By Daylin Mantyka
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Mark Suster, PandoDaily, Jason Cohen and MarketingProfs.
How to configure your startup team
Mark Suster, 2x entrepreneur and current VC, has been known to base 70 per cent of his early investments on the team — in an unpredictable market with competitors, funding requirements or PR disasters for example, only great teams will pull through. Suster posts his slide deck on “How to build out your early team” and summarizes the key findings.
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By Alexandra Reid
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are ReadWriteWeb, Fast Company, Forbes and VentureBeat.
Why you can’t settle for the “minimum” in your minimum viable product
Many startups scramble to create a “minimum viable product,” or MVP, to get a version of their product to market quickly for testing. It’s a great way to cost-effectively test a website or app with real users. But be careful. If your MVP is too minimalist, it could torpedo your company’s future.
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By Jeff Campbell
I recently had a very refreshing day in terms of strategic marketing. I spent several hours with two entrepreneurs in Toronto who are building a great business. It is the way they are going about building the business that is so refreshing to me. It is a well-focused, pragmatic, and calculated strategic campaign to ultimately be the 800 lb. gorilla in a well-defined niche market. I am speaking of Shaun Ricci and Somen Mondal, co-founders of N4 Systems, and their safety and compliance service, Field ID. More about their success and future plans in a moment.
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By Jesse Rodgers
Seeking out customer feedback and using it to build a great product is not a new concept. Great designers have been doing it for a long time as have great companies. The Lean Startup manual (or startup bible to many) talks about involving the customer while developing that minimum viable product (MVP): “The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
Where that generally leads people is straight to building a simple application that might not be sexy in its design but it is functional or a landing page about a new product that might not exist yet. Using Google Analytics and collecting email addresses along with some “conversion” points becomes what you focus on. However, if you forget to actually talk to customers as well you could be wasting a lot of time. Especially when you are moving past your MVP or have a product that people are paying for.
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By Alexandra Reid
We are bringing you our roundup a little earlier than usual this month because we will be celebrating Canada Day early next week when this post would otherwise be published.
We covered a lot of ground this month on our blog, from RIM to training your boss, tribal marketing to productivity tips. We even launched content marketing as a new service offering.
In case you missed any of our posts, here’s a handy roundup:
June 6: Getting the marketing right at an event product launch by Francis Moran and Alexandra Reid
June 14: Putting Ottawa’s puzzle together by Leo Valiquette
June 18: Balancing investment, Minimum Viable Product, and time to market by Peter Hanschke
June 20: Training your new boss by Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
And on a related note…
In addition to our series, our associates and guest bloggers were also busy writing on a great range of topics. Here are our other posts from June, as ranked by the enthusiasm of our readers:
June 4: Why RIM could and should bounce back: Mobile needs to innovate by Jesse Rodgers
June 5: Levering the power of teamwork to drive a successful content marketing program by Alexandra Reid
June 11: The evolution of branding and advertising by Rob Woyzbun
June 26: Ottawa entrepreneur Scott Annan comments on the relaunch of Mercury Grove by Alexandra Reid
June 12: Content marketing tips: SEO implications for rebroadcast articles by Alexandra Reid
June 7: We launch new content marketing service offering by Alexandra Reid
June 19: 10 questions B2B companies should ask before selecting a content marketing service provider by Alexandra Reid
June 27: 7 ways to stay sane and productive by Leo Valiquette
June 21: PR people really are dead and mindless sheep by Francis Moran
June 8: Is it spring time for venture capital in Canada? by Francis Moran
June 13: Product marketing vs. brand marketing: Separate your product or separate your users? by Ken Rosen
June 25: Tribal marketing for ‘Generation Me’ by Bob Bailly
June 28: Why is there a lighthouse on your brochure? by Francis Moran
June 22: Social Media Breakfast Ottawa: Digital measurement and consumer understanding by Alexandra Reid
Image: Michel Z Binden
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Happy holidays
December 24, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
From all of us here at Francis Moran and Associates, happy holidays and the very best for 2014. We will resume our regular blog postings on January 2.
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Planning for the New Year
December 23, 2013 by David French
I was recently sitting at a hotel bar and overheard a circle of businessmen talking at a nearby table. I couldn’t help listening in. What I heard spaced over about an hour was strangely familiar [...]
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Great articles roundup: Social media, content marketing, marketing strategy and startups
December 20, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
It’s Friday, yet again, which means it’s time for our weekly roundup. This one happens to be the last of 2013. Over the week, we’ve read great content from Social Media Explorer, Marketing Sherpa and Startup Professional Musings [...]
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Damn it, Beyoncé: Now all the pundits will say marketing is unnecessary
December 19, 2013 by Francis Moran
It didn’t take long after music megastar Beyoncé dropped her latest release onto Apple iTunes with no advance warning or usual hype-fest for the armchair pundits and marketing deniers to trumpet that marketing was now dead [...]
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Five keys to your presentation success in 2014
December 18, 2013 by Anil Dilawri
The good news – 2013 was a good year for most businesses. The bad news – most business presentations delivered in 2013 still sucked. Whether it’s an investor pitch, an elevator pitch, a customer update, or an important sales presentation, here are five ideas to help make your presentations remarkable in 2014 [...]
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Becoming a more successful you in 2014
December 17, 2013 by Leo Valiquette
It’s that time of year again, when pundits and armchair quarterbacks of every stripe offer up their insights on the year past and their predictions for the year to come. This isn’t one of those posts [...]
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Best of: I’m sick and tired of hearing that Canadians don’t take risks
December 16, 2013 by Francis Moran
This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from December 2011. We welcome your feedback [...]
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Great articles roundup: Social media, Gen Y, communications and entrepreneurship
December 13, 2013 by Daylin Mantyka
It’s officially the end of the working week, which means that it’s time for the Friday roundup where we’ve compiled a short list of the top articles we read and loved [...]
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Twitter
Tweets by @FrancisMoranRecent Comments
Bob Bailly : Your new mode of working means no face to face interaction yet you call yourself empathetic. How can removing yourself from daily human social interactions and possibly understand what makes other people tick. Research from UCLA suggests messages conveyed face to face are understood primarily by reading body language (57%) and tone of voice (35%), and that words convey only 7%. By interacting only through computer based non-video technology is like weightlifting only using your right forearm.
Anna : As a freelancer who spends much of her time on the computer writing, I find that I have a brain which connects empathically to people despite how much time I spend on technology. In fact, I am not happy being immersed daily in what I called 'imposed' social interaction (social interaction brought on by having to interact with co-workers). Such social interaction used to make be egregious, used to make me dislike co-workers, and have a generally negative view on work life. Furthermore, people like me who are generally empathic can 'hide' in our homes and be safe from others while we work; safe from their criticisms and aversions, safe from bullying and harassment. Furthermore, our talents as writers, photographers, or whatever, flourish absolutely under one important condition - freedom. I support moving work to an online domain because I see also how harmful the 9 - 5 is for people; how it drains them, how its endless cacophony of alarm clocks and ringing bells--lunch hours and lunch rooms, forced staff retreats and uncomfortable interactions with bosses--is killing them. I support allowing technology make us more efficient, happier. I support voluntary--not forced--interaction. I support eliminating the workplace altogether and creating NEW modes of working, either from home or through community-based platforms such as outdoor spaces.
5 Ways to Engage With Your Brand Voice - icuc.social : [...] “A strong company voice on social media should emphasize the company’s values, objectives and key differentiators that set it apart from its competitors. These can be expressed in the tone of the communication and the content that is shared with community members and the target audience.The best social media voices are communal, grammatical, dialectical, authentic, original, contextual, relevant, timely, persistent, responsive, helpful, generous and more informal. A company’s social media voice should only be changed if absolutely necessary and should maintain all of these qualities. Any change should be preceded by lots of information explaining the change to community members to ensure they know it is deliberate and that the company isn’t suffering from some form of instability, which jeopardizes relationships.” [@TechAlly, Francis Moran & Associates – via Francis Moran & Associates] [...]