42 min
#1 How do you sell a product that doesn't exist yet? With Ryan Carson & Rob Di Giovanni Weird Growth
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- Technology
Ammo Marketing caught up with Cordially App founders Ryan & Rob. Cordially is changing rental inspections for the better. In this podcast, we focused on a common occurrence for startups; how to sell a product that doesn't exist yet.
Learn more about Cordially here: https://www.cordially.app/
Company
Remote rental inspection
Problem
Low level of transparency in the rental industry between owner and property manager and tenant
Customers
Property managers (primary), tenants and owners
Bullets
(8:00) – There is hope for non-technical founders: Airtable and Typeform are two no-code options that can be used to build an early MVP, and there are many others. Makerpad is a fantastic platform for no-and-low-code tutorials
(12:10) - Building an early prototype/MVP is critical to validating your assumptions and gaining insight into whether customers will use/buy your product
(13:50) - Pirate metrics allow you to map out a customer journey and determine the channels/strategies that can scale your business effectively
(18:10) - A core part of B2B SaaS sales is building trust and relationships with potential customers. This makes in person / real world events (e.g., Industry conference) an extremely valuable acquisition method compared to traditional digital channels.
This is particularly the case in the beginning of a start-up’s life. Paul Graham wrote a famous essay called Do Things That Don’t Scale where he illustrates famous examples of companies such as Airbnb hustling to their first customers through unscalable tactics like door-to-door sales.
(21:50) - Google Ads can provide insight into whether customers are proactively searching for solutions to the problem you’re attempting to solve, and hence can be used to help validate your business or MVP
(22:17) - A core principle of the activation step is providing value before you ask the customer to buy your product. Gary Vaynerchuck speaks about this concept in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
Some ways to do this can include:
1) Providing a free trial of the product
2) Providing a valuable free guide to the customer
3) Providing a free demonstration of the customer
(26:29) - The retention phase of the customer journey is focused on guiding the customer towards becoming a paying customer once you’ve received permission to communicate with them (via free trial, email form submission, demo, etc.)
Remarketing and content marketing (email marketing) are effective tools for this stage
(31:02) - Revenue is concerned with how people start paying you and the tactics you can use to make this as simple as possible
(33:02) – Referral feeds the top of your funnel (acquisition) and turns your existing customers into your champions
(37:00) – Common mock-up tools: Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch
Show & Tell
Marketingexamples.com
Shift: The Best Way to Manage All of Your Email and App Accounts
Ammo Marketing caught up with Cordially App founders Ryan & Rob. Cordially is changing rental inspections for the better. In this podcast, we focused on a common occurrence for startups; how to sell a product that doesn't exist yet.
Learn more about Cordially here: https://www.cordially.app/
Company
Remote rental inspection
Problem
Low level of transparency in the rental industry between owner and property manager and tenant
Customers
Property managers (primary), tenants and owners
Bullets
(8:00) – There is hope for non-technical founders: Airtable and Typeform are two no-code options that can be used to build an early MVP, and there are many others. Makerpad is a fantastic platform for no-and-low-code tutorials
(12:10) - Building an early prototype/MVP is critical to validating your assumptions and gaining insight into whether customers will use/buy your product
(13:50) - Pirate metrics allow you to map out a customer journey and determine the channels/strategies that can scale your business effectively
(18:10) - A core part of B2B SaaS sales is building trust and relationships with potential customers. This makes in person / real world events (e.g., Industry conference) an extremely valuable acquisition method compared to traditional digital channels.
This is particularly the case in the beginning of a start-up’s life. Paul Graham wrote a famous essay called Do Things That Don’t Scale where he illustrates famous examples of companies such as Airbnb hustling to their first customers through unscalable tactics like door-to-door sales.
(21:50) - Google Ads can provide insight into whether customers are proactively searching for solutions to the problem you’re attempting to solve, and hence can be used to help validate your business or MVP
(22:17) - A core principle of the activation step is providing value before you ask the customer to buy your product. Gary Vaynerchuck speaks about this concept in his book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
Some ways to do this can include:
1) Providing a free trial of the product
2) Providing a valuable free guide to the customer
3) Providing a free demonstration of the customer
(26:29) - The retention phase of the customer journey is focused on guiding the customer towards becoming a paying customer once you’ve received permission to communicate with them (via free trial, email form submission, demo, etc.)
Remarketing and content marketing (email marketing) are effective tools for this stage
(31:02) - Revenue is concerned with how people start paying you and the tactics you can use to make this as simple as possible
(33:02) – Referral feeds the top of your funnel (acquisition) and turns your existing customers into your champions
(37:00) – Common mock-up tools: Adobe XD, Figma, and Sketch
Show & Tell
Marketingexamples.com
Shift: The Best Way to Manage All of Your Email and App Accounts
42 min