The new way to launch your product or company

In the old days you needed a big marketing staff, a huge budget, a PR agency, an elaborate press event at a big hotel (with food and drinks), and the attention of the trade press writers to launch your product. And then you would pray that all that investment of time and money resulted in a few good stories published about you. Just to make sure your message got through you would buy print ads in all the major publications. This was a VERY expensive proposition.

Today you need none of that. It doesn't cost anything to publicize your new product or service. Simply engage a couple of the "A-List" bloggers (Michael Arrington, Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Om Malik, Steve Gillmor, Cory Doctorow, Richard MacManus,  Stowe Boyd, and others) by sending them a link to your new product or service. Tell them what problem it solves and why it is cool. When they blog, people listen. When their stories hit Tech Memeorandum, Digg, TailRank, and other services the story explodes across thousands of blogs within hours.

All the trade press writers have personal blogs. Om Malik, Steve Gillmor, Cory Doctorow, and Richard MacManus are just a few examples. Once the blog world spreads a story about your product the trade press will pick it up too, which in turn feeds another round of stories, comments, and reactions.

CoComment is the most recent example of this new product launch phenomenon. It all started with Robert Scoble getting a sneak peak at the new service (still in invitation only beta) while skiing in Europe. Robert blogged about it, others picked up on it, Tech Memeorandum aggregated all the discussion, and it blasted off in about 24 hours on a Saturday.

Big money and influential VCs are no longer a requirement to launch a company or product. The price of software, hardware, and bandwidth has been reduced by a factor of ten, or more, since the late 90's. Open source software, free web services, and super cheap hardware have made it possible to start a business for pocket change. Many entrepreneurs are self funding all the way to cash flow, or even break even.

The web, and more specifically blogs, have made it simple and cheap to promote your product. And it can all happen in 24 hours...without ever leaving your computer screen. This is transformational. It has been happening gradually over the last 5 years so we haven't really noticed how dramatic the change has been. It is huge.

Today it is much easier to get a company started. But, with so many companies and products launching does it make it harder to get noticed? Not if you take advantage of the new approaches to exposing your beta product on the web, and engage the blog community for early feedback and promotion. It only takes one or two A-List bloggers to get you noticed. Then it is up to the product to speak for itself.

Products must be intuitively obvious in their design, usability, and value. A new user should be able to understand the value of the product/service, and be able to start using it, within minutes. No training required. No complicated integration with other products. No changes in user behavior. Just solve a user problem, add value immediately, and up sell other services later.

We now live in a meritocracy. Money, VCs, and the press no longer decide what will be successful. Great products/services with intuitive designs that solve a real problem win. Of course once the product catches on and other entrepreneurs take notice, then you need to scale up fast to cement your first mover advantage. That might be where VCs and money add their value in this new world.

Comments

[Steph]

I'm not sure you can really make a general rule of this. The coComment news spread like fire amongst bloggers also because bloggers happen to be the target users of the service, and it's a service to improve the way the blogosphere functions.

[Greg Linden]

I'm not sure about this, Don.

I've gotten good coverage before by most of the "A-list" bloggers, and I can say that only a Slashdot post compares to an article in the mainstream press in terms of new traffic and visitors.

Moreover, there is a long road between getting a splash or two on Scobleizer and building a successful company with a growing revenue stream.

In the incestuous blogosphere, it is easy to forget there are vast mainstream audiences out there who don't read "A-list" bloggers and never will.

Creating a company takes more than mashing together some APIs, tossing some AJAX on top, and then getting Michael Arrington to gush about it.

[Don Dodge]

I agree with both comments. CoComment spread like wild fire on blogs because it is a tool to help bloggers.

I also agree that you can't build a company on a mention from an A-List blogger.

My point was that you can announce a new company or product much faster, and for far less money, than you could in the past. You can use A-List bloggers to get the message out to the influentials, who will in turn get the message out to the masses.

Once the "announcement" has been spread it is up to the product to stand on its own and win the hearts and minds of users.

It is not a slam dunk sure thing, but it is a lot easier, faster, and less expensive to announce a product than it ever has been in history.

[Kevin Burton]

Great post Don.. yeah. Getting blog coverage is critical!

It's amazing how much traction you can get just with a good post...

Kevin

[Nir Ben-Dor]

I think that the A-list bloggers are getting too influential.

VCs nowdays don't look at new products in the view of value to the end-user but want products which fit the profile that the A-list bloggers like.

Actually, I know of people who try to spot the trends pointed to by the A-List bloggers and do the next thing according to this criteria. This is not a very innovative path. It is more like a blow to innovation.

The result is many companies which do the same thing and will fail eventually. For example, see how many Ajax calendats exist which do the same thing, just because the A-List bloggers predicted a year ago that many desktop applications will move to the web and use Ajax.

[John Furrier]

Nice Post Don. You forgot about podcasting. Podcasting is an extra way to get voices out there.

John

[Vaibhav Domkundwar - iNods]

Don,

This is a nice post and you are right on the target in terms of creating a splash.

However, I really agree with Greg above, because that momentary splash can give you a spike but if your target customer is not the blogger then that spike might not convert into much over the long run.

Work of mouth from the blogosphere is great but one cannot depend on it unless you are marketing to the bloggers themselves, which was the case with CoComment.

[Steph]

If I remember well, people were already complaining about A-List bloggers being too influential in 2001 :-)

[Julian Ellison]

When Richard MacManus covered our new browser Tablane last month(http://www.tablane.com), we had a spike of over 500 downloads in about three hours, and the volume has kept up ever since. This doesn't bring us revenues, but coverage like this makes the case for angel funding that bit stronger, part of the strategy to achieve sufficient momentum to break out of the blogosphere.

[DJHowatt]

Don, the point you make in this posting strikes me as naive. Substitute "editor" for "A-lister" and you have the simple description of classic public relations. The only difference that blogs offer is speed -- it's a significant advantage, and one that you barely mention. The reason that big events and big money are used to gain attention and influence from editors is because there are so many companies seeking to do so. The events and money make invisible yet merit-laden companies stand out. It will shortly be the same dynamic for A-list bloggers. These aren't forces of technology here. They are forces of human nature. And these apply in the blogosphere, only faster.

The question remains: how do you get the attention of the A-list bloggers. There are some very pertinent skill sets and methods in PR that can make this effort successful. And it becomes something of an arms race. The more your competitor fights to get attention, the more you have to fight. The more influential the A-listers become, the more people who fight for their attention. This leads inexorably to "a big marketing staff, a huge budget, a PR agency, an elaborate press event at a big hotel (with food and drinks), and the attention of the trade press writers to launch your product."

[Olaf Petersen]

I have signed a contract to establish and run an internetshop recently, one of the most important reasons I got that offer was that I already have a blog that runs well and has a Google Page Rank 7.

I wasn't surprised when I found out our major competitors and wholesalers already provide blogs for their customers - and we will also do this, of course.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Don, Doug

This is too good, I had to get in on the action... I've left my thoughts on my blog

In summary, you both make great points but I think we're missing the most important point

It doesn't matter if it's a top-down or bottom-up product introduction, what matters to consumers is what other consumers think and say about that product

Lemme know what you think:
http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/02/debate-top-down-and-bottom-up-product.html

[Fraser]

When you refer to new products are you restricting that to: consumer focused web services, techy gadgets, and similar products/services?

It seems that the "A-listers" can have a real impact on these products/services in three ways: (1) through their large readership; (2) thanks to the respect they garner; and, (3) by being able to steer, dictate, and control online conversation among less popular bloggers by topics that are mentioned on their blog (building buzz throughout the internet).

I suspect that the role of blogs is still important for other product/service launches, but less so for products/services that fall outside of the above mentioned segments.

Eventually, I bet, products/services in other market segments will have their launch strategies altered by blogs, but that is at some, varied, time in the future.

[Don Dodge]

Fraser, There are blogs for every market segment, every special interest, and for every product. There are A-List bloggers in each category that tend to influence the market. The tech bloggers are just one segment. However, they are very visible, at least to us. My mother, her friends, and neighbors have no idea who these A-List tech guys are. They have their own A-List.

The point is that blogs have enabled everyone to participate in the conversation, add their own opinion, and influence others. Blogs, web sites, and search engines make it easy to find information and opinion on any subject. That could never happen in the old days.

[Fraser]

Don,

I don't argue that most (all?) market segments will eventually enjoy the launch strategy shake-up that is occuring in consumer-centric web applications and tech toys thanks to bloggers, "a-listers", and conversations.

I do disagree that it's happening at the pace, with the impact, and across the number of segments that you propose (now, large, all).

I think that eventually there will be a large impact across all segments, but currently we shouldn't allow the shake-up that has happened in a small segment to cloud our judgement of the immediate impact blogging is having on others.

Off the top of my head, let's explore the new barbeque purchase process. How does it happen now? I don't know. I suspect it's some combination of going to the local hardware store and seeing what they have to offer, maybe reading consumer reports, possibly talking to neighbours, using what the parents had, ...

Are there A-list bloggers for BBQs? I don't know. Will there eventually be? Probably at some point in the future.

A technorati search of "broil king" produces pages of spam and pages that fail to load. A google search produces a number of interesting sites and reviews, none that are blogs. (note: if you do some digging you can find some "food expert bloggers" discuss a broil king once or twice, but constantly discussing food is a far cry from being a BBQ blogger)

I don't want to dwell on a single example, and it may not be a perfect one, but I think a lot of people who are constantly involved in online community in an area their passionate about are sometimes guilty of too much extrapolation.

Online communities, conversations, and bloggers will eventually shake-up the launch strategy for every segment. I think it's more than a tad premature to claim that it has already happened in every market segment.

[M.Straw]

Don,
I had use some different techniques, before I manage to work out Best working one. It’s start with invitation. Invitation is your first contact with the respondents and may be the only opportunity to persuade them to participate in your study. A catchy subject line may get people to open your email but what really gets them to read it is their name in the preview pane. It must contain all the important information in the first few lines. State who you are, why you’ve contacted them, the purpose of the study, what you will do with the results, and if an honorarium is on offer. Give people some sort of time frame to work within. Set an appropriate deadline. Whether conducting business-to-business or business-to-consumer research, assuring confidentiality is essential to increasing response rates. An honorarium is a way to thank respondents and show them that their time is appreciated. Send at least one reminder three days prior to the deadline, to those who haven’t yet participated in the study. I have pointed that in my Marketing Strategy dissertation, which you may obtain in here( http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmrk14.htm). Yet, your article give some performance ,if I may say. Would recommend to some of my partners to read

[Ben]

AMBUSH™ Security System / Stationary Vehicle Surveillance System. Patent number 6,940,397
Intellectual Property owner Ben LeMire

This invention is an award winning patent from the history Channels Invent Now Challenge and was featured on KOIN news 6 in Portland Oregon

This new patented technology will finally allow you to record that vehicle break in and use the videographic and audio evidence to prosecute those responsible.

YES! You will finally be able to do something about being broken into, and stand a chance against those who would steal and make gain from your valuables.
If you have ever called the police after your car has been broken into you will see the value in this system. The common response is “we are too busy to do anything about your vehicle break in, feel free to fill out a report but don’t expect us to actually help.”

Old fashioned car alarms are a nuisance and if they work at all it is usually too late.
With the evidence from your Ambush System, it may finally be possible to identify perpetrators, put them where they belong, and recover your stolen items.
more info at http://www.wishbiz.com

[Ben]

I am looking for a company to help me get this idea into the hands of consumers. There is no other product like this available for the automotive market.
Thanks for any references anyone can give me
Ben

[Judith Will Fleming]

Dear Don,

Thank you for the article and advice. I am
going to followup. I have a new business,
called SpoonMantics, a beautiful romantic gift collection. Its unique, and hoping to
become a well-known brand.

There are literally millions of SpoonMantics in the world....are you one?

Success and joy always,

[Elle Bowman]

New products should be easy to use at it's very basic level, otherwise what is the point of creating it. As a designer, I create one-of-a-kind items mainly targeted for women, yet most of my customers are men.

Many men hate to shop for their signifcant others or they just don't have the time to spend looking and looking for what could turn out to be a disaster.

Whether you choose something from the site, http://www.noeslla.com or you have something custom made, a beautiful box is delivered with a certificate of authenticity, a thank you note and a gift card that says this was created for you at the request of whomever.

The receivers absolutely love the fact that so much thought was put into the gift. For a woman with a very busy husband that is worth more than anything.

Everything is hand assembled and top quality. We have perfected the process and it is not complicated to use. The outcome causes the user to receive a great deal of pleasntries and life is a little simpler.

Big smiles at home,