This document provides advice for startup marketing in an environment of constant change. It emphasizes that most startups fail due to not acquiring customers, rather than building products. To succeed, startups must develop a brand, audience, consistency, marketing strategy, great product, and sales processes. They must also generate positive cash flow. The document outlines the importance of defining personas, traction channels, and product-market fit to develop a scalable marketing strategy focused on retention through optimization of funnels and analytics.

1. Startup Marketing in a world
of constant change

2. Hello!
Goran Candrlic
Twitter: @Chande
FB: /chande
LinkedIn: /gorancandrlic
Instagram: /gorancandrlic

3. Bragging rightsBuilt 500+ websites
Managed EUR 50M in online sales
Success
AutoGlobal, Adria24, Free.com.hr, IntechOpen, SEOCrawler, Kisha Umbrella, GlobalDots
Failure
Failed to build (to initial vision) @WebinyPlatform
Many more :) (test, iterate, rinse & repeat)

4. Why Startups Fail?
Most startups don’t fail at building a product.
They fail at acquiring customers.
- Gabriel Weinberg (DuckDuckGo)
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5. Why Startups Fail?
And false thinking:
Build it and they will come
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6. Reason?
If you are not a brand - they (customers) do not care.
And to build brand you need?
● MONEY!!!
● AUDIENCE!!!
● CONSISTENCY!!!
● BRAND STRATEGY!!!
● GREAT PRODUCT!!!
● MARKETING AND SALES MACHINE!!!
And most of all:
● CASH FLOW TO KEEP THE OPERATION GOING!
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7. But lets get back to
beginnings...
What is a startup?
A company that does not know what their product is and who
their customers are!
Don’t mix it with growth companies (startups that get funded)
Investors don’t fund companies based on a vision, but on numbers!
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8. Your goal as a startup
Is to find a product / market fit
Bullshit wording for:
● Knowing what customers will pay for!
● Creating a scalable sales and marketing strategy &
processes
● Creating a positive cash-flow
● Creating an operation with LTV > CAC (“customer lifetime
value” is larger than “customer acquisition cost” with positive
cash flow (so you don’t burn money before another
investment round))
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9. WRONG
This can be optimized. Don’t waste time on crappy prototypes.
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10. But MVPs Kinda Suck
on the contrary to what everyone is evangelizing…
(like bullshit “Fail harder” mantra)
Not applicable to “copy-cats” (just copy / scale)
With “copy-cats” you “just” need low CAC, low operating costs,
high retention
*** MVP: Minimum Viable product
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11. 8

12. How to know what is
your EVP?
You have a pretty good idea what you want to build
You don’t know yet if people will buy it
You don’t know yet if there is a scalable marketing / sales process
(no audience, no evangelism, no free traffic, no press, no nothing)
You don’t know yet how big is your CAC or LTV
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13. And now you’re
thinking...
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14. ...but don’t worry
90% of startups fail
unless you are totally lucky and you create a product that a lot of
people want, that your competitors suck, that there is no
regulation, that there are high barriers for competitors to enter the
market...
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15. ...but why (again)
Most startups compete in disruptive (or saturated) markets
that means either they are gambling on if the products in this
niche will be commoditized by technology advancement (new
tech + first mover advantage + branding) - very high barrier to
entry
or
they are innovating in saturated or mature markets where they
need to differentiate (brand) / create demand / solve previously
non-adressed need (niche)
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16. Examples
Auto-industry: commoditization of personal transport
Banking: global commerce and exchange need intermediary
(BitCoin can change that)
Telecom: commoditization of communication
Google: commoditization of search & explosion of content (new
channel) + advertising
Apple: consumer electronics and PC + convergence of
hw+sw+mobile
Microsoft: commoditization of personal computing
Zappos: using new channel for customer-service in segment
Amazon: commoditization of ecommerce + development and
optimization of workflows
PayPal: easy online payments
Facebook: personal (social) network commoditization + big data
Skype: commoditization of global voice communication
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17. What’s next?
Internet of things (hyper-connected devices / programs)
Mass-commoditization of consumer goods based on tech (new
materials, processes)
Automation and scalability of manufacturing processes (3d
printing)
New business processes
New marketing processes
New sales processes
Consumers AND businesses have a variety of options
Innovate or differentiate!
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18. What’s driving the
change?
Standardization of IPv6, providing vastly more IP addresses
The mainstreaming of cloud and “fog” computing (fog
computing is Cisco’s phrase for smart things, distributed widely,
reaching up to the cloud)
Pervasive collaboration of people and professionals via
technology
The explosion of apps for everything
The trend of app developers to push intelligence from the app
layer to the network layer, or the cloud
Growing big data and analytics
Ever-increasing network capacity at higher speeds and ever-
cheaper rates
The consumerization of enriched experiences with things
Nanotechnology
Explosion of communication touchpoints!!!
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19. 16

20. Multiplication of
touchpoints
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21. So how to do startup
marketing?
1. Develop your personas
2. Develop your traction channels
3. APPLY FINDINGS TO YOUR PRODUCT (marketing-driven
product development)!
4. Scale
5. Rinse & Repeat
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22. Personas
Never skip this step!
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23. Traction channels
Viral Marketing
Public Relations (PR)
Unconventional PR
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Social and Display Ads
Offline Ads
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Content Marketing
Email Marketing
Engineering as Marketing
Target Market Blogs
Business Development (BD)
Sales
Affiliate Programs
Existing Platforms
Trade Shows
Offline Events
Speaking Engagements
Community Building
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24. Bullseye Framework
● 3 channels
● 5 channels
● 11 channels
Test, rinse, repeat
Scale channel
Move to the next after channel is saturated
CPA (cost per acquisition) or CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) vs
LTV (customer lifetime value)
Marginal CPA
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25. Follow these non
bullet-proof steps
1. Have an idea of product / problem you solve
2. Develop personas (who will use this product)
3. Develop user stories / use cases / how to interact (MOST
IMPORTANT)
4. Find feature set (remove features)
5. Know their affinity, where to market to them, how to
market to them (research your channels), how to scale
sales+marketing, how big is the market (SECOND MOST
IMPORTANT)
6. Develop canvas
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26. Follow these non
bullet-proof steps
1. Develop brand strategy
2. Build product (Embed Marketing & Sales processes INTO
your product)
3. Launch
4. Optimize (basic optimization) of your funnels
5. Acquisition
6. Activation
7. Retention
8. Revenue
9. Referral
10.A/B test (and never stop)
11.Scale
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27. Funnels will help you
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28. Scale your channels
Learn when to scale (only after product / customer development)
Scale only after additional unit sold is costing less in CAC.
If CAC grows with each unit > optimize
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31. What metrics?
Retention!
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32. Growth Hacking
Bullshit overhyped word for:
Finding the customer sweet-spot and low CAC (and low
marginal CAC) in non-saturated acquisition channels
Using “network effect” in hyper-connected world with 3C
(constantly-connected consumer)
Use technology / engineering to fuel new ways of customer
acquisition
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33. What if something goes
wrong?
Step 1: Pivot (business model, channels, pricing)
Success?
Yes - good for you
No - give up (or pivot again, but chances are you made a wrong
turn somewhere)
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34. The Holy Grail of
Marketing
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35. Goal of online
marketing
Define and implement online marketing strategy
● Aligned with overall marketing strategy
● Brand
● Message
● Goals, KPIs, Targets
Drive traffic
● Owned
● Inbound (earned)
● Outbound (paid)
Drive leads / sales
● Conversion
● Scoring
● Nurturing
● Analyze, track, improve
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36. Online marketing
strategy
● Mission
● Vision
● Branding
● Value Proposition (Company)
● Communication framework
● Market conditions (SWOT, PEST)
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37. Online marketing
strategy
Product
● Product / market fit
● Value proposition
● USP
● Key Selling Points
● Cross-sells & Upsells
● Pricing
Acquisition channels
● Owned (website, mailing lists, other properties &
audiences)
● Earned (SEO, Social, Content, Word of mouth, Reviews,
Referrals)
● Paid (PPC, Display, Production, SEO, Remarketing)
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38. Online marketing
strategy
Lead/Sale-generation & Funnels
● Conversion Rate Optimization
● Landing page optimization
● A/B testing
Retention
● Action / non-action driven!
● Loyalty program
● Customer support
● Over-deliver
Analytics Framework
● Main goal: calculate CAC & LTV per channel
● Include costs from all marketing and sales activities
● Use cohort analysis to fuel growth and scalability
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39. Analytics Framework
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50. In a nutshell
● Product market fit
● Know your audience (personas)
● Build scalable sales & marketing process
● Know your funnels
● Build EVP product
● Focus on retention more than acquisition or revenue (if you
can)
● Test everything (Conversion Rate Optimization)
● Invest in your Brand
● Track smart things - not vanity metrics
● Measure inbound vs outbound channels
● (Don’t) ask customers what they want
● KISS (Keep it simple stupid!)
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51. Thanks!
Any questions?