My new book, written with the world renowned Professor Len Lodish of the wharton School and Shellye Archembeau of Metric Stream, has just been published. Marketing That Works is meant to help entreprenuerial marketers, whether in startups or big companies, understand the many issues surrounding how to market the things you have for sale. These include your actual product, your shares of stock, and your corporate image.
The book is organized around our 3 by 5 marketing concept. Simply put, every venture has three key things to sell, to five different constituents. The three columns are Products/services, Shares, and Image. The five constituencies are Customers (those who give you money for something), users (who may or may not pay), investors (who also give you money), employees (who cost you money, but want to know why their options might have value, and why it'll be fun to work with you), and others (suppliers, strategic partners, etc.).
The biggest mistake I see as a venture capitalist is that almost all the business plans I see are about marketing the product to the user. As a VC, you have to market the stock to the investor (me), which has a different focus. And understanding your business model means knowing why the customer will pay you for the product. Just knowing that you can get a lot of users (eyeballs) may not be enough to sell me or my partners at FirstRound on a deal.
The devil, as you know, is in the details, hence a 300+ page book.
As a favor to my readers, you can get a 35% discount at Wharton University Press, by using discount code MTW35off until September 1, 2007. Of course, it is about the same price on Amazon every day:)
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