🤩 Keys to Finding & Retaining Customers...

Hi there,

From managing the most extreme startup unknows to taking on giant competitors, innovating inside your product line to creating loyal customers, we’re here to add value at every stage of your innovation journey:

1. Startup Phase

2. Growth Phase

3. Scale/Sale Phase

Agile Means Staying Adaptable & Fluid

Product discovery isn’t a one-time deal; in this interview, Polish Agile Lead Jakub Dobosz explains that building Agile from the get-go means 1) validating and defining the problem, 2) defining the offer of a product that can solve that problem, and then you might 3) begin to take action on building out the offer, first with an MVP and then iterating gradually, but then always 4) continuing product discovery (getting user feedback). This means, as a founder, you should always be prepared for things to change – sometimes as drastically as 180 degrees.

Proceed or Pivot? Founder’s 72 Hour Deadline

Steve Blanks dropped some incredible proceed-pivot-restart advice in this interview, including that a pivot is a substantial business model change. For example, discovering that 1) your market is different than assumed or 2) your revenue model needs to change. But then he has a golden rule for founders: Once you discover a potential need to pivot, you’re not allowed to execute it for 72 hours. Take 3 days to digest, and talk to your people and advisors before your final decision. Why? Pivots can destabilise, and done too frequently, derail your whole process.

Should You Hire Generalists or Specialists?

We recently looked at how both play a vital role in tech teams, but what about when you’re partnering with a co-founder or making your first hire? One school of thought says you want specialists in domains that complement you. But many experienced founders say having generalists as your first hires could be more useful in the early days when you don’t have all your roles filled yet and need a flexible team that can pitch in and help. Here are some interesting insights from author David Epstein.

Are you in the start phase? Have questions? Hit reply and let us know how we can help.

Getting Your Marketing to Resonate

How do you beat competitors with deeper marketing pockets? Retail marketing guru Ryan Holiday says a small/new company’s advantage is emotive connection and controversy: focus on topics that elicit 1) high-charge emotions like surprise, humour and anger and 2) don’t play it too safe, some of the best marketing isn’t approved by a “committee” but raw and authentic, which means you’ll make mistakes and be controversial, but also more memorable. 

Punching Above Your Weight Class

Corporates have all the stability and deep pockets, but startups are nimble and driven. That’s primarily why new companies have the potential to upset big players. But it doesn’t happen that often, so when it does, we take note. This month, top-selling business author TJ Strydom releases Capitec: Stalking Giants, the story of how the founders took a small startup and turned it into one of SA’s Big 5 banks.

Innovating Within Your Product Line

Need help determining where to take your product next? Harvard’s Clayton Christensen describes in this video how user interviews don’t always lead to product developments that drive more sales. Instead, they 1) stop thinking of the product as goods and 2) try to determine the role (job) the product performs in a customer’s life, as well as 3) where and when specifically the customer needs the “job” done. Then, instead of focusing on improving the product, they 4) brainstorm around how to do the “job” better, and 5) use those insights to inform product innovation.

Need help growing faster? Maybe it's augmenting your team, or perhaps coffee with one of our growth experts — either way, hit reply and let’s find your solution.

Creating Offshore Entities from SA

Whether to tap into an international market or move for an overseas exit, creating a business entity overseas (offshoring) has benefits and restrictions – legal, tax and exchange control regulations. At the bottom of this newsletter, Jacques Stemmet of Dommisse Attorneys Inc. suggests you get guidance on 1) how to structure an overseas company and 2) where you set up – it’s not just about grants or tax breaks but about using the right jurisdictions that benefit your investments and can help you grow.

Advanced Customer Retention Strategies

As businesses age, churn happens. That’s when habit-forming products expert Nir Eyal suggests you get back to the basic psychologies of why people bought in the first place: 1) Talk to the psychological (not practical) need that your product fills, 2) reduce the friction (if it can’t be cheaper, can it be simpler or more fun to use?), 3) show them that others keep using the product (memetic desire), 4) introduce variable rewards to generate surprise and excitement and 5) introduce something that makes using your product over time more (not less) rewarding.

Prepping Quicket for International Sale

In July this year, US ticketing giant Ticketmaster acquired SA’s Quicket for an undisclosed sum – another exit for VC firm Knife Capital. As it happens, we were the team that did the product audit before the sale. Want a more detailed look at what we did to improve Quicket’s design and user experience? See the detailed process in our portfolio here.

Want to scale faster? We have people that are comfortable with the discomfort of the scale phase. Hit reply and let us know how we can augment your team.

Have your say…

Hit reply if you think we’ve hit or missed the mark, tell us what you’d like to see or hear more of and, just in general, what would really add value to your journey…

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