Startups fail because the dog won't eat the dogfood. Not because they can't make the dogfood, or price the dogfood, or even sell the dogfood. They fail because - having solved all those problems - the dog doesn't want to eat it. So how can you approach Marketing in way that evolves your "dogfood" in the direction your "dog" wants? And having done so, how do you get the other dogs in the neighborhood interested? 6-time startup veteran and brand guru Mike Troiano (@miketrap) for an exploration of the marketing challenges unique to venture-funded startups, at the intersections of entrepreneurship and branding, product strategy and communications, new technology and enduring truths.

1. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
startup marketing
JANUARY 13, 2015

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“Marketing is for companies who have
sucky products. If you build something
amazing… people will adopt it because
it is amazing.”
Fred Wilson
Principal, Union Square Ventures

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“Startups fail
because the dog
won’t eat the
dogfood.”
Jeff Schwartz
Principal, Bain Capital Ventures

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depends how you define “marketing.”
and maybe “startup.”
4
does startup marketing matter?

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“A startup is an organization formed to
search for a repeatable and scalable
business model.”
Steve Blank | @sgblank
5

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what
the
market
wants
to
buy.
REALITY
startup marketing
6
what
you
think
you
are
selling.
PERCEPTION

7. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.©2012 @MIKETRAP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
real
business
race
to scale
proven
opportunity
shared
vision
the startup journey
7
SELLING THE DREAM DISCONTINUOUS CHANGE
RIDING THE ROCKETCONVICTION VS. FLEXIBILITY
passionate
hypothesis

8. 8
“If
you
can’t
explain it simply, you
don’t understand it well enough.”
Albert Einstein

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who wants…
“…an intuitive but powerful approach that
allows UML diagramming to be code-
centric instead of model-centric by giving
users an interactive exploratory
visualization platform.”
9

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who wants…
“…a nutrition-based, gluten-free food
company that uses ancient grains to
provide innovative products that are
both convenient and delicious.”
10

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who wants…
“…an innovative, patent pending hand
hygiene solution to help hospitals
improve hand hygiene compliance.”
11

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some people.
12

13. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
who wants…
• maps that make code easier to
understand, work on, and improve.
• ancient food for a better life today.
• clean hands that save lives.
13

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more people.
14

15. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
how people grok your idea
15
*
15
seconds
15
minutes
*

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be flexible early
“mobile
marketing
management”
“mobile
media
management”
20062002
“mobile
messaging
management”
2004

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BUT… you’re betting your livelihood on a value
proposition you believe is significant.
maybe you should write it down.

18. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
elements of positioning
• target – actionable universe of buyers
• segment – key, predisposing attribute
• brand – a name you call yourself
• category – a competitive frame for the buyer
• distinction – what makes you unique
• proof – perceived evidence of truth

19. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
declare your hypothesis
for target who are segment,
brand provides the category with
distinction because of proof.

20. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
made-up examples
• For drivers who value automotive performance,
BMW provides luxury vehicles that deliver joy
through German engineering.
• For people around the world, Coca-Cola is the soft
drink that is the real thing since 1886.
• For industrial manufacturers who are challenged to
differentiate, BASF is the raw materials supplier that
makes products better through engineering depth.

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tell a story that sells
“It’s far easier for us to
remember stories than the
cold hard facts because our
brains make little distinction
between an experience we
are reading about and one
that is actually happening.”
Fast Company
“Why Our Brains Crave Storytelling in Marketing”
June 4, 2014

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23. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Before
23

24. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
the original blurb
“Actifio, the Protection and Availability Storage (PAS)
platform company, pioneered the industry’s first storage
system optimized for managing copies of production data,
eliminating redundant silos of IT infrastructure and data
management applications. By introducing virtualization
into data management, Actifio delivers an application-
centric, SLA-driven solution that decouples the
management of data from storage, network and server
infrastructure and reduces costs by 10X.”
24

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Today
For businesses that depend on
their data, Actifio provides data
management solutions that improve
resiliency, agility, and cloud mobility
by virtualizing copy data.

26. Three
Strategic
IT
Priorities
26COPYRIGHT
©
2014
ACTIFIO
AGILITY
Access
data
when
and
where
you
need
it.
RESILIENCY
Better
data
protection
and
availability.
CLOUD
Enable
transition
to
distributed
IT
infrastructure
model.

27. One
Underlying
Problem
27
AGILITY
CLOUD
RESILIENCY
BINDING
APPLICATION
DATA
TO
SILOED
PHYSICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE
BC/DR
COMPLIANCE
ANAYTICS
DEV
&
TEST
Physical
IT
BACKUP
Virtual
IT
COPYRIGHT
©
2014
ACTIFIO

28. Copy
Data
Virtualization
Virtual
Data
Pipeline™
CAPTURE
Data
at
block
level,
in
native
format,
according
to
your
SLA
GOLDEN
COPY
OF
PRODUCTION
MANAGE
A
physical
copy,
moved
once,
and
stored
anywhere
USE
Unlimited
virtual
copies
for
instant
access
and
protection
DATA
PROTECTION
BUSINESS
CONTINUITY
DATA
MOBILITY
DEV
&
TEST
DATA
INSIGHTS
OTHER
COPYRIGHT
©
2014
ACTIFIO

29. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copy
data
virtualization.
What We Do

30. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
covered so far
• startup marketing is finding the truth
• important to declare your hypothesis
• express it as a simple story
• tell it the same way everywhere
• iterate together toward a big idea

31. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.©2012 @MIKETRAP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
real
business
race
to scale
proven
opportunity
shared
vision
product / market fit
31
SELLING THE DREAM DISCONTINUOUS CHANGE
RIDING THE ROCKETCONVICTION VS. FLEXIBILITY
passionate
hypothesis
✓ ✓

32. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
what is a brand?
• The world’s collective emotional response
• Envelope for your product’s rational benefits
• Emotional value proposition, guides people
toward or away from what you’re selling
• If you think it doesn’t matter, you don’t
understand how people make decisions…
32

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how we decide
• antonio damasio, neuroscientist
• studied seemingly normal people
with a specific type of brain
damage that made them unable
to feel emotions.
• all had something peculiar in
common: they couldn’t make
decisions.
33

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we decide emotionally
34

35. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
emotion comes first…
35
emotional
rational

36. Copyright
©2012
ACTIFIO
Simon Sinek

37. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
What
start with “why”
How
Why“We make great
computers. They’re
beautiful and simple
to use, because we
think different.”
“We think different.
We make products
beautiful and simple
to use. We make
great computers.”
37
Based on the work of Simon Sinek.

38. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
“why” drives outcomes
Samuel Pierpont Langley.
Smithsonian Fellow.
Orville & Wilbur Wright. Bicycle
merchants.
“We will change the
world by enabling man
to fly.”
38

39. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 39
"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people
together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks
and work, but rather teach them to long for the
endless immensity of the sea."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

40. Why
?
COPYRIGHT
©
2014
ACTIFIO
Is
there
an
emotional
value
prop
in
copy
data
virtualization?
40

41. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.Copyright
©2012
ACTIFIO
How customers feel.

42. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
• We can liberate your data from the siloed
infrastructure that keeps you from advancing
your most urgent priorities.
• In the process we will liberate you, from the
excess cost, complexity, and stress of managing
cloud-scale application data on infrastructure
designed for the client-server era.
42

43. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
43
FREEDOM

44. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
COCKTAIL
PITCH
Actifio
is
copy
data
virtualization.
ONE
SIMPLE
THING
Freedom
FUNCTIONAL
BENEFITS
• Protect
your
applica>on
data,
so
you
can
Access
anything
instantly
• Transform
the
economics
of
your
IT
infrastructure,
or
even
your
business
• Manage
all
of
your
application
data
through
a
single,
simple
UI
EMOTIONAL
BENEFITS
• Confidence…
in
your
ability
to
recover
from
problems
quickly
• Independence…
from
vendor
lock-­‐in
driving
complexity
and
storage
spend
• Validation…
of
your
foresight
in
embracing
next
generation
technology
early
STORIES
• Data
is
the
lifeblood
of
business.
Infrastructure
is
just
what
you
use
to
manage
it.
• We
developed
a
radically
simple
approach
to
managing
copy
data
• We
capture
data
from
production,
manage
it
efficiently,
and
let
you
use
it
as
you
like
PROOF
• Recover
multi-­‐terabyte
data
sets
in
seconds,
mounting
directly
to
production
• Actifio
typically
slashes
TCO
by
50%,
and
turns
cash
positive
in
90
days
• Hundreds
of
enterprise
class
and
CSP
customers,
in
22
countries
around
the
world
PERSONALITY
Bold,
Inspiring,
Practical
TAGLINE
Radically
Simple.
44

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Radically
Simple
45

46. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Radically
Simple
46

47. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Copyright
©2012
ACTIFIO
Radically
Simple

48. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Free your data.
Radically Simple

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Virtualize your data.
Free yourself.

50. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
50

51. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
everywhere.
51

52. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
what to take away
• startup marketing is finding the truth
• important to declare your hypothesis
• express it as a simple story
• tell it the same way everywhere
• iterate together toward a big idea
• your brand is your emotional value prop
• lead with it, as soon as you can

53. thank you.
@miketrap

54. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.©2012 @MIKETRAP. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Workshop.
54

55. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
15 Minutes
55
Pair. Pitch. Switch.

56. ©2014 @MIKETRAP, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
elements of positioning
• target – actionable universe of buyers
• segment – key, predisposing attribute
• brand – a name you call yourself
• category – a competitive frame for the buyer
• distinction – what makes you unique
• proof – perceived evidence of truth