If your startup or small business is looking for fresh inspiration, check out a meaty new book: Do More Faster, techstars lessons to accelerate your startup, by David Cohen and Brad Feld.
Techstars is a new kind of business accelerator for startups founded in Boulder, Colorado that provides early stage investment and hands-on mentoring. The accelerator’s results are impressive and it’s expanded to NYC, Seattle and Boston. Click here to be wowed by the results.
Do More Faster is chock full of business insights based on (exactly) what works and what doesn’t work. The lessons shared are from investors-turned-mentors, former startup founders-turned-mentors and entrepreneurs. I like the “essay” style format of each chapter. You can scan the table of contents and jump to the topic that’s most important to your business problem solving. Each chapter of Do More Faster has more from-the-trenches information than many entire so-called how-to books.
As a marketer, my favorite chapter is “Know Your Customer” by Bill Flagg (page 189).
Bill is the former co-owner and president of RegOnLine an online registration software provider. Here is a link to the company blog.
He shares clearly-stated and valuable information about how RegOnLine used everyday interactions with customers to improve its product and its website content.
The real world advice Bill Flagg shares in this section is actionable for many small businesses. Here are some bullets for your (faster) consumption:
- The RegOnLine team constantly looked for how to make it easier for prospects to find what they wanted in the company’s online software products
- They listened to what customers asked salespeople on the phones. Then repeated that information in a simple way on the company website.
- Bill Flagg used conversations at trade shows to really learn and play back what customers wanted.
- He sat in on public online demos to focus on prospects’ questions, get inside their heads and really understand what they were thinking.
- The team did usability testing to see where prospects would trip up and fall when trying to do business on the RegOnLine website.
Jim Butz, my spouse and partner, is a follower of Brad Feld’s blog and alerts me to Brad’s notable posts. Visit Brad Feld’s widely-read blog, Feld Thoughts, here.
Click here to choose a site to purchase the Do More Faster book.
Here is Bill Flagg’s blog.
Great article. We continue to constantly work with our customers to improve our product though feedback and testing.
I think this just answered my question that I posted on another one of your articles. These are some great tips for how to find out what your customer wants.
Hi Amber,
Thanks for your comments! I hope the other post helped you with some ideas for creating your startup’s buyer personas. Compiling the personas is a process and best done over time as you develop a deeper understanding of your best customers. It’s not so much about giving your customers a survey–though that could help when it comes to what they like to read.
I think you’d benefit from reading the book, Do More Faster by David Cohen & Brad Feld. The chapters are based on the experiences of TechStars’ early stage business accelerator startups and are written by both the startup founders and the mentors.
TechStars is also now part of the White House initiative to boost innovation and small company/startup job growth, Startup America.
Let me know how your startup progresses!
Best,
Cynthia