{"id":335,"date":"2011-03-17T10:48:49","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T14:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.payne.org\/?p=335"},"modified":"2011-03-17T10:48:49","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T14:48:49","slug":"how-are-you-acquiring-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/how-are-you-acquiring-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Are You Acquiring Customers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know that “how are you acquiring customers?” is now part of a VC joke<\/a>, but the question is no joke.<\/p>\n

Across the companies I work with, there’s a very strong\u00a0correlation\u00a0between those that found a new twist on acquiring customers early on, with success in the business. \u00a0In contrast, those companies that ended up acquiring customers in more traditional ways (e.g. Google AdWords, display ads, etc.) have struggled much more and grown more slowly.<\/p>\n

Taking this even further, I think differentiation for many companies resides not with the product idea itself, but with customer acquisition methods. \u00a0For the Web and mobile, ideas are plentiful, often easily copyable, and increasingly narrow (because it’s gotten so crowded). \u00a0With the ever-growing app\/Web-site\/messaging bombardment, it’s impossible to get new user attention.<\/p>\n

This viewpoint is\u00a0heresy for many product-oriented entrepreneurs, but I think it’s more right than wrong. \u00a0I frequently meet entrepreneurs that have 10 slides on product\/service, but only 1 on customer acquisition. \u00a0That ratio of attention is completely backwards.<\/p>\n

And taking this to the extreme, I’ll share advice I recently gave a friend. \u00a0He’s a very creative product guy, working on a bunch of new product ideas. \u00a0\u00a0I suggested he invert things: \u00a0stop working on products, and start working on customer acquisition opportunities. \u00a0Then, figure out the apps that will engage those customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know that “how are you acquiring customers?” is now part of a VC joke, but the question is no joke. Across the companies I work with, there’s a very strong\u00a0correlation\u00a0between those that found a new twist on acquiring customers … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entrepreneurship","category-ramblings","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/payne.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}