A VC in Vacationland

"You are either part of the problem, the solution or the landscape"

            Robert DeNiro

             Ronin (1998)

Ronin is the Japanese word used for Samurai without a master. In this case, the Ronin are outcast specialists of every kind, whose services are available to everyone – for money. Dierdre (undoubtedly from Ireland) hires several Ronin(especially DeNiro) to form a team in order to retrieve an important suitcase from a man who is about to sell it to the Russians. After the mission has been completed successfully, the suitcase immediately gets switched by a member of the team who seems to work for his own pocket. The complex net of everyone tricking everyone begins to surface slowly, and deadly.

About halfway through the movie, DeNiro utters the classic line–"You are either part of the problem, solution or landscape" (well, perhaps not as classic as "meet my little friend…", but that’s for another Blog).  It got me thinking about marketing for start-ups and how a company needs to be part of a solution, rather than a problem or part of the landscape.

Of course, no company starts out planning to be part of the "landscape", meaning that they are indistinguishable from their competitors. But many of them end up there pretty quickly. Why? They fail to continually differentiate their solutions from those of their competitors. Their sales guys always say they their company is better than the competition in a deal situation, but the differentiation needs to begin much earlier in the game.

Differentiation needs to begin in the up front content development and push marketing process to ensure that the key buyers receive and understand why your solutions are better. What is the best way to do this?

1. Great Customers. The easiest way to differentiate your solutions is to successfully sell to the best companies in any industry vertical.  Issue a press release that P&G or H-P has purchased your solution and everyone wants to know why they did and what successes they are having with your technology. But you then need to follow up with web casts, hopefully with the client speaking about the solution and it’s successes, white papers, analyst reviews, etc.–all aimed at educating potential users about your solution and why it is better.
2. Great Product. So you do not yet have great clients to differentiate your solution? What can you do to make your great product more well known in the market?  The old fashion method of networking is one solution.  Try and attract an advisory board that believes in your product and is willing to work their network among potential buyers as missionaries to tell your story.
3. Great Education. If Plan 1 or 2 above is not an option, then you will need to educate the market yourself.  Permission-based marketing technologies (see my detailed Blogs on Start-Up Marketing under the Marketing & Sales Strategy category) are an inexpensive way to begin this process, offering webinars and white papers to industry-specific mailing lists.  Make sure that you have done the right content development to show your solution is superior to other market offerings and that you continue to find ways to enhance that differentiation over time, as the original claims are immediately questioned in front of potential clients by your competitors.