INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Martina LauchengcoContributor
Martina spent over 20 years as a marketing and product executive building and crafting strategies for
market-defining software like Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator
As an operating partner at Costanoa Ventures, she sits on multiple boards and advises companies on all things go-to-market
She also teaches at the UC Berkeley graduate school of engineering.
Jim is a seasoned sales executive with over 25 years experience in
diverse technology industries
As an operating partner at Costanoa Ventures, Jim provides companies with sales and market entry strategy advice
There is a prevailing belief that the magic formula for early-stage tech startups hinges on how quickly they achieve $1 million in annual
an indicator of product/market fit
becomes a flywheel.Revenue is a lagging indicator of sales success, so must likewise be prioritized accordingly
early-stage companies go through this crucial phase
Every early-stage company needs to do them well.Customer and market discovery is job No
1We talk about product and knowing customers a lot, but that is insufficient
Startups must understand the market, as well
How do customers do this today Is there urgency around the problem What is the community saying An early investor in PagerDuty went onto
Reddit and Quora and just looked at who people were talking about
It made his decision easy.To be really successful, it is as important to understand market dynamics as it is to deliver a great product
This also helps zero in on all the aspects of your ideal customer profile; it needs to be more specific than you think! This also then helps
qualify customers for future sales.Elevate Security stood out in their super-crowded security space because they carved out a unique
position around people-powered security
They used their early sales process to carefully qualify who would help them best develop their products
But this is why revenue can be a false indicator for scalable success: Founders find enough early adopters to get that first million, which
leads them to believe the product is enough
The company starts chasing more revenue, not investing in a product-based growth engine
If sales keeps hitting their numbers, everyone believes things are fine
this Zoom had triple-digit growth for the last four years in a crowded, mature video conferencing category
Yuan knew the market really well coming out of Webex, and always touching customers meant he could adjust company strategy accordingly
Zoom embodied the real magic formula: know your market + build great product.Pay attention to customer engagement and delightCustomer
investing in making current customers happy advocates.Aquabyte uses computer vision to identify sea lice in the $160 billion aquafarming
When they showed customers FreckleID (think facial recognition for fish) to uniquely identify fish in a pen of 200,000, fish farmers loved
The price they were willing to pay was 3x what the CEO thought possible
unexpected ways (handwritten holiday cards)
startup may have the coolest tech, be in the biggest market and have the smartest team
No matter what your board says, remember revenue is NOT the primary indicator; it is simply an indicator
To become a breakout success, you need to read the tea leaves of all aspects of your market and build a product and customer experience that
