Is being ahead of time a good enough excuse?

Posted on June 30, 2012 | Comments Off on Is being ahead of time a good enough excuse?

If you look at two extreme outcomes for an innovative product, it either goes on to revolutionize an industry or is ignored by the consumers till someone who is a better product developer and marketer comes and takes a second look at it. The latter is supported by one of those excuses that people use to justify a failed product in the past when they see a successful one today: well we did it 10 years back, though it was not a big success at that time because we were ahead of time.

A product fails when either you have not done the innovation right or you were not able to market the product right. There are many things that go in innovative product development. For a product to be successful, it should be usable, priced to justify the value and should meet the infrastructure constraints. It should have something significant enough for the consumer to care for it.

Many innovative products play on the front of changing the consumers’ mindset. That’s where marketing enters the picture. Marketing is the most essential thing that defines the success or failure of a product. Every good product that gets successful has a great marketing behind it. Marketing for a product starts at the very inception of the product development process. It brings the consumer lens to the product. Answers the questions like what problem are you solving? Are you supplementing something or complementing something? Are you messaging it correctly to your consumers?

If a product is not up to the mark, it will not survive. Work on getting it right. But if your product is the best thing out there, get the right marketing in place. That will accelerate the time enough so that you are not ahead of time.

Comments Off on Is being ahead of time a good enough excuse?

Posted in Business, Technology

Sprint vs. Marathon

Posted on June 27, 2012 | 3 comments

Sprint and marathon, the two forms of running requiring very different skills. Both are challenging, both are goal-oriented and both require a whole lot of training. But it’s quite apparent that the two are as different as they can be.

Can a sprinter become a marathon runner? The challenge here is you cannot run a bunch of sprints one after the other and combine them to make a marathon run. It just doesn’t work like that. Couple of core reasons being planning and perseverance. A marathon runner has to plan and run the whole 26 miles. Train for it. Conserve the energy to finish it. Be persistent to continue at several points on the way when the common human instinct is to give up. And the most important thing, for someone who has been a sprinter, is to take the leap and give up sprinting to become a marathon runner.

The same principle of sprint vs. marathon applies to a business. Any start-up is a sprinter’s heaven. You run one sprint after the other. You release one product after the other. You put something out there, test the waters, update it and go for the next thing. A great way to run fast and try different things. But for a start-up to be a viable business, you need to be persistent. If you believe in your product, you got to stick to it to make it better everyday and go the whole way. You need to plan for it, bring the right people on board and keep the ball rolling. In other words, you got to get ready to run the marathon.

3 Comments

Posted in Business, Technology

Know when it is time

Posted on May 31, 2012 | 2 comments

The most important thing in any profession is to know when to embrace change or in some professions, call it a day. It got to be really difficult to change or end something when you are at the top. You don’t see it happening that often. Hundreds of companies and products go extinct and become less relevant respectively because they are not able to change. A sports star, an actor or a show normally comes to an end after a dip following the peak. The reason being it takes some real courage to take a bow and walk away when you are number one.

Continuing my obsession with Seinfeld, Jack Welch wrote in his autobiography that he offered Jerry Seinfeld some insanely large sum of money to do just one more season of Seinfeld which Jerry Seinfeld happened to turn down. If you see the  interviews of creators and cast of Seinfeld discuss the ending, Jerry Seinfeld and others mentioned how burnt out they were doing it for nine straight years and how they thought they have done it all and so on. But the key thing behind the decision was that Jerry Seinfeld wanted to call it a day when people wanted just another season or episode. He wanted people to cherish it without getting bored with it.

I believe it’s a gift to know when to embrace change or call it a day. A few years back I saw a stand-up show by Jerry Seinfeld. The show ended right when everyone thought he could have gone a bit longer. Jerry Seinfeld explained his thinking in an interview with Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose asked him how he decides when he is done. Seinfeld’s reply was simple: I call it a day when I feel that the audience want to listen just one more joke. That’s a great sense of timing. Every person walking out of the show thinks its been great.

To know when to end it is as important as anything else. Nothing can persist forever. Everything has a life. This has a direct correlation with change as well. To know when you have to change gears and refocus or to understand when your product needs a complete overhaul is very important to have a long-term and sustainable success. Time never stops for you and there’s always someone waiting in the wing to fill the void you may create. Know when its time and go for the change.

2 Comments

Posted in Business

Lessons from Seinfeld

Posted on May 27, 2012 | 2 comments

I have been a die-hard fan of Seinfeld ever since I can remember. After seeing behind the scene footage and commentary in Seinfeld dvds, I believe there’s so much one can learn from the way this sitcom was done for nine great seasons and arguably turned out to be the best television sitcom ever.

Stick to the basics. As claimed by the creators of the show, Seinfeld was a show about nothing. That was the core of the show. No extraordinary event, no great happenings…pretty much nothing. Just your normal everyday things that anyone and everyone can relate to because you have experienced it one time or the other in your life. Everyone has waited in a restaurant to get a table while being damn hungry, everyone has parked a car in a big parking lot and had no idea where it was and everyone has been to a random party with disaster written all over it. It is an awesome achievement to carry this on for 180 odd episodes. There are two great lessons here. First, know what you are good at. What people look up to you for. What is that thing that is getting you captive customers. And second, stick to it. Unnecessary diversions and extensions will not help you. Stick to your niche, stay close to your basics and be awesome in that.

You do it when you are 100% sure you got it right. Creators of Seinfeld mentioned time and again how they wrote the complete show, shot parts and pieces of it, then realized that it’s not as funny as they expected and went on to do it all over again. You cannot be the best till you believe you cannot be any better. Lesson: In the big things in your business, or for that matter in your life, you get one great shot. Get it right. Don’t rush into making decisions. Don’t be scared to cut the losses. Coming out with a product when you know it is the best it can be at that point in time. On the flip side, don’t wait for ever. Take the plunge, you will know when you are there.

Rituals are important. Cast of Seinfeld recalled some rituals that just became too important not to be done. Whether it was the huddle they formed before every show, the few minutes of stand-up Jerry Seinfeld did to warm up the audience or the 2am dinner they had after wrapping a show. Lesson: Rituals give a sense of continuity. They make you think of the origins and look forward to something. They make you remember how it all started and give you energy and self belief to persevere and be successful in your endeavors.

2 Comments

Posted in Business

How you say it matters more than what you say

Posted on April 20, 2012 | Comments Off on How you say it matters more than what you say

Advertising world is interesting (and funny). Every soap brand advertises to be the best for your skin, every car maker claims to give the best fuel efficiency & driving experience and every mobile phone company states that they make the best phones in the world. The message is the same, so what really matters is how you deliver it.

In order to find the best way to deliver the message, you got to know your consumer. What your consumer likes? What are their interests? How they spend time? What are the issues they care about? What kind of messaging worked for them in the past and what didn’t? In other words you need to understand the ethnography of your consumers.

The basic idea behind ethnographic research is to make sure your message is formulated in the right way so that it has the maximum appeal on the target consumer. But this has an added advantage too. It is not always possible to define a target group of consumers by demographic profile. Many times the target consumer group spans across standard demos. So when you reach out to the consumer based on their psychographic profiles, you make sure it appeals to the taste and interests of your consumers.

One of the best ways to do ethnographic research is on the internet. Human beings are social in nature. They talk. They share information and knowledge. They emote their values and concerns. Internet has provided them the best place to do so effortlessly. Social networks have now become the natural place for people to discuss everything from interest and activities to likes and dislikes.

At MavenMagnet we have developed capabilities to listen and understand this information at a macro level without violating privacy of individuals or interfering in their conversations. Our proprietary technology is smart and sophisticated to identify your target consumer group and sketch their psychographic profile.

Advertising involves a lot of creativity. I believe creative people are geniuses. They have the power to add life and excitement to anything from a bar of soap to a bottle of water. Our goal is to empower them with just a bit more critical information about the consumer so that they can channel that message to have a much greater and profound impact.

Comments Off on How you say it matters more than what you say

Posted in Advertising, Marketing

Competition and Innovation

Posted on April 3, 2012 | Comments Off on Competition and Innovation

Competition is a prerequisite for Innovation. Competition motivates the leader to out innovate and stay ahead in the game. It makes the companies doing the catch-up to think outside the box to beat the leaders. A business lacking competition often stagnates because there is no need to innovate.

There are several examples where competition has led to innovation and lack of competition has led to stagnation in the same industry. The best one that comes to mind is the web browser industry. In mid 90s, the browser industry had fierce competition between Netscape, Microsoft and a few other players. Between 1995 and 2001, both Netscape and Microsoft came out with six versions of their browsers out-innovating each other over and over again with new releases every few months. Eventually Netscape became less relevant and IE captured about 90% of the market. For the next five years starting 2001, there was literally no innovation in the web browser industry till new browsers like Mozilla, Firefox and later Chrome started becoming relevant. It took Microsoft five years to come up with IE7 in 2006. And since then, competition has fueled innovation for the three big players coming out with new features in the browser every few months.

The same dynamics is visible in many spaces, be it video games, cell phones, hybrid cars or social media. There are always lot of other factors in play like macro-economic conditions, state of the broader industry etc., but competition is the driver when it comes to innovation.

Comments Off on Competition and Innovation

Posted in Business, Technology

Social media for damage control: prerequisite

Posted on March 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Social media for damage control: prerequisite

Social media is the latest platform of choice for damage control. Partly because lately it is the best place to trigger the damage. News agencies end up picking an issue well after it had trended significantly in social media. There are two prerequisite when looking at social media for damage control: presence and listening.

As a company (or an individual) you need to have a vibrant social media presence. You need to be part of your social world. You cannot decide to come one day after the damage is done and try to do damage control using social media. It is very important to understand that you cannot control your brand on social media. Social media has not only leveled the playing field but has also provided a gigantic opportunity to anyone and everyone be creative and make themselves heard. All you can do is be present there and address issue as soon as possible, possibly before it becomes a big cause of concern.

This brings us to the second prerequisite. Listening is the most important thing when it comes to damage control. You cannot act till you are aware of what is happening. With all the buzz on social media and the growing volume in there, the biggest issue is for you to identify the  real epicenter of the damage, the reason behind the damage and then strategize how to address it promptly.

Technology can help in deciphering the noise and listening what you need to focus on. People won’t talk to you all the time. If they hate you (or for that matter if they love you), they will tell their friends and followers about it. It is not possible for you to humanly keep track of everything. You need to understand what is the overall vibe, what are the actionable steps that can be taken and what are the changes that can be made to do the damage control.

Social media can be your best friend or your biggest enemy when it comes to damage control. The deciding factor becomes how well are you prepared to be a part of it. If you have the right technology and strategy to listen and understand the issues and address them, you can leverage social media to defuse a fire before it becomes wild.

Comments Off on Social media for damage control: prerequisite

Posted in Business, Marketing, Technology

Market Overcrowding

Posted on March 9, 2012 | Comments Off on Market Overcrowding

When a playing field is young and growing, there are always many players trying to play in it. Every industry at the beginning attracts lots of companies. That is something that makes the industry interesting. You got to stay on your toes to keep innovating and be in the race. At the same time, that pollutes the industry a lot. It becomes very difficult for a company to differentiate from the others in this industry and for a customer to identify who is going to be around in the long run.

I believe three things determine if a company will be able to sustain and be successful in a new technology space. First is persistence. Persistence is the most important factor in determining how long can you stay in that industry. Do you have the horsepower and team that will stick together and keep out innovating competition? Second is differentiation. Differentiation is important because if you are one out of a dozen, then you are a commodity. Are you adding any real value to your customers out there? Then there is customer captivity. How easy is it for your customers to replace you with something else? Or in other words, will your customers miss you if you are no longer around tomorrow?

Products like Excel, PowerPoint and Word have been around in the market for decades because they have a captive customer base. They have a cycle of innovation where they keep bringing new features which help them differentiate from their competition. And to look back at the humble beginnings in late 1980s, they managed to be persistent in front of competition from a dozen or so other companies trying to develop products in the same space.

Persistence, differentiation and customer captivity are the three most important thing that can help a business make or break in any technology industry. If a company is able to persist, differentiate and innovate to keep meeting customer’s need, it will be able to standout in the short run and preempt new competitors in the long run.

Comments Off on Market Overcrowding

Posted in Marketing, Technology

Super Bowl ads: a social phenomenon

Posted on February 16, 2012 | 2 comments

Last time New York Giants met New England Patriots in the Super Bowl was four years back. Though the last two minutes heroics of Eli Manning still led the Giants to win the game, much has changed in the world since then. In the social world, the landscape in 2008 was comparatively smaller. For example,there were about 100 million Facebook users and 30 million tweets a month. Fast forward four years, in 2012 there are more than 800 million users on Facebook, more than 300 million tweets a day and 4 billion videos being streamed on YouTube every day. If nothing else, this completely changed the biggest television advertising day of the year.

For the first time, the brands did more public campaigns to gear up to the Super Bowl than any time before. Whether it was in form of contests to make audience vote for the best of the commercials or post teasers online to what to expect this year at Super Bowl. For example Chevy ran a Super Bowl ad contest. The 40 finalist ad spots were viewed on YouTube more than 35 million times and people voted and discussed them for a month. Doritos on the other hand asked people to make ads and submit in their contest. The prize being the winning entry getting airtime during the bowl. Volkswagen building up on the last year’s Darth Vader success dropped a teaser of their this year’s ad titled the Bark Side. It got about 10 million views before the game day.

The entire phenomenon of Super Bowl advertising is taken to another level this year and in many ways, the $3.5 million that advertisers shelled out for 30 seconds had much more impact this year than ever before. Social media enabled the 30 second spot to be a month-long advertising campaign.

But then there was Chrysler’s Halftime in America. No one saw it before, no one heard about it. So when the voice of Clint Eastwood came at the halftime mark, people paid attention to the ad like the good old times. The social media impact here: the official copy of the ad posted by Chrysler was watched more than 10 million times on YouTube within a week of its airing during the Super Bowl!

2 Comments

Posted in Advertising, Technology

The science in art

Posted on February 6, 2012 | Comments Off on The science in art

When I think of art as a topic of conversation, I think of something that can be valued in terms of aesthetic measures like beauty and appeal. It is said beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. If you believe in that then you would also believe that there is very less logic and reasoning behind it. Something that is a great piece of art for me can be very mediocre for you and something that is a masterpiece accordingly to you may really not appeal that much to me. There is nothing that is universally appealing and beautiful.

Art has a lot more value when it is targeted. You cannot be a successful artist if you are not reaching your core audience. That’s where science comes in picture. There is enough data available in this world to develop rich correlations between distinct things and make you reach your target audience. You can end up being much more effective if the only people who notice you are the people who really matter.

This principle is very apparent in the advertising industry. The right advertisement shown to the right audience at the right time is what really adds value. How do you determine that right audience and the right time? Well embracing computation science to figure that out is a great complement to your gut. One great thing about science is it evolves really fast. Something which was determined using a few hundred data points a decade back can now be much more definitive by leveraging tens of thousands of data points. You got to embrace the explosive power of computation combined with the growth in available information. Add to that techniques like machine learning and artificial intelligence and improve your findings with time.

The biggest challenge for an art driven organization in embracing science is the ability to adapt as fast as science evolves. The longer you manage to last in the state of denial in embracing this evolution, the greater is your ability to make your art less compelling and attractive to the world out there. Art and science are great complements to each other. What art brings to science is the same thing that science brings to art. It’s the effectiveness and the value which otherwise goes untapped.

Comments Off on The science in art

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Technology