Techstars- finding the right customer and leveraging your network

T.A. McCann – create something great

Lessons learned…

Microsoft

Soft Labour

Polaris

Jump2go

Gist

Vulcan

MOD Systems

HelpShare

#Fail!

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#WIN!

VS.

Vision, Visualize, Plan, Operate

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Our next big idea…

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A valuable target customer

• Business professional• Places high value of relationships (>8/10)• Has significant % of relationships outside

company• Uses technology to gain information advantage• Trained to pay monthly service fees

– Blackberry/iPhone– Salesforce.com– LinkedIn Pro– Zoom Info/Hoovers

• Roles include (execs, sales, recruiter, biz dev, VC, PR, journalists, lawyers…)

• Influencer of others on small teams• Often fits in GTD category as well• Technical, early but not bleeding edge adopter

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• The facets of your customer – who are they from every angle

• Survey Monkey can help you think, capture and scale

• Spend your currency (alpha, beta, connections…) to get valuable feedback

• Reward the people who engage with social currency

• FOG (friends of Gist) – every Wednesday night for 18 months

Kevin Spidel

Managing DirectorPatriot Strategieshttp://patriotstrategies.comWashington, DC, USA5300 contacts, 1279 companies

"I am the Managing Director of an international PR firm and am very active on the social web. Gist allows me to cut through the noise and manage my contacts directly. I am able to monitor what matters... the relationship."

Gist user since 11/03/09 – has invited 34 users

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Coverage

“Gist works with Outlook and other email programs to keep users updated on news about contacts through social-network sites.”

- Wall Street Journal, Updating Office on the Cheap, Nick Wingfield

“Gist already has a strong following among sales types because its algorithms can surface important contacts and flag folks they should be in touch with.”

- ZDNet Between the Lines, The business-to-business of Gist, Larry Dignan

“..we expect sales personnel to flock to Gist, since the output provides a much richer portrait of contacts and companies than could be gleaned otherwise…supplying users with a ready excuse to stay in touch with customers and prospects.””

- Gartner Group, Cool Vendors in the High Performance Workplace, 2009, Matt Cain

“Gist, which we’ve already dubbed the power networker’s fantasy service for syncing social media data with email connections, has just launched their free iPhone app to tackle that challenge head on.”

- Mashable, Gist Launches iPhone App for Power Networking On the Go

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Marketing

• Find your connected, core user – engage early, often and deeply

• Listen to the influencers (reference, repost, re-use, retweet)

• Create your own compelling story (personal, product, plan)

• Surf the buzzword waves (e.g. “social CRM”)

• Be the brand

• Read– Seth Godin– Clay Shirky– Chris Brogan

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Find your influencers and connectors…

The social maven(Robert Scoble)

The “new” analyst(Brent Leary)

The passionate user(Eric Standlee)

Listen to the conversation

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How Gist Works…

Profiles – everything I need in one place

Profiles – everything I need in one place

Inside Outlook – integrated with my workflow

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Inside Gmail…

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Mobile – smart, relevant information, on the go

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Set big goals

Leverage your professional network

Get connected to real customers

Listen and learn

Fail fast and iterate on product AND customers

Persist

Go make something great.