Tag: startup marketing

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.

SaaS Apps that F**k You

by jcafesin, posted in saas
Saas Apps that Screw You
or
Why U Can’t Get that House, that Job, those Tickets…

I’ve been house hunting on REDFIN for over 5 yrs with no luck. The homes I want are either too expensive, a flat-out ripoff, or an offer is accepted within 24 hrs of listing. We’ve bid on 5 houses, and we’ve been ‘out bid’ every time.

I’ve defaulted to using Redfin.com almost exclusively, as they released MLS (Multiple Listing Service [of homes for sale]) data within minutes of the broker’s listing. ZILLOW, REALTOR.com, and their like often show new MLS listings hours later.

I assumed that Redfin was helping me find a home. But what this SaaS (Software as a Service) offering is really doing is screwing most potential home buyers like you and me. Making MLS listings available the moment a property is listed for sale to everyone online, globally, does NOT ‘level the playing field.’ Democratizing MLS listings introduces 50+ interested buyers at every doorstep, jacking up housing prices with fierce competition for the same property.

Real estate brokers love this software! They now give you access to their paid MLS subscription (Matrix), knowing we all get it from Redfin anyway. Promoting “competitive bidding” makes them richer with every sale.

Book a trip on HOTELS.com or EXPEDIA lately? Ever? If you use travel apps you are spending more than you need to. Guaranteed! You’ll get a better hotel rate if you call the places you’d like to stay, and talk directly to their front desk. I’ve booked family vacations for 21 yrs now, and every single time, without fail, from Victoria, Canada, to Venice, Italy, the rates are cheaper if you book directly by calling the places you plan to stay.

The original idea with travel apps was they’d buy in bulk and sell at a discount. But like Pets.com, these sites quickly learned the destinations were not very flexible on their rates, so they ‘pivoted’ their SaaS with marketing. They sold users on ‘Packaged Deals,’ but you’ll be locked in to their ‘deals,’ which often aren’t ideal, and your vacation will cost more booking through them, even though they advertise that they save you money. Travel apps offer you no real value, and often rip you off, adding charges to cover the cost of maintaining their business.

Same goes for most middlemen SaaS offerings. It cost money to run their platforms, and they pass that cost on to their paying customers.

Ever use ANGIE’S LIST, or HOME ADVISOR, or THUMBTACK to get recommendations for services from contractors to dentists? Most of their good ratings are LIES. Angi’s, and their like, are advertising platforms. They are like Phone Books in the olden days. The BUSINESS PAYS these SaaS apps to have their name appear in search results. Even on Angi, the listing may be free, but your business will be buried in their search returns if you do not pay their ‘premium’ rate. Few (if any) of the good ratings and reviews awarded the businesses are real. Either the business solicited friends and family to post good reviews, and/or they hired an outside marketing firm to create high ratings (usually from India or the Philippines doing click scams). Angi and their like bury the negative reviews (as does Google), as pissing off their paying clients would be bad for their SaaS business.

These SaaS recommendation sites say they do a standard background check, meaning criminal records to professional license, but that’s about it. A few say they reach out to the vendor’s customers by phone, which they may, but with contacts the business gives them. Maybe they get the wife of the vendor on the phone, and of course, she just loves his work! High ratings mean you’re more likely to hire them. And the business is more likely to keep paying Angi and Thumbtack to appear on their lists.

Developers and marketers of middlemen SaaS apps will argue they are “doing good” for the world, whatever that means. (Doing good for them?) They are ‘setting information free to form an egalitarian society,’ Silicon Valley types profess. But I’ve already established that these apps, and their like jack up the cost of goods and services, as IRL middlemen do. Creators of middlemen software will tell you they are offering you a ‘convenience.’ Bullshit. With a few clicks you too can book flights, hotels, car rentals, arrange appointments with contractors, find a [good] dentist. Do your research and go beyond Google to Bing, DuckDuckGo, Reddit, ChatGPT, Nextdoor…etc., and you can find all kinds of information about a company or vendor, including reviews across a broad spectrum, not just the paid ratings on Expedia or Angi.

Most SaaS apps today require you give them a ton of personal data to utilize their ‘service.’ Additionally, they put ‘cookies’ on your mobile and PC that track everywhere you go online, and IRL (through your phone). Not conspiracy theory. Cookies (sweet and inviting name, right), track and log your behavior to ‘improve your overall [online] experience,’ as well as more tightly target you with advertising the app believes you’re more likely to respond to.

Ever wonder why entertainment events have gotten so expensive? The only way to buy tickets these days is through a SaaS app like TICKET MASTER. And you better hope when you log on the broker site doesn’t crash, or sell you fake tickets, or sell out in the first 3 minutes with millions vying for the same show. And good luck getting a refund if you need to cancel, or the event is canceled. The software IS the service, which generally means little to no actual customer support.

Wanted to go see Barbie a week after it opened with my daughter on her short visit home from college. There were no tickets available at any theater within a 100 mile radius the 5 days she was home because they’d all been purchased in advance online. Before the ‘convenience’ of apps like FANDANGO, or AMC, or REGAL, we’d at least have had a chance to see the movie if we waited in line, even if it meant getting to the theater early to ensure we got tickets. It is neither convenient nor cost effective buying movie tickets with SaaS apps. In addition to the high costs of the tickets, these movie apps charge an additional fee for ‘online processing.’

Look for a job on LINKEDIN or INDEED lately? Find a job post that interests you, and even if the ad has been online less than 24 hrs it still has hundreds of applicants. You’d better have one hell of an amazing skill set, and a CV with all the right keywords that fit the exact niche of the job requirements to get noticed among your competition.

Democratization [a la Google]:

  • The introduction of a democratic system or democratic principles.
  • The action of making something accessible to everyone.

SaaS developers and marketers inject this buzzword into most pitches these days. They’re democratizing the web, upholding democracy, doing good, they’ll tell you. Not sure how many buy into this rhetoric to make themselves feel and appear philanthropic, or it’s all a big sales pitch while they’re dreaming of a billion dollar acquisition or going public and becoming instant millionaires.

Seriously, how convenient is it being robbed of our money and information every time we use software ‘services’?

Let’s get real. Democratizing MLS listings—making them accessible to everyone on the internet—is a BAD IDEA for home buyers, now forced to compete for a home against 20 other offers, a third of those offering cash by corporations that can afford to pay tens of thousands over asking. Democratizing movie tickets forces movie goers to buy tickets sometimes weeks before the film’s release without ever hearing if the movie is any good. Democratizing plane tickets to hotel reservations raises the cost of travel for everyone by exponentially increasing the demand.

Democracy [a la Google] “is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” As for upholding democracy, I had no representation to help me get back the over $300 AMAZON PRIME ripped off from me when they signed me up without my knowledge and then made it almost impossible for me to cancel the account.

We are not a democracy, as this country is run by big business, in particular FAAMG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google), the gatekeepers of our personal data run [a muck] by greedy, unregulated children.

Want to know why you can’t afford to buy a home today?

Is the cost of events and movie tickets keeping you home watching NETFLIX (yet another SaaS app that eats up your money, and worse your life’s time, but at least they deliver entertainment)?

Even ChatGPT could not give me an estimate on the number of SaaS applications online today. (It had no clue what ‘middlemen’ software is.) The consensus of search results from multiple sources agree the SaaS industry is growing so rapidly, virtually exponentially, estimates have to be based per industry. According to Statista, the SaaS industry is worth $197 billion U.S. dollars and estimated to reach $232 billion by 2024.

While many SaaS apps provide value, especially for running a business, from CRMs, to CMS, to ERP, most consumer-facing middlemen SaaS apps are not only valueless, they are dangerous. Sucking people in with lies about savings on movies or when booking travel through their app; democratizing information making it impossible for anyone but the uber-rich or cash-flushed corps to act on, and rising the cost of, well, everything, ultimately is neither convenient nor cost effective for 99% of us.

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.

The Psychology of Marketing

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I teach my students at Berkeley and Stanford that the foundation of marketing is psychology. Marketing is manipulating people to do what we want, so to get people to do what we want, we have to understand how they think, what they feel, and why.

I also teach that the foundation of psychology, what motivates all of us to do whatever we do, is self-interest. I explain that even saints like Mother Teresa, who spent her life feeding the poor, caring for the sick, did so out of self-interest. Mother Teresa was not altruistic. There is no such thing as Altruism. It is a religious construct to motivate good deeds, to get people out of our own heads, even for a moment, to consider others.

Many students, especially believers of religion, have a problem with this lecture. And, no doubt, many reading this blog are bridling right now. “Of course Altruism is REAL. It’s what we strive for, our highest attainment— to give selflessly, because we are fundamentally caring, loving beings.”

Not so much. We are fundamentally self-serving.

And this is NOT a judgment call. This is a fact of human nature. What can be judged is what we DO with this fact of our nature.

I teach self-interest religiously with every Marketing lecture I give. As Mother Teresa spread the word of Christ around the world with every sick child she fed, she was fulfilling her function as a nun. And her brain rewarded her efforts with Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin— ‘happiness’ hormones that made her feel good. In the face of that kind of poverty, I’d be crying daily. I don’t do what she did because it would not make me feel good in any way. I’d be profoundly sad, every day, knowing Christ will never save these children. People are going to have to do that.

We ALL act in self-interest. We scoff at Chevron fracking as the height of corruption, yet we blithely ignore our roles in global warming by driving SUVs we don’t need, or leaving lights or electronics on all the time because we’re too distracted to turn them off. Or we drive while on our cellphones, and cause over 1.5 MILLION accidents annually, and KILL, murder, 9 or more people A DAY so we can check our Instagram or Tiktok feeds.

I teach Marketing, not Morality, I tell students who balk at my contention our motivation, without exception, is self-interest. It is important to tell them this fact about us, this truth, giving them the ability to produce effective advertising down the line when they begin marketing their startups. To get people to buy into your product, service or message, you must understand their psychology— what they think they need or want, and why, then offer them solutions to their issues and desires.

Bernie Madoff did it to a lot of greedy people. He fulfilled their desire to get rich quick without effort when he convinced them to invest with him. Purdue Pharma fulfilled the desire of people in temporary and chronic pain, while simultaneously fulfilling the greed of medical professionals with kick-back payments that turned doctors into drug pushers.

Humans are self-interested beings. What we do with this fact is what matters, NOT that we ARE.

On the other end of the spectrum, Toyota fulfilled the desire of people interested in preserving our planet when they invented the Prius. And Tesla and other car makers have done the same with their all electric vehicles. Toyota and Tesla produce the cars they do to make money. And while serving themselves, they are moving closer to serving the greater good, by producing cars that have low emissions. Even better than electric cars, is solar and wind to power them, since over 60% of our electricity still comes from burning coal and other fossil fuels, which continues to do immeasurable damage to our planet.

Martin Andrew Green is an Australian professor at the University of New South Wales who’s dedicated his career to developing solar cells. Mr. Green’s self-interest is scratching a mental itch. He’s curious about light energy, and in learning how to manipulate it, his brain rewards him, makes him feel powerful, smart, valuable, serving his emotional needs.

Self-interest is NOT a curse. It is simply a state of being… human, in our case, but self-interest seemingly dictates the behavior of everything else that lives on Earth. Survival of the fittest is how species last over millennium. Not survival of the kindest, whatever ‘kind’ means. With every mouthful of food, every article of clothing, every vaccination Mother Teresa provided the sick and poor, she also fed them Christianity. She was not kind in spreading gospel that Jesus saves their souls. Instead of teaching the value and necessity of socially responsible behavior, which would have served the greater good, preaching rewards in the afterlife does not serve the living or their future.

There is no need to fear the fact that human behavior is driven by self-interest. Regardless of the religious allegory that Altruism is not only real, but mandatory for society to function, self-interest does NOT need to manifest as narcissism. Green, or Toyota, or the parents who work to provide for their kids, or helping a friend in need, most of us contribute to supporting our society or there would be no human race at all. We have no great physical strength or stealth prowess. Building communities, exchanging ideas and skill sets, being here for each other is all we have to sustain us.

We all have the capacity to be giving, generous, thoughtful beings. Our motivation is irrelevant. It is our ACTIONS that determine our morality, whether we are contributing to creating a society that thrives, or participating it our own demise.

Self-interest is encoded in our DNA, and is not a threat to humanity, but a valuable characteristic, a useful asset. We just need to lengthen our time horizon beyond our own lifetime, broaden our self-absorbed view. We must learn that acting ‘altruistically’ means recognizing our impact on each other and this planet, and that accounting for the needs of others as well as our own IS in all of our self-interest.

Copywriting “Test”

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Had an interview for a Copywriting contract that required a ‘test.’

Here’s the ‘test:’

Create five (5) YouTube Channels that can “go viral,” which, according to this ‘digital marketing agency’ was “20 million views in one week,” with these prompts:

  • Create a “Seek and Find” YouTube channel.
  • Create a “Mouse Maze” YouTube channel.
  • Create a [tween] YouTube channel: “Imagine you are 13 and develop a superpower…”.

I stopped reading the “Test Deliverables” after that because this agency asked for a total of 5 unique YouTube channel ideas, their only instruction to create channels to “go viral, with 20M views weekly.” I hope the absurdity of this request is not lost on you, since about .03% of all YouTube Channels get 1M+ views on any given video.

And remember, this is a Copywriting ‘test,’ not a product development gig, which, seemingly, this marketing agency does not know a BRANDED YouTube channel actually is a product offering, and should be developed and marketed accordingly.

Five, free, viable YouTube channel ideas requiring little copy—this agency did stress an ‘attention-grabbing’ visual—including thumbnail layouts and storyboard drawings. Oh, and they required I sign an NDA saying that whatever I came up with on their ‘test’ was theirs to keep. Five (5). Free Channel ideas. Per applicant.

Their ‘test’ gave no OBJECTIVE for creating these channels—no sales goals for any company, or the channel itself to realize profitability. No reason for asking applicants to create these brain dead types of channels, other than the unmentionable of making the user the PRODUCT by selling their data, then slamming those same users with pay-per-click ads on every webpage visited forward.

The prompts in their ‘test’ were pulled from the latest trending crap on YouTube. The agency asked applicants to pile on more intellectually void baseline garbage to these senseless trending channels, following the Fire, Aim, Ready marketing method of business failure. Clearly this ‘marketing’ agency doesn’t really understand, well, marketing, assuming they were really looking for a copywriter, and not just garnering free content ideas. There are three business MARKETING reasons (not personal, ego-building social sharing) for a YouTube Channel:

  1. As a marketing/branding channel for a business.
  2. As a data collection tool for tightly targeting future marketing campaigns.
  3. Selling collected data to Affliate Marketing brokers.

Applicants for this copywriting gig were not asked to market an offering of value, nor to build a marketing campaign (or YouTube channel) for any specific targets, nor did they instruct applicants to actually create and MARKET (i.e. BRAND) a YouTube channel for any specific business. They are under the delusion if they just get “views,” they’ll get sales, which data shows is a lie (https://freakonomics.com/podcast/advertising-part-2/), promoted by these very ‘digital marketing’ agencies to get clients. (https://www.ippglobal.org/post/truth-about-data-science)

Of course, after reading their ‘test,’ I turned down the prospect of consulting for them. I felt angry though, that they were not only asking for free, unique IP, but also the IP they were asking for was truly thoughtless, flat out bad marketing, sure to put more ‘digital’ garbage on the ever mounting pile of crap already on YouTube. To quell my anger, with my rejection of consulting for their agency, I included an answer to their first prompt:

Create a “Hide & Seek” YouTube Channel:

A Year of Free Beer for Finding NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER.

AR (augmented reality) game to find the bottle of famous IPA BEER (or any other idiotic thing that’s trending). Everyone 21 or older with mobile can play. AR has NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER bottles in places around each major cities, but also standard beer bottles, and area sports team logos, (even cross-sell with image placements) that ‘lead’ you to the ‘right IPA.’ First to find NAME OF FAMOUS IPA BEER (in any given round, which may be a week or more per round) to collect all that global data, (which then can be sold to screw us all further), wins the free beer for a year, every month getting new IPA flavors.

The TARGET USERS of this YouTube Channel will be:

  1. Lowest hanging target is the sudo-intellectual, over-educated ivy-league crowd, mostly White men; Christians, Jews, Agnostics—higher education levels; MMORPG, FPS, and MOD gamer; Software, Marketing, Admin, Finance; STEAM; democrats; mid – upper income; 21 – 60.
  2. Lazy, generally fat, FPS gamers, beer and sports-loving men. White mostly. Conservatives. Apatheist, Christians; low – mid income; blue-collar job; pensions; 18 – 65.

A True Email Tale

by jcafesin, posted in copywriter, copywriting, email, lean startup, Marketing

This morning I came into my office and there was an email from my husband. It was title, “The terminator is coming…” No joke. That was the exact SUBJECT LINE of his email.

I don’t care that another Terminator movie is coming out. I liked only the first and second Terminator movies, and thought the rest (and Arnold Schwarzenegger) were crap.

I didn’t open his email. I trashed it. I didn’t see the link he had inside it, but even if I did, I wouldn’t have paid attention it with his email subject line.

As I reviewed my emails, I watched the news, as I do every morning. The segment was on Boston Dynamics, a well-known robotics firm. They were showing off the agility their Atlas robot, doing a back flip! I was so blown away, it looked so real, like a person, I sent the video clip to my husband and kids. My subject line: “Totally cool robot moves!”

My husband sent me back an email, “I sent this video to you this morning.”

Hmm…he did? I didn’t see it.

“It was in the email about the terminator coming,” he wrote. “I guess I gave my email a bad title.”

—

No shit.

WORDS MATTER! Marketing/Copywriting must choose the RIGHT WORDS for the right audience to get response.