Building Early

Adopters Advocates

The Big Idea

Early adopters have long been entrenched in startup culture. They aren’t enough today. Instead, entrepreneurs need to cultivate early advocates.

First… let’s review the concept of an Early Adopter

Published in

1991

“Still the bible for entrepreneurial

marketing 15 years later

[in 2006]”

Tom Byers, Stanford Technology

Ventures Program

   

The Chasm

The mainstream market doesn’t listen to early adopters

Establish a Beachhead To cross the chasm…  

DELIVER A “Whole Product”

Pass The Elevator Test

Hey buddy… Wanna buy some

software?

What is an early adopter?

I’ll scratch your back. You scratch mine.

Early Adopters Get… •  Attention •  Special pricing •  Amazing support •  Hand-holding •  Custom features •  Show-off status

Entrepreneurs Get… •  Revenue •  Real-world testing •  Use cases •  Product input •  Go-to-market feedback •  Endorsement

Early Adopters Get… •  Attention •  Special pricing •  Amazing support •  Hand-holding •  Custom features •  Show-off status

Entrepreneurs Get… •  Revenue •  Real-world testing •  Use cases •  Product input •  Go-to-market feedback •  Endorsement

Let’s talk about this last one

I’ll scratch your back. You scratch mine.

Early endorsement is much more important today than it was in 1991.

THEN Early adopters validated usefulness

NOW Early advocates validate virality

Ray: You know, it's just occurred to me – we really haven't had a completely successful test of this equipment.

Peter: Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.

Today’s Elevator Test

An Early Advocate is a

Special Kind of Early Adopter

3 Three things that make advocates different from adopters…

Adopters want to be “unique”

Advocates want to be “first”

Adopters want to discover something inherently valuable.

Advocates want to brag about what they discovered.

Adopters like to tinker

Advocates want to show off

The Biggest Difference Is What You AIM For

Adopters validate “good-enough”

Advocates fall in LOVE with “greatness”

Early adopters are great for opinions.

That is why you need to focus on your early advocates.

But they are lousy for growth.

Some Examples

10 Early Adopters

1 was an advocate

9 were not

Enterprise Anti-malware Software

The Test Try different ways of registering people for trials. Analyze by industry.

Found by cold-calling. Didn’t network or share. Adopted, but gave up.

Found through inbound. Shared with internal communities.

Mobile Surveys for Business

“ Data Movement Software

1.  Web / mobile developers 2.  Cloud service providers 3.  Real-time analytics 4.  Data warehouses 5.  Application performance monitoring 6.  Telecom provisioning 7.  Node.js developers

The Test

Here’s our idea. Would you like to learn more – and can you bring a colleague?

Data Warehouses

The key takeaway

Get Early Advocates. They Love You And

Let Everyone know.

Growth. Hacked.

Thank You! Brian  Gladstein  @explorics  

bg@explorics.com