Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.

…is bullshit.

It’s more like: Build a better mousetrap… and then blog and create videos about it and hope that the Mousetrap Store features it … and just maybe the world will beat a path to your door.

tap tap tap ~ Camera+ second month sales: The Sophomore Software Slump? (via rafer)

Haha, I had to laugh at this, but only because it’s both funny and true.

See, the world is only willing to reward innovation if they know about it and if they get a sense that the masses will do the same. People (in the context of society / groups) are on average followers and will only follow trends; so it’s incredibly hard to influence this behaviour in a group, which will in turn prompt them to “beat a path to your door”.

marketing
strategy
1 year ago 13 notescomments

Re-Investment

In this post Fred Wilson goes on to explain that a company should first scale & gather traction on seed funding before it goes after venture round funding. Whilst WooThemes has never taken any outside funding (we’ve bootstrapped from the beginning), Fred’s post did make me think twice about when it’s a good idea to re-invest earnings into a company.

So with WooThemes, we’ve been steadily gained traction and grown our revenues & user base since we started out, without having to really re-invest those revenues (in one significant decision) back into the business. Instead we have been very lucky in that we have a very cash flow positive business and we are thus able to cover all immediate expenditures (capital included) from those revenues.

But similarly to Squarespace (who just announced their first outside funding of $38.5m in 7 years), I can see merit in re-investing funds in a rapid growth campaign / strategy.

I think when things are going well and a business is growing steadily, it is easy to start applying revenues to optimize a business just enough to fuel that steady growth rate. But if you’re keen to ramp things up quickly & significantly, then a significant re-investment in that strategy is probably required.

Even whilst writing this post though, I’m personally at odds about how I see this strategy, as I’ve never been the kind of entrepreneur that simply wanted to throw money at something; much less a growth strategy. Instead I believe in organic growth, innovation, great ideas & clever marketing solutions.

What do you think?

strategy
vc
investment
1 year ago 3 notescomments
The real key is Apple’s ability to stick to this simple strategy with unwavering dedication.

Jason L. Baptiste, explains why he thinks Apple has been as successful as they have been.

Deciding on a strategy (irrespective of the complexity) is extremely hard. Sticking to it with “unwavering dedication” is even harder - especially when the going gets tough.

See, in the good times, it’s pretty easy to sit back and be content with one’s existing strategy, because there’s no reason to re-think the decisions you’ve made in the past and the direction you’re evolving in now. But when the shit hits the fan, it becomes much more difficult and second guessing becomes second nature.

I believe real entrepreneurs stick to their guns, but only long enough to realize that they need a bigger gun. If things aren’t working out, then eventually you need to wave that extreme dedication goodbye and pick a new challenge.

strategy
apple
business
1 year ago 3 notescomments

Solving Problems the WooThemes Way

I was a guest on the WordPress Community Podcast last night and had a lot of fun with the show’s hosts, Joost de Valk & Frederick Townes.

We discussed a lot of the strategies & “policies” that we have implemented with WooThemes; especially with regards to customer service, creating loyal & evangelistic users, as well as our development cycles & processes around that.

Definitely worth a listen if you have 40-odd minutes to spare.

wordpress
woothemes
strategy
customers
1 year ago 1 notecomments

Ignore The Competition

I always keep tabs on what the “competition” is doing, as I need to make sure that my business innovate & grow in the right direction. So me keeping tabs here is more a way of watching out for potential trends that may develop and if takes a competitor to make me aware of that, then so be it.

Beyond that, I’m generally pretty keen to simply ignore the competition altogether.

strategy
rockstar business
1 year ago 2 notescomments

I’ve made a decision to stick to what I know best, as well as sticking to those people I know best.

This may sound a little random, but it’s pretty unique in relation to how I see us growing The Rockstar Foundation & turning it into a self-sustaining organization. So who & what I currently know is the tech startup scene that I’ve been working in (via WooThemes) for the last couple of years and I’ve got some great ideas in terms of using those connections and leveraging the startup principles that I’ve learned with the Foundation. Can you say The Startup Charity?

rsf
startup
strategy
1 year ago comments
Apple wants developers to do things the iPhone and iPad Way because they believe it will result in a better user experience and better designed apps. That’s an aesthetic, design-centered argument about how touch apps should be done.

The Progress of the Platform (via nikf)

I’d say this is a tad arrogant from Steve Jobs & co, but it makes total sense and should lead to a continuous awesome experience on Apple devices in future (which is one of the main things that sets it apart from competing products). I can also say that if I happened to be in this position, I’d do the same thing…

strategy
2 years ago 3 notescomments

No Space for Complacency

One thing that I’ve learned over and over again of late is that there is absolutely no space for compromise & complacency when dealing with customers. These are the people that makes your business a success and they ensure that you are able to pay the bills; so never - ever - stop short of pulling out all the stops to please your customers!

marketing
strategy
inspiration
2 years ago 3 notescomments
I also couldn’t be happier with the path we’ve taken with developing Dribbble: a slow one. Building the community one member at time. Worrying about details. Iterating constantly. Listening to feedback. We’ve never been in a rush.

Dan Cederholm, in his (official) introduction of Dribbble to the public world.

Having been a beta tester at Dribbble for the last couple of months, I’ve been very impressed by what Dan & Rich have built and the above paragraph illustrates perfectly (in my opinion anyway) why Dribbble has been such a success.

business model
strategy
inspiration
2 years ago 2 notescomments
Building a story for your app also gives you something to get the media and public interested in before the product launch. If you wait until after the product launch, it’s much harder to generate buzz. Look at the example that Apple sets.

Craig Hockenberry, principal at Iconfactory, gives some great advice on app marketing, approval, and design. (via davidkaneda)

This is exactly the same approach we follow at WooThemes and whilst we try to keep teasers / teasing / hyping to a minimum, I can definitely vouch for the fact that our conversions and the conversations are much better and more valuable from before.

So if you’re not doing this already; you can definitely give this strategy a go! :)

marketing
strategy
inspiration
2 years ago 11 notescomments
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