How Do You Reach Customers?

The Startup Help Desk

In this episode we answer questions about how to get your product in the hands of customers, also known as distribution! We answer questions including:

• Should you build an audience or product first?
• What are the secrets to cold outreach?
• What are channel partners and should you use them?

All of these questions were submitted by listeners just like you. You can submit questions for us to answer on our website https://www.thestartuphelpdesk.com/ or on Twitter @thestartuphd - we'd love to hear from you!
Episode Notes
Reminder: this is not legal advice or investment advice.
Q1: Should you build an audience or product first?
We heard differing opinions on this one!
One take: either works, as it really depends on the team’s existing talents.
You can generate long wait lists and strong demand by working on the audience first. An example of this might be making a great video for a Kickstarter campaign and generating a community from that interest.
Alternatively, if you’re building in a crowded market or your product UX will be a major differentiator, it can make sense to build first then launch with an innovative product that generates interest. A good example here would be launching a new kind of CRM on Product Hunt.

Another take: the biggest risk you face as an entrepreneur is building something that nobody wants. It is more important to prove demand first. Thus, build an audience first.
To do so:

• Find a problem that you are uniquely positioned to solve.
• Start talking to folks to learn if there is a market for solving this problem.
• This will result in you building an audience naturally.
• Then, once you have proof that there is demand for a solution, start testing a solution.

Q2: What are the secrets to cold outreach?
Best practices include:

• Find your target audience in places where they are already spending their time. You have to understand where their attention already is and attach yourself to that. If you can’t be sure, just use your best guess.
• Make sure you’re reaching out to the right person. No matter how good your outreach, if the recipient can’t act on it immediately, nothing is going to happen.
• Focus on the impact you can have for them, not what your product does. People buy value not tools.
• Do it manually first before introducing any automation.
• Leverage proof in your messaging: testimonials and examples of success with your solution.
• Create urgency (explain an up-coming milestone that you would like them to be part of).

Even the best cold outreach has extremely low conversion rates. Anything above 1% is amazing.
Q3: What are channel partners and should you use them?
Channel partners are great AFTER you’ve established your business. They work best if you have customers coming to you that you don’t want to support yourself.
However, channel partners come with plenty of challenges:

• Their effectiveness varies significantly from one industry to the next.
• They may come with a really high tax that stops you building a big business - e.g. Apple app store and their 30%. You can’t build a public company handing over that kind of revenue share. And anyone with great distribution opportunities will make you pay.
• They won’t bring you new customers until you’re quite large.
• They are a lot of work to maintain, so you will need to have dedicated people to train and help them.

In the early days of your startup, it is much less likely that a channel partner will be effective. The main benefit may be the perceived prestige from working with a known brand in your industry.