3 Key Lessons I Learned

While Building And Scaling a

Startup
When building a startup and trying to take it off the ground,
there are two questions that you should passionately care
about: How do I get enough people to visit my website and
how to convert them into paying customers?

The answer is almost never as simple as “letʼs throw a

bunch of ads”, or “change the button color to red and
people will click to sign up”.

In the last 5 years, through a combination of building

startups, joining the team at Germ, and helping Zepel grow,
there are few key lessons that have defined how Iʼve come
to think of marketing.

Lesson 1: You canʼt sell somebody a

solution until theyʼve bought the
problem.
There are two types of users whoʼll come across your
product: those who know what problem you are solving and
those who have no idea what you do.

Talking about how great your product is and all the features
you have to offer is easy. Anyone can do that. But thatʼll
only leave you with a flat line and few crickets chirping in
your analytics dashboard, especially if people visiting your
website have no idea what your product is.

Telling everyone how great your product is, is the equivalent

of a sales guy knocking on everyoneʼs door and talking
about all the different topics the encyclopedia heʼs trying to
sell, has.

Remember those days?

People viewed the encyclopedia as just another giant book

thatʼll end up collecting dust in their already overflowing
cupboard. All they saw was a sales guy trying to make a
commission and they hated it.

The few people the sales guy managed to sell the

encyclopedia? They already had the need for a source they
can refer and learn from. Lucky for the sales guy, he
happened to visit their house just at the right time.

But you donʼt have to leave your productʼs growth to

chance and luck.

Those who decide to buy your product go through a five-

step journey before they decide to hand over their credit
card details:

M. Unaware of the problem.

O. Aware of the problem theyʼre facing.
P. Aware of the solution that could solve their problem.
Q. Aware of the product that has the solution to their
 problem.
R. Committed to buying the product.

If you can take people through every step of their journey

with just the right information and not overwhelm them,
people checking your product will convert without cringing.

For example, back in 2015 when germ.io got listed on

StartupStash, users who visited our website, already had a
rough idea of what we do. The category we were listed in,
the screenshots, and the detailed descriptions gave them a
pretty solid idea of what problem we were solving and what
to expect from our product. So, when they visited our
website, we knew they were already in the fourth step of
their journey and we needed to help them with more
information and walk them towards the last step.

Ultimately, how deeply a problem is understood and how

well it is defined sets an upper bound for the quality of
results you see. And that is true for all your campaigns.

Lesson 2: JTBD isnʼt just for product

development
People want their lives to be better. They know their current
situation would be so much better if it wasnʼt for that
obstacle. And all they can think about is, “if only I could hire
someone to help me get rid of this obstacle.”

Jobs To Be Done has been changing the way companies

think about their product. It has put the focus on struggling
moments people face before they hire a product to solve
their problem. And companies such as Intercom have been
using this as their foundation when thinking about building
new features.

“Ok, great. But how does Jobs To Be Done apply to

marketing”, you ask.

When people are considering your product as a possible

solution, there are four main jobs to be done forces that
ultimately help them decide.

Image credit: Jobs-to-be-Done forces diagram by Margaret Wilkins.

Consumers are drawn towards a product through two

forces: push and pull. They get skeptical about a product
because of anxiety and their current habits.
Users experience a push away from a product when they
face a struggle, and a pull towards a new product when
theyʼre attracted to the promise it offers.
On the other hand, forces like anxiety – what if this new
product shuts down in six months? – and their current
behavior – I donʼt want to learn how to use a new product –
hinder users from switching to a new product.

For a user to switch from one product to another without

any hesitation, both the push and the pull forces need to
work together. If the combined force of their current habit
and anxiety are greater than the push and pull forces,
people wonʼt switch to your product, even if your product
can get rid of their problem.

When you can define precisely what forces are driving

your customers towards you and away from you, youʼll
find yourself in a pot full of gold that can drive your
entire marketing strategy.

Lesson 3: Everyone is working on

growth
Whether youʼre selling software on the internet or baby
products, you know you canʼt build a sustainable business
unless you can satisfy your customers and keep them
happy.

But what does it take to satisfy customers? Is a support and

success team enough to keep them happy?

In all the marketing campaigns weʼve run, features weʼve

built, and retention strategies weʼve tried, one common
pattern emerged.
Everyone in the company – from engineering to QA, product
to design, marketing to sales, support to customer success
– is working on satisfying your customers. A tiny blip from
one of your team members, you risk making your customers
unhappy and ultimately leave you for a different product.

“Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is

determined by the sum of all vectors.” — Elon Musk

Say youʼre working on a key feature you know will benefit

your users. Just to build a bug-free version of it, youʼll need
everyone in development, QA, and design team to be on
their A game. And when it comes to launching, you need
marketing to be ready with the launch blog post and the
support team ready with the knowledge base.

With each team having their own way of working, itʼs nearly
impossible to get a pulse of where the entire feature sits, let
alone being able to get equipped with enough information
to see if everyone is on the same page, step in and course
correct.

As Dharmesh Shah put it in his blog post, if you have

perfect people and they are perfectly misaligned, the result
is zero progress.

Conclusion
Marketers and product people could spend a lifetime on
growth hacks and tricks that come with plenty of iterations
and a/b testing.
But successful startups were never built from silver bullets.
The ones that make it big are built around non-glamorous
tasks right and emerging as a winner from a thousand tiny
battles: 0.5% here, 1% there.

After all, no billion dollar company was built based on the

color of the call-to-action button.