is commonly used for companies in the WordPress space.
Use the dictionary. Jack Dorsey liked the name Twitch so he looked at words around it in the dictionary and found the word “Twitter.”
Extend a related word. I put “inform” into wordoid.com to come up with Informly. Also see http://www.namemesh.com
Outsource it. crowdSPRING.com is one site that will get others to come up with business names for you. The one-day turnaround might be an issue here, so forums or social media might work better, or you can ask your friends.

Keep it simple: nothing hard to spell, and if you can, keep to 12 characters or less -- all of the top 25 brands in the world have 12 characters or less.

Make it something easy to say. Amazon was originally named Cadabra. During one conversation between founder Jeff Bezos and his lawyer , the lawyer mistook the name for “Cadaver.” Bezos realized that others could make the same mistake and changed it to Amazon.

Do you like it? You could grow into liking it but at least don’t dislike it.

Broader is better -- rather than being specific about your service, broader allows you to pivot down the road if you need to.

Check whether it’s taken:

Google it.
http://knowem.com to check whether you could get the name on places like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter
...but know that even if it’s being used, it doesn’t mean you absolutely shouldn’t use it, except for Trademark search http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/

Service Providers: you can just use YOUR NAME for now. Or if you’re creating a service package, just call it what it is. I called mine Sustainable Productivity Coaching. Simple Social Media. The Webinar Method. True Livelihood Coaching.

Expect to change the name later.

Don’t make it a big deal. Just make sure you like it, and try to make one that easy to spell and say!

Step 4: Build a simple website.

Dan suggests using Godaddy and Wordpress.

I suggest using Hover -- since I don’t like Godaddy’s ethics -- see http://j.mp/1xp7Q90

and instead of Wordpress I recommend Weebly for its ease of use.

For your launch, you really only need three things:

System for emailing people: Mailchimp.
A webpage that collects email addresses. Weebly + Mailchimp. or check out Launchrock.com

Say you are launching a service about _____. If you are someone who wants to overcome [problem] or achieve [this goal] enter your email to be informed when the service is ready. You’ll also receive free tips and advice from me.

A webpage for selling your service. I will give you a Template for writing a Sales Page.

use Paypal to take payment!

“This is the basic funnel my team uses across all of our businesses, so it can work for a new business idea all the way through to an established company.”

Ways to improve the site for more sales and opt-ins:

Copywriting -- the words on the website -- can make or break your launch. Dan Norris suggests Dane Maxwell’s copywriting checklist: http://goo.gl/nm1yNf ...however I find the techniques to be objectionable, too manipulative and hyped up. So what do we do instead? Write honestly, clearly, with the intention to filter out only the clients you really can most help. Gather and tell stories of transformation and sprinkle them throughout your copy. You might find it helpful to simply open up your email software, start composing an email to your ideal client, an individual, filling out the various sections in the above sales page template. Again: it’s like writing an email to someone. Make it warm, honest, inspirational, clear. If you need help with writing, try out some writers from oDesk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep5Dnhm9jsQ
Images make a huge difference. A professional looking layout of your website. And appropriate, relevant, inspirational images sprinkled throughout any page that has a lot of text on it. To find images you can use for free see http://search.creativecommons.org or hire someone on oDesk or Fiverr to help you with finding / creating images.
Google Analytics -- I’m just getting started with this, so google this for now. I’ll do an episode in the future about it, if there’s interest.

Step 5: 10 ways to market your business.

“I’d suggest you don’t plan past the first 30 days. Give yourself enough activities in that first month of business to try a bunch of strategies. Figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Make sure you get your product in front of enough qualified buyers. This will help you learn what works for you and what to do next.”

“The main purpose of marketing is to get your product in front of qualified buyers. This means getting people to your landing page or your sales page.”

“Partnerships with other companies can be extremely fruitful, but they don’t generally come together quickly. Crowdfunding sites can also be great ways to launch physical products, but it’s difficult to get backers quickly. The following ideas can all be done in the first few days after launching and can result in real paying customers right away.”

NOTE FROM GEORGE: I find that many of the 10 ways he lists below are geared toward software startups that need hundreds, or thousands, of users/customers to stay afloat. For solopreneur service-providers / solo-practitioners, we need to follow more high-touch, less content-heavy strategies.

Create Epic Content On Your Site

“1. Create in-depth content based around the customer problems that your business solves.
2. Make content as actionable and useful to your target audience as possible.
3. It can’t be boring. Don’t just create content around your area of expertise. Create anything that is interesting to your potential customers.
4. Optimize your site for email opt-ins so you can get people back to your site by sending emails.
5. Don’t worry about SEO. Focus predominantly on creating useful content.
6. Try a bunch of content mediums and look for where you get traction (on-site written content, infographics, videos, podcasts, ebooks or whitepapers, etc.).
The key is to make sure you know what sort of content produces the outcomes you want. If you don’t have a big audience, then creating lots of content on your own site won’t generate lots of short-term sales, but it will build long-term momentum. In the early days, do more off-site work like podcast interviews and guest posts to put yourself in front of new audiences.”
Example: “Liam researched some rising trends and realized that at the time “Growth Hacking” was a popular term. He looked at what was out there and saw that most of the content was discussing what the job role meant. There wasn’t a whole lot of implement-worthy info that startup founders and marketers could lift from the page and apply to their business. Liam jumped on this opportunity and published a few very detailed blog posts on the topic. He gained around 2,500 free signups through this tactic after a few posts did particularly well.”

Start Sending (Valuable) Emails

“1. Adding people I knew early on. Well-known Tech Blogger Andrew Chen did the same thing. He started writing emails to his friends at first. This got him in the habit of sending the emails, and before long he had a big list to talk to.
2. Set up landing pages that you can point people to. One of the highest-converting landing pages will be the page you have before you launch. This can become your email list after you launch.
3. Make sure you are sending out a lot of high quality, relevant information . Don’t try to sell to everyone on the list.
4. Give away something relevant and valuable to people to get them onto the list. I have had good results with free software, plugins, templates, ebooks, and training courses. This book itself was given away free in return for an (optional) email address.
5. Create great content on your site and provide giveaways (lead magnets) that are related to that content. For example, I gave away a Conversion Review Template on any of my content that talks about conversions.
6. Keep all of your emails personal and encourage people to reply to the emails. This can be a great way to learn what customers want and gain lightning -fast feedback on your business ideas. On top of that, you get opportunities to help people out and build up some goodwill among your online community. People will help you if you help them first.”

NOTE FROM GEORGE: The way most marketers (including Dan) encourage building email lists seems disingenuous to me: using some kind of “lead magnet” pretending it’s about help, when really it has the ulterior motive of selling (eventually). Be honest and say that sometimes it’s going to showcase products/services too. Or what I do is say “sign up for my most important updates.”

Podcasting

“If you are like me, and you don’t love the idea of calling an influencer just to talk, then a podcast interview is an awesome alternative. You are creating free content for them and helping to spread their message, so you don’t feel bad asking for the interview.”
“I’m also a big advocate of going on other people’s podcasts. When you have your own podcast, you’ll start getting invitations to appear on other ones. It takes hardly any time and they do all the work, so jump on it! I’m not above asking people if I can come on their podcast either. It builds an association between you and another influencer, it’s fun, easy, and spreads your message to new audiences.”

Forums & Online Groups

“When Damian Thompson wanted to launch his new business, Linchpin.net, he started with a private forum of entrepreneurs called dynamitecircle.com. Damian was a trusted member of the group, having been one of the original members. When he posted an offer , a number of people took him up on it straight away.”
Joining a paid group such as dynamitecircle.com or fizzle.co allows you to meet pre-qualified people, those who are willing and able to pay.
Be careful about selling in online groups - first understand the rules of the group.

Guest Blogging

“Effective guest blogging is like every other form of marketing : it’s all about targeting. If you can get your message in front of the right people, it will work well. If you get the message in front of irrelevant people, it won’t work at all.”
Doesn’t need to be big blogs, but relevant blogs in your industry, with the kinds of people you are trying to reach.

Listing Sites

In every industry there are a range of sites that list businesses in different ways. Some examples could be: If you were a web designer, you could submit your nice designs to CSS directories. If you are a startup, you could submit your idea to startup sites like Betali.st and KillerStartups.com. Any kind of product or service with a nice landing page I would submit to producthunt.com, a booming product listing site. If you created an app, you could submit it to Appvita.com or Cloudli.st. If you have some kind of certified skill, there might be a central site that lists people with your skill or qualification. If you have a software app that integrates with other apps, you can apply to be in their integration directory. This is often cited by software product owners as a great way to get in front of qualified buyers, and I also used this to get a handful of paying customers early on with Informly. Usually, Googling will reveal a whole bunch of potential sites in any industry.
NOTE FROM GEORGE: Although this strategy works for software and products, I haven’t seen this to be an effective way to market for solopreneur service-providers.

Webinars

This is John Dumas’ exact process: He built up a large audience. Obviously this took him some time but the same could be done quickly on a much smaller scale. He gives away freebies on his site like ebooks in return for an email address. After you enter your email address you are taken to a page that talks about a free webinar on podcasting. The webinars provide a lot of value and help people get started with podcasting. For people who are interested in more information he has a special deal for membership to the community. John routinely gets hundreds of people onto these weekly webinars and closes thousands in sales. You can learn John’s exact process at webinaronfire.com. If you think a webinar could be the right fit for you and your audience, give it a go. Make sure you record it and the worst case is it ends up being a useful video to post on your site.
NOTE FROM GEORGE: This does indeed work - I built up my business to full-time income originally using webinars, but not because I wrote ebooks - instead I approached other people with email lists and did webinars for their audience.

Presenting

Organizing local, in-person events has been a winning strategy for all types of businesses for a long time; from local small businesses to global software companies.
Adam Franklin uses local workshops, meetups, and conferences to help attendees with their web marketing. In turn this helps position his web marketing firm, BluewireMedia.com 47 , as a leader. While other firms were obsessing over SEO tactics and Adwords, Adam and his team were putting on live events. The events were profitable exercises on their own, but they also brought in countless leads and high-value clients to his business. On the feedback forms, some attendees would literally write “we want to engage your services” and become clients the next day.

Doing Free Work

Derek Murphy - book cover designer - started by offering them for free to high profile independent authors & bloggers. They help spread the word.
Clint Mayer - online marketing consultant - gave away custom SEO video audits to people who asked him advice, or would send them cold to people who were spending big ads on Yellow Pages.
NOTE FROM GEORGE: Basically, be willing, in the beginning especially, to do some free work for people who are influencers, or others who you notice are spending money on an alternative to your services.

Media Coverage

How Dan Norris’ team got media coverage:

Pulled lists of relevant journalists to contact about running stories.
Chased our entrepreneurial friends, who had been featured and looked for intros to the journalist who covered them.
Paid attention to parts of our business that could be newsworthy and looked for stories. For example, I’d spent 12 months building a business that was losing money and then within 23 days had made WP Curve profitable. I pitched this idea to Startup Daily, who published an article about the story.
Dropped everything for opportunities to be featured in the media. When Clayton Morris mentioned to Alex that he could potentially chat to him about Wordpress, he jumped to action. Alex booked flights to New York, crammed a TV presenters’ course in, bought a new jacket (for $ 700, mind you), and a week later he was on Fox TV
Talked about ourselves a lot. It’s uncomfortable at times, particularly when putting all of our revenue numbers up on our blog. But this gets people talking and interesting stories emerge.
Sent some of our best articles to other websites, to help with those relationships.
In the end they are looking for a story— journalists don’t want to feature you for the sake of it. Look for stories in everything you are doing and maintain good relationships with journalists and influencers. This does take time, but if you can promote unique stories around your launch, that tends to be a good time to be featured.

Some other ways to do marketing:

Doing a unique giveaway event
Paid advertising
Throwing a party
Face to face networking
See more here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/curvebooks/resources/20_Marketing_Ideas.pdf

Bottom line to marketing - try a bunch of things, and then focus on the methods that work well for your strengths and that get you results.

Step 6: Decide the One Metric That Matters (OMTM)

“When you launch, it makes sense to focus on the number of people who sign up and pay you. Set a reasonable target that takes into consideration your reach and your marketing efforts and price point.

People have a tendency to set really aggressive targets in business and I’ve found those to be potentially de-motivating.

Most businesses will naturally grow over time if the fundamentals are right.

When you are starting out, you have a big hurdle to get over. Most people need exposure over time before they put their trust in a business. Shoot for a few customers early on and set a realistic monthly growth rate from there….

With any business I’ve started, my primary goal has been to get to a point where I’m paying myself a reasonable wage as early as possible. The figure I’ve always used is $ 40,000 per year. If I can get to the point where I’m paying myself a wage of $ 40,000, I know I have enough there to keep the business going.”

“Make it a financial metric, not a vanity metric like website visits or Facebook likes. Pay particular attention to who is signing up. If it’s just your friends, then that’s very different from the general public. Save your excitement until you land people you don’t know as customers.”

Step 7: LAUNCH.

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman

Here are some ideas to get you started:

Put up your live website with the payment button. Include as many options as you can for people to contact you. You want to talk to customers and potential customers as much as possible from today onwards.
Consider having live chat, email, physical address, phone number, and social media profiles. For Live Chat check out www.LiveChat.com and www.Zopim.com
Email anyone who is on your pre-launch list. Thank them for their interest, and ask them to sign up if your offering is suitable for them, or to give you feedback otherwise.
Post an update to social networks and any forums or groups that allow you to do so. If you are a member of any forums that allow you to have a signature that mentions your business, update those signatures with a specific call to action.
Tell your friends and press contacts and ask them to share the news. Thank people who have helped you get to launch day.
If you have a blog, publish a post about your launch. Thank the people who have helped you, and include a call to action for people to purchase.
Ask your entrepreneurial friends to share the news. If you help people out 90% of the time and only ask for help 10% of the time, the launch day is a good day to ask for help.
Dan would love to know if you’ve launched a business using this method, so give him a shout out on social media @thedannorris or #7daystartup. He’ll help spread the word if he thinks his audience would be interested.

The most important thing is… don’t stress! A launch will very rarely make or break a successful sustainable business, which is what you are trying to build.

THE REAL TEST:

“You have to hustle up real paying customers; you have to pay attention to whether they are paying, whether they are staying, and whether they are referring. And you have to listen to what they say, to work out if and how you are going to grow this business.”

You can change your business model later based on what customers are saying and needing. Maybe you turn it into a recurring revenue thing. Maybe you turn a recurring revenue thing into a one-time revenue. Maybe you make other dramatic changes. It’s FINE -- you must not try to predict the perfect biz model until you launch and learn.

Imagine you launch a new offering instead of in 7 days, you take 5 times as long to do it -- you launch it in 35 days. You can then pivot, change based on feedback and you’ll probably have a much more viable business within 3 months. This is what I did, without knowing this process.

Companion video series to these notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY-Wpe2wA1E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZaxJjialOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqdyVz0sgAI