Tag: mvp

My First, Last, and Only MVP

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Startup MVPs are a FAILED biz model, but I did one anyway…

“Looks like cancer to me,” the PA said while I wiped off the ultrasound goop. She’d just taken samples of the 15mm ‘lesion’ in my neck with a fine needle.

I stared at her trying to process what she’d just said while she continued.

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years and your tumor looks wonky.”

“You mean with tendrils?” I’d found through my research that tendrils mean malignant.

“Yeah,” the PA said casually. “It has an irregular border and that’s a tell-tale sign of cancer.”

I continued staring at her, tears welling then spilling down my face. It wasn’t her job to give me a diagnosis. That was for the biopsy labs, and the radiologist who read my scans. Regardless, I believed her, thanked her, and left. I willed myself to stop crying as I navigated the hospital maze to meet my husband waiting in the lobby.

“What?” he asked the moment he saw my face.

“I’ll tell you in the car.” I wanted to stave off crying till then but tears fell in the elevator and didn’t stop when we were both safely ensconced. “She said I have cancer.”

“What?”

I told him in detail exactly what she’d said. “Seems to me nurses and PAs must know what they’re talking about since they’re the ones doing these procedures all day long,” I added, sinking further into darkness.

My husband sat there trying to process what I’d told him. The silence under four floors of concrete in the parking garage made it feel like a tomb. Dying was suddenly real, present. Cancer. Would I die like my mother, a slow, painful death ‘before her time,’ lingering as a guinea pig with every new drug and treatment trial? I don’t want that for my family.

“I’m here for whatever you need,” my husband finally said.

I felt him looking at me but I didn’t look up. “Thanks.” And I took his hand as he slid it onto my leg. “Right now I wanna go home.”

My husband driving, we were crossing the bridge, the water sparkling in the late morning sunshine, the forested hills beyond, and only one thought kept looping in my head. “I haven’t had enough fun,” I said. “I’ve worked since I was 14 and I haven’t had enough fun.”

The next six weeks I could not wrap my head around writing fiction or anything else while I waited for the complete test results. I spent the first week in my office researching cancer malignancies. Death rates. Age. Weight. Race. Genetics. Environments that increase cancer rates. Too much information turned into self-sabotage.

I vowed to stay busy between the travel and venue experiences my husband and I arranged. By week two I’d abandoned all hope of producing even a blog and defaulted to social media marketing my body of work. I’ve done SMM for 20+ yrs. Creating digital campaigns and posting them organically is a lot simpler — takes way less thought — than, say, writing The Power Trip. Except I hate marketing! It may come more easily to me, as it’s been my ‘real job’ for most of my career, but I really don’t like doing it. I like creating the campaigns. I just don’t care for posting them, responding to comments, monitoring for spam…etc. Admining SMM is mind-pummelingly dull. And now, more than ever, I want fun!

Week three we’re traveling, staying along the coast off Hwy 1, when My Chart emailed me test results, which were inconclusive and recommend nuclear testing on my biopsy samples. I’m back in my office midweek in hopes my muse will emerge from the blackness within and join me in my head, but no such luck. Again I defaulted to SMM, but am so disgusted I’m doing so with my limited life’s time, I go on Amazon and look for “relaxing activities” that don’t take much thought or require continuity of focus like writing does. This was my introduction to Adult Coloring Books.

I perused Amazon’s selection and don’t find anything that strikes me. They were either too complicated, too spiritual, or too realistic. I’ve never liked coloring in the lines, but clearly others do, as several of the coloring books had thousands of 5-star ratings. I clicked on one with over 6,000 ratings [ostensibly] from satisfied customers. The author/illustrator had a How To video on her sales page on coloring techniques with markers. She kept up a light patter as she colored, at one point saying that her coloring books practically “sold themselves” with just “organic SMM.” She assured her viewers that adult coloring books are a vibrant, growing market, ripe with targets looking for ways to unplug and relax, “guaranteed.”

Waiting for definitive test results, I still could not sustain the extended linear thinking that writing requires. Books that sell themselves instead of me having to market them sounded too good to be true, but it was hard to think right then, and I wanted it to be true so badly. The siren of Hope taunted, lifting my muse from the black hole she was in and sparking creative thoughts. I’ve been drawing since I was a little kid. My undergrad degree is in art/design. And the best bit — drawing requires very little brain power. It’s easy, simple fun! And maybe I could finally make some money on a book.

This was the birth of my MVP: Flowering Fractals and More: YA and Adult Coloring Book.

I’ve taught hundreds of student entrepreneurs at Stanford and Cal Berkeley that launching an MVP without PRODUCTIZING their IDEA BEFORE BUILDING IT was ignorant in the extreme — a waste of time, resources, and money. I’ve presented countless examples of startups that never launched, or failed in the first few years — and that’s for the few that lasted beyond their first.

In deciding to create a coloring book without establishing any real differentiators, without targeting any specific markets, without researching competitors, their sales, their ratings beyond the bestsellers presented by Amazon, I simply ignored a decade of the advice I’d been preaching. I went after doing what was fun — illustrating a coloring book I’d enjoy coloring.

I should have recognized the fatal flaw in my thinking right then. I wasn’t creating art. I’d made a business decision to build an MVP. For money, not the love of the craft, as I do with fine (fiction) writing. From a marketing perspective (my ‘real’ career), creating products and in-person or online services isn’t only about pleasing ME. Producing sellable offerings is about the utility/solutions [like nothing else out there] that it offers other people.

I projected a month to produce the coloring book. I’d know if I have cancer by then, and I played out scenarios for both positive and negative results as I created pages of line renderings. A few weeks into completing under 10 canvases that I considered worthy of publishing, I realized I’d taken on a project that was guaranteed to exceed deadline, which I’d never done before in my consulting gigs.

“Benign!” my husband read my nuclear biopsy results aloud on My Chart [since I was too scared to read them].

We exchanged places and I sat in front of his laptop and read the entire report, which, indeed, indicated the “lesion” is benign. After kisses and a long hug, I went back to my office to continue working on my MVP coloring book. On the walk there I considered ‘what’s next.’ The diagnosis had given me Time, but the experience has been a stark reminder I don’t have much left.

My muse was suddenly beside me, lacing her fingers in mine and flooding my brain with The Power Trip edits and additions. Writing fiction seemed doable again! By the time I sat down at my desk and opened my laptop on the illustration I was currently working on, finishing my MVP seemed a lot less fun.

Creating MVPs — building, and often launching a product or service BEFORE PRODUCTIZING the IDEA — came from Eric Ries’ book The Lean Startup. A Yale BS in CS graduate, Eric co-founded IMVU and built a similar platform to the metaverse Second Life. IMVU released their metaverse in 2004. The MVP had a ton of bugs, crashed constantly, and had little function beyond what Second Life had launched a year before them.

In 2004, ‘pick your skin’ interactive virtual communities, where you could be whoever you wanted to be, were just coming online. Most gamers were playing FPS on Nintendos back then. The few who chose to engage on real-time metaverse platforms were either curious, or lonely, or pervs. (LOTS of porn on SL and IMVU.) Until 2008, this small group of gamers, mostly incel coders (their primary target market) were the dedicated user-base of IMVU. They helped turned the piece of crap software Eric Ries and his co-founders launched into a functioning interactive platform. It peaked in 2011 and has been losing users ever since. Too buggy. Not enough functionality, are some of the complaints. In today’s world, gamers have enough choices that they don’t have to tolerate crap. And now there are fewer incel coders willing to work for free to improve some startup’s MVP.

MVP is a failed business model and a primary reason that 90+% of all startups fail. Investing your time, talent, and even money into doing the “fun” part of building your idea into an MVP before PRODUCTIZATION is a fool’s play. And I know all this, but did one anyway.

Took me a total of three months — two over scheduled — to complete the coloring book, publish it, and create SMM to organically promote it, (per the bestselling author’s ‘guarantee’ of sales in her How To video). Most MVPs run over-schedule (and often budget) to produce. I never bothered to develop a business/marketing plan with hard deadlines; or defined unique features/benefits of my coloring book idea, or specific target markets who may find value in my offering.

In the weeks that followed, while posting my digital campaigns on Pinterest to Insta, their rec engines pulled up thousands of adult coloring books I did not see on Amazon with my cursory search which started me down the MVP path. I hadn’t done competitive analysis, nor identified my product’s differentiators before I built and launched my coloring book, so I had no idea that regardless how uniquely beautiful my illustrations, thousands of adult coloring books preceded me. Flowering Fractals and More was going to be a tough sell. And marketing is not fun!

A cancer scare wiped my ability to write, which led me to look for a relaxing pursuit, which led me to adult coloring books, which inspired me to create an MVP — a business offering. But truth is, it was more hobby than business. Ultimately, investing my limited life’s time creating a product that doesn’t sell is not fun.

Engage in Learning About People

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized
Marketing 101: How to motivate people to DO what you want them to do…

An entrepreneur recently asked me: “What specific skills or knowledge do you believe will be most crucial for aspiring entrepreneurs in 2025 to navigate this complex and dynamic environment?”

My response: “The greater understanding one has of what motivates people, individually and in groups, the greater chance of success in any field. The trick — how to open yourself up beyond just yourself to become aware of those around you.”

Most of us live inside our own heads, thinking about whatever, but rarely watching others closely. Time to step outside your own head, and think differently. To become proficient at marketing, you must watch what people DO to understand what attracts our attention and motivates us to ACT — buy; try; subscribe; give.

All of us engage in marketing every day of our lives. We market to ourselves to exercise, eat right, take care of business when we really would rather be binging Netflix. We market to our kids to get good grades, clean their rooms, make friends IRL, not just on their devices. We market to our partners to be fair and equitable. We market to potential bosses for a job, or actual bosses or clients to sell them on our efforts.

I teach Lean Startup Marketing @Stanford. I also mentor startup teams and individual entrepreneurs with an idea they want to license or build into a sustainable business. Below is one of the first Challenges I give my students to help them become proficient at marketing — i.e. motivating people to do what we want them to do.

CHALLENGE #3

1. For ONE WEEK, seven full days, observe and journal about the people you see (at work, at home, at Starbucks). Watch what we actually do, (not what we say we will), and write down what you observe, into your laptop, onto your phone, or actual pieces of paper.

• Keep each observations under 100 words (preferably less). Observe and journal only scenes to which you play no part. You must be an impartial observer of what you choose to describe.

• Create separate documents per day with [at least] five observations of any individual’s behavior, or of two or more people interacting. Observations can be people at school, work, or someone at a cafe, but you must not have any interaction within the scenes you observe and document.

• OBSERVE CAREFULLY, and write down only what you see and hear. Do NOT add or embellish anything you see when documenting your observations. Do NOT judge, or give your opinion on what you see. Simply transcribe each event as they unfold.

Choose to document scenes of interest. Do NOT describe someone passing you on the sidewalk staring at their cellphone like everyone else you pass by. NOTICE the subtleties, if they exist. What are they doing on their phone (if you can see)? Three out of the five cellphone screens that I could see at Back-to-School night at my kids high school, the people — mostly women, mid 30s to late 50s, White and Asian, upper-income — were checking their email, or Facebook feed, or playing some inane online game like Candy Crush.

Pay close attention to your subject’s mannerisms, how they talk — expressive, with a lot of hand gestures? Low key, quietly leaning in to whomever they are speaking? You may see an extreme expression like a frown, or a broad smile or outright laughter, but try NOT to interpret an expression as “they looked bored,” or “happy,” or any other judgment call. Do NOT give any interpretation of what you see. Write only what you observe and hear watching any individual, couple, or group of people.

2. Log Demographic, Geographic, Psychological, and Behavioral data:

• Title each entry with the DATE, TIME and LOCATION of each observation.

• Start your observation with gender, age (approx.), race, and other obvious demographic data, like someone wearing a religious symbol, we can assume they follow that particular religion.

• Note mannerisms and behavior. Does your subject look away when someone looks at them? Do they boldly stare back? Solicit conversation with someone close by, or are so absorbed in their cellphone they hold up the line at your cafe?

• Note purchases at shops in the mall, or at the grocery store when you’re waiting in the checkout line. What is being purchased, in what sizes (small or large), in what quantity, by whom?

Example: I’m in Nordstrom’s, watching a 20-something, slender Black woman in a tan blouse tucked into a straight, knee-length navy blue skirt, try on six pairs of shoes. She finally purchases a pair that look just like the black pumps she wore into the store.

—

You likely have not gone a day in your life without marketing to yourself or someone else. Even screaming during infancy is essentially marketing to a parent or guardian to take care of your needs.

At the foundation of marketing — figuring out what really motivates ourselves and others — is Psychology. And the human psyche is massively complex. We lie. ALL of us lie — to ourselves and everyone else — to look smart, capable. To feel good about our choices and behavior regardless how counter-productive, or flat our destructive it may be.

Potential and intent are worthless constructs, marketing we tell ourselves and tout about others. (He is so smart!). To understand what really motivates people, you must observe our behavior and actions.

Want to get that job, get your husband to do the dishes, convince your kids to study? Sell your baked goods or software service (SaaS)? Take CHALLENGE #3 to learn how to get this person (even yourself), or that group to DO what you want them to do.

IDEA to PRODUCT for PROFIT Webinar

by jcafesin, posted in business, careers, Developers, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, growth hacking, lean startup, marketing, Silicon Valley, Small Business Marketing, startups, STEM, Venture Capital

Eventbright Webinar: https://lnkd.in/gETT2C_S

Have a biz IDEA you think will SELL?

PROVE IT…BEFORE YOU BUILD IT, with the Productization process.

Over 500,000 startups launch in the U.S. annually. More than 90% fail from bad to no marketing.

Marketing is NOT advertising! Marketing any product or service BEGINS (or should) in product development of the IDEA. Running ads through Google or on Insta, to print and viral campaigns only happens after your IDEA has been validated—productized—as a marketable offering of value.

“IDEA to PRODUCT for PROFIT,” is a 50 minute presentation exposing a distinct pattern that leads to business failure time and again, then introduces a unique marketing paradigm to build, brand, and grow a successful business. Originally developed for the Stanford entrepreneurial community, the RAF Marketing Method is a proprietary marketing model that makes effectively marketing a business doable, in sequential, actionable steps.

This webinar is Lean Business Marketing PROCESS, a step-by-step marketing template that delivers a clear and specific path, a roadmap for consistently creating (or directing those you hired to produce) digital, print and viral campaigns that build your brand image and motivate sales. Attendees will learn how to set up a solid foundation for marketing their offerings, and branding their venture into a sustainable business.

This presentation empowers entrepreneurs, engineers to CEOs with a proven method of effectively marketing an idea, or a new or existing offering, step-by-step, into a thriving company.

Attendees will learn:

  • MBA to Marketing novice, learn Marketing PROCESS, like never before.
  • The RAF Marketing Method to avoid the three primary points of business failure.
  • Productization of your product, service, or nonprofit, into a marketable offering of value.
  • How to effectively build Brand awareness of your offerings and company.
  • Effective Multichannel marketing for branding and conversion.

10 minute Q & A follows the presentation.

Speaker Bio

Creative/Art Director Jeri Cafesin, inspired by over two decades marketing seed startups to Fortune 500s, brings practical, doable, lean Marketing PRACTICE to Silicon Valley. A MarCom specialist for over two decades, and founder of IPPglobal.org—Lean Marketing Workshops for Entrepreneurs—her marketing strategies and campaigns have helped build thriving companies that realize sustained business growth.

On Networking

by jcafesin, posted in Marketing, Small Business Marketing, sociology, stanford, startup, startups, technology, UC Berkeley, Uncategorized, writers

My second job out of college I was the Art Director for 1928 Jewelry Co. The company is still alive and vital today, quite a monument to startup lore. My boss, Fred Burglass, was the best boss I’ve ever had. Funny. Kind. Patient. Smart. I really loved that man. He was like a father to me, taught me many things about marketing, business, and people. Yet I still struggle to adhere to possibly his greatest lesson.

I’d been working there over a year and had neglected to attend any of the executive parties the company threw in their beach house in Malibu. Fred called me into his office one afternoon and insisted I come to the upcoming holiday party, as it was part of my job to schmooze with our current and potential new buyers, and my executive co-workers.

The Friday night before the Saturday party I called my assistant into my office. She’d wanted to go to the party, so I suggested she pretend that she’d come with me. I asked her if anyone was looking for me there, like our boss, Fred, to tell them she just saw me on the beach, or on the deck, or downstairs talking with the Macy’s buyer. I thought I was being clever, outsmarting Fred by telling him I’d be there, and then setting up my assistant to lie for me so he’d never know I wasn’t. The Malibu property was an estate home and easy to get lost in. My assistant was charming and smart and would have no problem pulling it off.

Monday morning Fred called me in his office. I know you weren’t there on Saturday night, he began. But the truth is, you’re just screwing yourself. You want to build your career, maybe your own company down the line, or even write novels full time? Business success, in whatever you choose to do, requires networking, he assured me.

Sadly, I’d pretty much tuned him out. Network. Network. Network. Building relationships is the only way you’ll propel your career forward, Fred consistently preached, so I’d heard all this before.

Problem was, I’ve always been a recluse. An artist by nature and trade, I likely landed in the arts because I have a hard time being with people. I suck at small talk. And I’ve learned getting too personal with questions or opinions is a fast way to shut down dialog. It’s exhausting walking the line of popular decorum, putting on that public face and pretending I believe the guy, or am even interested in how successful he thinks his startup is going to be when he doesn’t even know the SaaS he’s built is already being done by someone else. Ever hear of Competitive Analysis? I want to ask him, but don’t. I used to, but it wasn’t received well.

I give myself all kinds of excuses for not networking. I’m just not good with people. I’m better at creating than chatting. I’m an empath—get too much input around people so I need to limit my contact. But I know it’s all bullshit. You are a brilliant creator, Fred used to tell me. But no one will know that if you don’t meet the right people who recognize your talent and connect you with others to help you exploit it. You must network!

He was right, of course. Digital advertising—Facebook to Google to TikTok—has a very low ROI, generally between .05 – 1.5%. Print is usually higher, but not by a lot, assuming the targeting and messaging are equally tight. Building relationships in-person or online can yield far greater ROI, if done right. Amazon built an empire on exceptional customer service, eliminating the risk of online purchasing by making returns easy, garnering staunch brand advocates. Shark Tank candidates aren’t on the show just for VC money. They’re there for Lori Greiner’s connection to the shopping channel, QVC. The tech entrepreneurs want Mark Cuban’s contacts in the Silicon Valley community.

While networking ROI may seem harder to quantify than digital ads or even direct mail, consistently talking with people in your industry [and related industries] at meetups, SIG meetings, trade shows, webinars, conferences, biz and tech talks, and even office parties, over time will yield better ROI—broader brand recognition and more sales—than any other form of marketing/advertising.

Starting a startup, or finding a job or getting clients, the more you network with your industry and target markets, the greater your odds of building a thriving business. After all, it’s not what you know, but who you know that will help you pave your path to success.

Marketing 101

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I hate running.

It hurts my legs, my lungs, my back, my tits.

I run between 3 and 4+ miles, five days a week. And I’ll continue to run as long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

I hate feeling fat, and running is the quickest calorie burn I know of (my me-time is hugely limited with an active career and two kids). Running helps me think. It not only activates neural connectivity, it’s also a quiet space, undisturbed by kids or clients. I get to listen to my music, blasting through my earbuds, let it absorb me, the rhythm drive me, and in moments it feels like I’m flying.

I run whether I’m healthy, sick with a cold or flu, or anything else that isn’t laying me out on my death bed. I’m afraid if I give myself one excuse not to run it will lead to another, and in short order I’ll quit running. But I won’t quit, as long as the benefits serving my needs outweigh the hardships.

Benefits that fulfill Need/Desire is, or should be, the foundation of all marketing efforts.

Digital advertising is now the hip slick and trendy way to market. And no doubt, there are great marketing opportunities online. Websites, landing pages, social media marketing, e-blasts, analytics…etc, are TOOLS to market with. But marketing online, or offline, IS THE SAME THING. The basic principles of marketing must be applied to sell and grow any company.

Print, online, or on the friggin moon, Marketing is selling BENEFITS that fulfill WANT. There is no such thing as NEED. It is merely a construct of desire. Advertising, PR, branding, visual design, copywriting, marketing communications are, or should be, developed, designed and produced to SELL products/services/ideas/messages. ‘Likes, Engagements, Views, Impressions’ are all bullshit “vanity” metrics to stroke egos so you’ll buy more online ad space.

Startups these days typically begin their marketing efforts by flooding the internet with digital ads, videos, polls, games and such. These branding and selling campaigns push products and services without distinguishing a clear desire or solution for anyone. They do not tout the benefits of what these startups are selling, or identifying any specific groups of people who will likely find value in the features of their offerings. No matter what Google and Facebook tell you about their targeting AI algorithms, online ads are not tightly targeted to people likely to benefit from your specific product, service or message. This “Fire, Aim, Ready” approach clearly illustrates why 90+% of all startups fail.

I’ve been a MarCom specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area for 20 yrs. I’ve worked with a ton of startups who do not consistently promote their offerings features and benefits, or realign their marketing efforts to outshine competition, nor do they invest in developing new products that fulfill anyone’s desires. And I’ve watched them fold again and again, sometimes in ridiculously short order.

Marketing 101— IN ORDER (Ready, Aim, Fire!):

1. Get Ready and Productize Your Idea: Identify the features, benefits and differentiators of your offering that fulfill a desire, or offer a solution to specific target markets likely to find value in your product, service, or message/mission (non-profit).

2. Take Aim and Create Brand Identity, and Marketing Campaigns: Establish an identity (logo), and voice (tagline), as well as marketing efforts—digital, print, and pitch (in-person) campaigns that fulfill a desire, or offer a solution to each specific target audience.

3. Fire!—Launch Marketing Campaigns: Motivate people to ACT—to click, to subscribe, try, or purchase your offering, or buy into your message.

The new order of entrepreneurs are weened on social media and tech. Universities, startup schools and bootcamps generally teach their students to launch backasswards. They promote the MVP model of innovation. Building a MVP (minimum viable product) may have worked for a handful of successful startups, but it took them a hell of a lot longer to reach profitability than necessary. In most cases, MVP is a recipe for failure. Relying on consumers to figure out what benefits your offering should fulfill for them is time consuming, expensive, and lazy. It is the job of the entrepreneur to produce a product or service of value for specific groups of people before launching your business.

Unfortunately, opting for A/B testing, and SEO keyword tricks over real content—selling benefits fulfilling a desire—and relying on Google Analytics doesn’t actually SELL much. Measuring response rates isn’t new. It’s been in the background since advertising began, and generally offers limited utility. Marketing is dynamic! Results vary by target audiences, the day a campaign launches, time of day, day of week, the weather, behavioral trends, sociological and financial climates, to name just a few factors that determine response.

The principles of Marketing may be simple, but motivating people to bend to our will is not easy. Beyond the primary building blocks of any campaign, (Ready, Aim, Fire), at the core of effective Marketing is psychology. Online, or on Mars, understanding your customers and potential customers’ psychology is mandatory if you want the greatest response to your marketing efforts. Marketing pros study people, not code, since coding, especially with ever-emerging technologies, is time consuming to learn, and generally requires a different kind of awareness than psychology. I’ve yet to meet a web developer/designer who’s demonstrated mastery in marketing. Competent at software development means they’re investing their time in technology, not in the study of human behavior.

I tell my clients that digital marketing is not ‘the answer’ to effective marketing. New avenues of selling will arise, and others fade away. But the growth of any business, or nonprofit message, or even activity, like running, depends on the benefits continually fulfilling a desire for a specific group of people.