Dirk Schart I Startups, Technology, Marketing

Here's how you find the Beachhead Market in 3 Steps with simple Frameworks

183:754825793 (Dirk Schart) — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 12:03:04 GMT

What I learned in startup marketing is that many startups spend a lot of their time on demand generation and funnel building. I mean, this is good--but only if you understand your market. This is mainly a one-off thing, a task that has to be check-marked, done.

According to a CB Insights analysis of 101 startup s the number 1 reason for startup failure is "No market need". If you do not know the market, you do not know the need and do not build the right product - or do not recognize that the need cannot (yet) be solved scalably.

I have learned to appreciate the importance of market engineering for positioning, branding and lead generation. My experience from products such as Mobility marketplaces using AI and Blockchain for Hyperloop or Enterprise Work Solutions with AR and Machine Learning at RE'FLEKT teaches that market segmentation is not a one-off task.

Step 1: Brainstorm market opportunities

The biggest "hurdle" is that market research sounds so big. Where to start, how to do it. I want to show two frameworks that help startups to segment the markets and define the beachhead market: Bill Aulet's market segmentation approach from the "Disciplined Entrepreneurship Framework" and the "Market Opportunity Navigator" from Sharon Tal and Marc Gruber.

The first step is to find as many market opportunities as possible without making any restrictions. Some markets may not be obvious or seem strange. The list of market opportunities should contain more than 30 ideas. For example, if you build training software, you might first think of the verticals (consumer goods, manufacturing, tourism, etc.) and focus on trainers and trainees. There are also other target groups such as personal trainers, business coaches, training companies and instructors. The message is: avoid a "tunnel vision".

While Bill Aulet's market segmentation begins with a simple list in the first step, the "Market Opportunity Set" from the Navigator can also be used to collect ideas and add them to the virtual basket (download links and PDF versions are at the end of the article).

In addition to collecting market opportunities, it is important to get information and data from potential customers and buyers early on. When we started to work on MobilityOS at Hyperloop, we had at least as many question marks after a very short time and a large number of opportunities.

In addition to questionnaires and interviews, we used Strategyzer's Test Cards to test our hypotheses. Lean Startup master Steve Blank describes this as an essential part of the customer discovery, and after using the cards over and over again, I can only agree with that.

Step 2: Narrow the market

In the second step, you select between 5 and ten markets from the opportunities that are small enough but sufficiently large, the end users are clearly defined and there are sufficient application possibilities.

Bill Aulet has a helpful list of criteria for evaluating the selection in a structured manner:

Industry
Application
End-user
Benefits
Lead Customers
Market
Characteristics
Partners/Players
Size of Market
Competition
Platform
Complementary Assets required

With this matrix, different applications and markets can be placed side by side. It becomes clear where there is overlap and possibly different markets can be served with the same application. Identify these "intersections" of markets which you can leverage easily without additional effort (or product features).

Tal's and Gruber's "Market Opportunity Navigator" framework creates an attractiveness map in the next step. A specially used evaluation card makes it easier to select the opportunities. You can build your own matrix from both frameworks that fits your own needs and is scaleable for the next market check.

The result is then 5 to 10 market opportunities with possible applications and end-users. Bill Aulet's matrix requires a deeper research, while the evaluation card leads to the goal faster at first glance. Although I prefer simplicity, I recommend keeping Aulet's list in mind and gathering sufficient information.

Step 3: Define the Beachhead Market

Geoffrey Moore describes a bowling alley, where the beachhead market is the lead pin, and dominating the beachhead market knocks down the lead pin, which crashes into other pins that represent different market opportunities or applications to sell to the customer in your beachhead market.

Choose a market from the 5 to 10 opportunities defined in the previous step and segment this further. The three conditions that Geoffrey Moore describes in his book "Inside the Tornado" serve as a guide:

The customers within the market all buy similar products.
The customers within the market have a similar sales cycle and expect products to provide value in similar ways.
There is “word of mouth” between customers in the market, meaning they can serve as compelling and high-value references for each other in making purchases.

From my own experience I know how difficult it is to define the Beachhead Market right away. Many startups fall victim to the FOMO principle (fear of missing out) and end up with a broad market instead of focus. In the third step, both frameworks have the right help for the beachhead.

Bill Aulet defined seven questions with which the beachhead can be found. The questions can also be used in the previous step to narrow the market:

The Market Opportunity Navigator uses a focus dartboard to define the immediate beachhead market and the other segments. The visualization of the dartboard is helpful. When it comes to choosing a beachhead, Bill Aulet's questions are of great help, especially for startups. The Market Opportunity Navigator can also be used for startups as well as for companies and can be customized to fit the needs.

Now you are prepared to do a detailed market segmentation and define the Bachhead. This is the prerequisite for working on the positioning, messaging and of course on the product.

Here are the links and downloads:

Key Take-Aways

Collect a minimum of 30 market opportunities (the more, the better)
Avoid the "tunnel vision" in the first step
Invest significant time in market research
Use hypothesis, cards and interviews to collect data
Select 5 to 10 opportunities by using a matrix
Check where you find similar market requirements and end-users
Keep the bowling pin in mind when you define your beachhead market
Market segmentation is a continuous process--not a one-time check

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around how to build and market technology products.

Dirk Schart is CMO and President of the Augmented Reality startup RE’FLEKT. His focus is on B2B enterprise software and SaaS models with early-stage technologies like AR, AI, IoT—from market engineering to thought leadership and go-to-market. Dirk is a startup mentor at the German Accelerator in the Silicon Valley and author of two books about Augmented Reality.

Tech Markets: Urgency Will Change Today’s AR Vision into Tomorrow’s AR Reality

Sun, 17 May 2020 15:13:00 GMT

Covid-19 as catalyst for Remote Work and On-demand Access to Knowledge

New technologies often follow a common course, starting with initial hype followed by a longer phase of sideways movement, then finally a breakthrough. We see this development in technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Blockchain. Still, many startups that build products in new markets wonder why adoption isn’t as fast as expected.

AR is a good example of this. I’ve been working with AR and VR for 10 years during which I’ve seen the ups and downs and shifting success factors. Researched in the 1970s, and anticipated through the new millennium, it still doesn’t pass the toothbrush test: “Will people will use at least once a day, and will it make their lives better?”

Even though there are numerous use cases that demonstrate how AR makes life and work easier, daily use is still lacking. The added value is evident, but adoption was still slow. Why is that?

Adoption = Value + Urgency

If you look at AR in the enterprise sector and compare it with Geoffrey Moore's "Crossing the Chasm construct , it is easy to see that the market is in the middle of the chasm. AR has already left the early adopters and is freeing itself more and more from the ranks of the innovation labs. The first scalable platforms and roll-outs at large companies have begun, and adoption is slowly but surely increasing.

For startups, this means a moving target because the buyers have different demands – from innovation labs to larger enterprise rollouts. As pragmatic buyers, companies expect a mature software solution that meets the requirements for security, integration and scalability. These factors join value urgency and user experience as crucial components. While users in labs are already experimenting, pragmatic buyers expect an easy-to-use and “turnkey” application.

Before the coronavirus crisis, the lack of urgency was one of the reasons why AR didn't get off the mark. Change cannot be achieved gradually, and the pain was obviously not big enough to replace existing tools, even though the problems were known (difficult to understand instructions for complex tasks, wasted time searching for information, unnecessary travel costs for experts, etc.).

Urgency is a Catalyst for Change

An MIT study about embracing digital technology reports that 63% of surveyed managers said the pace of technological change in their workplaces is too slow, primarily due to a “lack of urgency”. Employees need to understand why the new technology is an improvement from what they had before. We could see the latter in some use cases, but it was not enough to achieve the necessary urgency and establish AR on the market. From my previous experience with emerging technologies, the value has to be even more obvious and sometimes external effects are needed - especially if the new technology requires a major change.

“From one day to the next, our world--and thus the way we learn and work–has changed completely.

Travel and access restrictions have led to rethinking and thus created the missing element: urgency.”

From one day to the next, our world - and thus the way we learn and work - has changed completely. Travel and access restrictions have led to rethinking and thus created the missing element: urgency. Companies can no longer fulfill service contracts, in-person trainings can no longer take place, on-site sales demos and events are canceled. And the solution: remote work and support. Instead of "in-person", we experience a shift to "on-demand." Mary Meeker describes in her report “Our new World” how this principle will apply in the long term to key enterprise segments like training and healthcare.

The Rise of Remote

Remote collaboration tools were in the sights of companies from one day to the next, and we see enormous growth, particularly in the case of conferencing tools. The best example is Zoom. According to Business of Apps , Zoom had 10M meeting participants in December 2019, exploding to around 300M in April 2020. Monthly Active Users (MAU) rose from 10.7M to around 13M in the same period. A much smaller increase, where the actual conversion is still pending because many users only get to know what the new normal means.

Google Trends indicates a smaller impact for the term “Augmented Reality,” while "Remote Support" shows much stronger relevance. However, it’s important to keep in mind that “remote support” includes AR solutions as well as traditional video calls. In our own data at RE’FLEKT, we see an increase in the MAU of about 300% for remote support tools across all industries. In some cases, the peak increase is 600%. The increased number of requests as well as the growing user base was confirmed by my sources at other AR startups and vendors.

A key finding is that many users currently do not differentiate between classic conferencing tools and AR support. Both categories use video calls but solve different problems. Even if the Google Trends do not yet make a significant statement about the medium-term development, it’s clear that the market will differentiate and thus create new fields for AR in which startups can move. Remote AR 4.0 will be able to focus more on the new problems in companies and users than before.

What does it tell us?

1. AR will benefit more from the urgency in 2020 than VR

AR is addressing the broader market compared to VR. Even though Smart Glasses and VR headsets have the capacity to solve current Covid-19 challenges (depending on bottlenecks in manufacturing), it is phones and tablets that are immediately ready for instant use. Existing devices do not have to be bought or approved. In addition to Covid-19 as a change driver, there is an existing and broad mobile market as a basis for technology adoption.

2. Remote AR will become the catalyst for all spatial computing fields

Remote AR can empower far flung workers with the live and on demand support of colleagues, making everyone an instant expert by placeshifting knowledge. Although it is still early for a meaningful trend, there’s a growing number of active users in the past four weeks. While Remote tools are hot during Covid-19, the entire AR and VR market reveals new use cases and gives new meaning to existing ones (e.g. the long-explained advantage of AR in training and operating complex devices such as ventilators in hospitals). This can lead to increased acceptance of further areas of application of AR and VR and to present the long-awaited killer app (even if I personally do not find the term suitable).

3. Fast track adoption needs user experience to survive

Urgency is the trigger for faster adoption of emerging technologies, but without easy operation and a good user experience, growth is quickly over. Zoom is the best example of this–it just works. Although there have been some problems in the past few weeks, the users are convinced of the simplicity and stability. Zoom leaves Microsoft miles behind with Skype and teams. Exactly that was one of the obstacles with AR and also with VR because the technology was mostly in the foreground.

4. Higher education level will force startups to build products for the market

In 2020, we will see users learning more about their own requirements for AR and VR (software and hardware). They will know exactly what they need. The feedback collected so far is mostly unstructured and not meaningful due to the too small user base. Startups have to use the phase during Covid-19 in order to better understand where AR / VR can be used today and tomorrow and to develop the right products. Covid-19 not only brings spatial computing to urgency but also to a growing market (not in 2020). This will make it easier to go into specific use cases instead of getting stuck in endless trial phases. Remote support has a much lower level of explanation than other AR and VR applications.

5. Reverse effect from the enterprise sector into consumer market

Anyone who uses AR at work will soon no longer want to connect or set up a router or IKEA shelf without AR. We often see the opposite picture: early adopters find new technologies and innovations that carry it into the business sector. This has not worked for AR and VR so far because the entry was too complex, the hardware is still too expensive and individual highlights such as Pokémon Go or the Oculus Quest could not change a complete market– what Apple will do . In the business sector, many users experience how practical remote support is while Covid-19. The behavioral change comes from the business sector and will have a significant impact on the consumer market.

“Augmented Reality will become as normal as eating three meals a day”

Tim Cook, 2016 ( Source )

To stick with Tim Cook's quote, we are still setting the table. Today we are at the first course (Remote AR). The missing ingredients for the main course are brought, and by 2021 we will have the full pleasure before the dessert is served. Tim will play an important role as one of the main chefs - not only to build hardware and ecosystems, but above all to take the previously hesitant investors on the trip.

Big players have the potential to change markets and push technologies. Apple completely turned the mobile age upside down in 2007, Microsoft shaped the way we work on computers. It is precisely in these times that there are great opportunities for startups. Salesforce changed the market for CRM software and paved the way for the cloud in the late 1990s while the internet bubble was in full swing. And Zoom, yes, the startup folks that make video calls easy have made Skype almost forgotten.

When I started my AR journey ten years ago, smartphones weren't built for the technology, users didn't know what we were talking about (but were enthusiastic). Since then, we have made a big leap and as a startup, we have mastered many of the challenges that a new market brings with it. Startups that develop products with new technologies face their own problems that they have to solve. The next two years will be decisive for AR and VR. AR seems to be finding its place in the "Augmented Workplace." How exactly? We will find out in the coming months.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around how to build and market emerging technology.

How to Navigate a Startup with Marketing and Communication through a Crisis

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 10:46:39 GMT

Image Credit: Loti Media

We are in a global crisis situation that presents us with many challenges—in the personal as well as in the professional environment. As startup people and founders, we are practically used to challenges and difficult situations. We look for failures and patterns and adapt our best practices to always improve the product and startup.

With Covid, there is no blueprint for the current situation—we do not have a playbook that we can simply pull out of a drawer. The plan which we can simply adjust briefly does not (yet) exist.

At RE'FLEKT, we are currently confronted with new developments every day. Home office, shelter-in-place orders, customers who can no longer travel or urgently need technicians on site to repair machines, new customer inquiries about how our products can be used in new situations.

The job for all marketing and communications leaders is to observe every day what the mood is like, play through possible scenarios and be in close contact with customers, partners and the own team.

1) Check the situation and monitor the markets

It is currently important to reassess the situation every day. To do this, you have to be very close to customers and markets. Which sectors are still optimistic or essential in the crisis (medical, healthcare, delivery services), which are shutting down their production or are in major difficulties (tourism, airlines, automobile)? Which geographic markets have which needs?

Google Trends allows a good overview of the search queries that provide insights into current needs and moods. For example, remote tools and desks (for home offices) are popular inquiries and products. Ask your customers and partners directly how they assess the situation. This gives a quick insight into the market and enables forecasts of further business developments.

Google Trends Covid Page

Seeking Alpha Market Insights

Crunchbase Business Information

2) Focus on targeted and personal communication

Instead of mass emails and campaigns (which are becoming less important anyway), startups should focus on targeted communication. Less communication but as personal as possible allows it to be on the pulse of customers and partners.

Direct emails or a personal call help to promote communication in the crisis. Please do not forget that many people are currently unsettled and sometimes alone in the home office for longer periods. Many are worried about their own future, their job or their family. No school, children at home, all this creates a lot of emotional tension.

Show empathy in communication and keep the focus on people. A great example is Arne Sorenson, CEO of the Marriott Group:

3) Brand Value and Education first approach

Brand messaging and positioning as well as product marketing change in the crisis. The value of your brand plays an important role while traditional product marketing with the typical "Buy" button as well as "Get 10% off if you ..." feels off right now. Rather, an education mindset comes first, in which companies get the feeling that they are finding a partner who helps in the current situation.

Thought leadership is recommended (which it should always be) so that companies gain the necessary trust in the solutions of the startup. And for media—that currently need information about important topics—it is easier to find experts on the topic and to interview founders.

Offer media support and actively approache individual journalists. Twitter is the perfect channel for this, but Quora or media-specific portals such as HARO also offer contact options.

4) What is the value your customer needs now?

Every startup solves a problem. And startups are good at quickly recognizing opportunities and acting accordingly.

How can your product help in the current situation? Anyone who listen to the markets and the needs of customers as mentioned above will find new opportunities in the crisis. What can be done differently with the product even though it was perhaps not designed for it?

We develop products that use augmented reality to make it easier to repair machines and equipment without the need for on-site technicians. In the meantime, we have received many inquiries about remote collaboration with China and other areas of application that we had not previously focused on.

Many initiatives are springing up that offer a marketplace under the motto "Startups vs. Corona Virus" which bring together the problems of companies and the solutions of startups. The problem/solution approach fits the crisis situation much better than presenting your own products every day as a campaign push on social media.

5) Find new ways for events and trade shows

What to do if there are no personal meetings, events and trade fairs? How and where can startups inform customers about news and updates? It will probably take at least until the second year before we can experience events and workshops again.

Video meetings are the logical alternative and work very well if you follow a few rules. Instead of all-day workshops, 3 to 4 hours of slots can be arranged—with sufficient breaks and active moderation.

We considered setting up a "Virtual Booth"—a small version of a stand with banners and furniture, so that it looks more like a live atmosphere than just the face in the video.

6) Communicate with your teams

So far we have spoken about the external target groups but please do not forget your own teams. Everything I have described about the insecurity of people with our customers and partners naturally also applies to our own employees.

Leadership and communication are required here to help employees in this unprecedented time. The CEO and founder must update employees every week. Video calls, update emails and direct 101 check-ins are extremely important, while no personal meetings are possible. A Ask-us-Anything format via Zoom/Skype/Teams or in Slack is a good alternative.

7) Keep your investors in the loop

In addition to revenue and expenses, the funding topic is particularly relevant for startups. Crunchbase currently sees no negative effects on funding. However, investors can be expected to be more hesitant in the coming weeks—at least as long as the short-term and mid-term effects are unclear.

Investors, like customers and partners, expect regular communication on revenue and cash levels as well as on the measures that are being initiated. This should not be one-way communication, but investors should share the feedback of their investments from different markets and promote a "Lean & Share" culture among their startups.

Adjustments to communication, business plan and funding strategy can be discussed together. In the current crisis not only the behavior of startups with regard to marketing, PR, sales funnels is changing, but also the role of investors as crisis advisers.

8) Think in scenarios

In startups, plans can get outdated very quickly and in the current situation probably before the ink is dry. The crisis leads us to the basics: hypotheses and scenarios. So instead of just building a plan, it is advisable to run through different scenarios.

What kind of communication do we do when the greatest impact lasts until June? How do we change the strategy if it lasts until the end of the year? How do we deal with event planning for 2020? What budget is free due to canceled shows and how do we invest it? How can we support our customers when bottlenecks occur?

A matrix with questions as a basis helps to form hypotheses to build scenarios with checkpoints and makes it easier to make critical decisions.

9) What startups should focus on

Build a market monitoring for daily/weekly checks
Understand what your customers need
Communicate less but targeted and personal
Provide education for your customers instead of selling-as-usual
Show the value of you brand and build trust
Keep your investors informed and request active support
Create a scenario matrix with hypothesis

Overall, be transparent, avoid hectic communication, and concentrate on the important issues. Everything that is not existential in the first half of the year plays a subordinate role.

Finally, three interesting articles. The first shows the assessment of three travel startups, probably the most affected business field in the crisis. The second article is a detailed look at marketing in uncertain times—current and worth reading. In the third article, Phil Venables shares his thoughts on selling in a crisis.

Three Travel Startups responding to the Coronavirus crisis

Marketing and Growth Lessons for Uncertain Times

Selling into a Crisis

"Make the world a better place" is an inflationary saying in the startup world. Now, it is up to us to focus on what is important, be better people and let it happen.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around how to build and market technology products.

5 Reasons Why Silicon Valley’s ‘Learn & Share’ Mindset Makes a Difference

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 10:34:16 GMT

How can you get access to almost unlimited knowledge?

Why is it essential to meet founders who have done it before?

What is that mindset thing everyone is talking about in the Valley?

In this article, I will share my experiences about the ‘Learn & Share’ mindset and why it is beneficial to build a business and bring early-stage tech products to the market—with examples from meetings with founders, advisors, and investors.

Here’s my background. I am the Chief Marketing Officer and President of REFLEKT Inc., the US entity of the Munich-founded tech startup simplifying industrial maintenance, operations and training with Augmented Reality. I started building our US business out of Sunnyvale in the Bay Area and turned it from zero to a recognized player within one year. In that year, I had the chance to learn from founders and advisors who have built several startups and who understand what it means to fail and learn. These meetings motivated me to share what I have learned and why I believe there is no better place to learn so much in such a short time.

How can you learn in the Silicon Valley?

One way is to start watching HBO’s Silicon Valley series. Seriously! This way, you don’t even need to come here. Frankly spoken, what Richard & Co. showed in the six seasons about the tech industry is not that far away from reality. If you do make it to the Valley, though, I highly recommend you to book a tour where you get an express ride through one of the big accelerators. Every day at Plug & Play , I see massive groups walking through the building where we have our office. Plug & Play is the biggest accelerator with over 50,000 visitors from 15 different countries per year during the tours and events. Once you see the companies and startups involved, you realize that you don‘t even need to leave your office to build a massive network.

The ‘where’ you can learn is one thing. The ‘how’ and ‘why’ you can learn is the fascinating part for me. What is often separates The Valley from other places is the growth mindset. But, the mindset alone doesn’t make a place special—that’s true. There’s much more than the obvious phrase: in the Valley you rather get a “Yes” instead of a “No” when you come up with a crazy idea – which is something I like to do. Here are my three reasons why this area is so interesting and why you can learn faster and more (about the startup and tech world):

1. A very high number of founders, advisors, VCs involved in tech and startups,

2. All accessible within 50 miles between San Francisco and Santa Cruz,

3. People are eager to share their experiences, learnings, and failures.

How to get access to unlimited resources

1. Get a place where you can network and find your customers

You must connect to customers/buyers, other founders, advisors, or investors, and therefore you must choose the right office space. Well, office space doesn‘t necessarily mean the same as it does for other cities or regions. Since most of the meetings I have are at coffee hotspots or our office terrace, I barely see a conference room because people want to meet in a more collaborative environment.

Office spaces are more the place where you network and meet people during events. You can either book a place like WeWork, where you will meet a bunch of other startups, or something like Plug & Play (PnP) or the German Accelerator (GA). While WeWork is a super cool office space with access to a lot of perks, places like PnP and GA are accelerators where experienced serial founders, mentors, and investors go in and out all the time. The chance to meet interesting people and connect with them is much higher than in normal office spaces.

If you choose the right space, you not only have access to a huge network, but you have the chance to get in contact with potential customers and startup people. And yes, you can meet your customers at Starbucks and even give some live demos there and test your product too ��

2. Leave the office and meet people

All startup founders and teams know that it is essential to go out and meet customers and partners. Between San Francisco and San Jose, you will find endless possibilities to connect to networks in different fields and industries. I also quickly discovered that in the Bay Area there are many more B2B contacts than you would expect.

The obvious sources for finding good networking opportunities are Meetup groups or the accelerator and co-working spaces event calendars. Plug & Play has events every Friday, The Vaul t in San Francisco has smaller events several times a week, and the German Accelerator has the well-known demo day ‘Captivate’ at Hana House in Palo Alto.

My favorite source for a lot of events is Gary’s Guide — a bi-weekly newsletter with events and announcements in the Bay Area. If you are interested in a variety of topics from go-to-market to Intellectual Property and finance, the events from Access Silicon Valley organized by Roger Rappaport are also great. Another great source where I have met some exceptional speakers from very successful startups is the Growth Marketing Speaker series from Skipcard founder Javid Jamae. You can even sign up for a monthly event subscription with Brunchwork where you can meet startup people talking about different topics.

And there are even more events that are simply not listed anywhere because they are ‘Invite Only’. It will take you some time, but the more people you meet the easier it’ll be to get invited and involved.

3. Don‘t be shy! Ask for failures and learnings

Now, let’s get to the important stuff! How can you get access to knowledge and experience?

I actually know both sides—the startup side in my current role as CMO and President as well as the advisor side. From my experience on both sides, I have quickly learned that every startup is different. You will soon learn that every founding team makes mistakes and that these failures are the most significant times to learn. Most people don't like to talk about their failures—and this is the most noticeable difference between The Valley and anywhere else...talking about failures is absolutely normal.

It is hard to describe, but when I am talking to people who have done that journey several times, there is always a learning, different perspective, feedback, or an idea. Our startup RE’FLEKT is in the (European) market since 2012, and we started the US operations beginning of 2019. New market and new challenges—this means you have to be open-minded and question your strategy permanently. When I look back at some of the conversations I had with one of my mentors, Tom Rice, he’d always give me feedback with little stories from other startups he had advised. Tom was one of our mentors during our time in the German Accelerator program in 2017, and he is still one of the people I respect most. From the first day when I started the US adventure, Tom helped me to make the right decisions. From strategy to business models, from the right verticals to the sales strategy. I am always leaving our meetings with the feeling that I have a better understanding to make a decision—whether my ideas were good or maybe not that great.

An excellent example of how you can learn and get feedback is my connection with Mickey Alon, CTO of Gainsight PX. I met Mickey at one of the Skipcard events I mentioned earlier. He was one of the speakers talking about growth strategies. Mickey founded several companies and was with Marketo before the marketing automation software sold to Adobe for 4 billion US-Dollars. In the following weeks, we have met to chat about market opportunities and defining new markets (especially since I didn’t want to use these hyped AR projections anymore). Mickey shared his view on how to use different approaches to define new markets with a focus on growing sectors. In the European enterprise verticals, we focused a lot on cost-cutting, saving money and time. In contrast, Mickey focused more on the industries willing to grow, defining differentiators, and improving customer satisfaction. Don't miss his slides about "Product-led Growth" !

4. Learn in the land of marketing and sales

If you want to understand how to market and sell products in the US and how vastly different this is to Europe—just listen to some radio advertisements. There is always a clear focus on customer needs, experience, and satisfaction. "Why does it matter? What’s in for me?" are always in focus. Storytelling is key. Customer experience is a must-have.

Companies like Salesforce and Oracle, who changed entire industries, were successful because they had great products at launch in combination with incredibly good marketing—thanks to founders and CEOs who understood the value and importance of both. So, forget these posts about startups with great products not needing marketing…it is a myth.

When we came up with our vision of building the Operating System for Enterprise AR, we had discussions and concerns about whether this idea is big or too big or even a stupid idea. Around this time, I read the book “Traversing the Traction Gap” , and was lucky enough to meet the author, Bruce Cleveland, to challenge our thoughts. Bruce is a very experienced VC at Wildcat and held several leading roles at Apple, Oracle, and Siebel Systems. I feel privileged to have had the chance to pitch our vision, and I was interested in Bruce’s opinions—mainly because showing a big vision in Europe and in The Valley are two different things. Bruce‘s focus was on building thought leadership and becoming an expert in your space. This is exactly how we built RE‘FLEKT when we first started - by becoming experts for the Augmented Workspace. The conversation with Bruce helped me a lot to connect the dots but also to show the value of thought leadership and market engineering to our teams.

There are many more people I can mention here. Thanks to the great events from Roger Rappaport, I met with John Rizzo, who helped numerous startups with their go-to-market strategies. It took me a while to go through all my notes and John‘s slides (which are worth their own article), but in the end, I could structure our go-to-market much better. My key learning was how to size the product to get the first customers, in our case, for our new US location. In early-stage tech, managers don’t decide to sign 100K deals quickly before knowing whether a new tech is sustainable or just another gadget—and for tech companies, renewals are more important than the deal size.

Another part of my role is to make sure we have visibility, get awareness in our key verticals and create the right content to reach that. And if you‘re a small team, it is almost impossible to follow up on everything you need to do. My sessions with Kevin Indig ( get his fresh ideas ) who holds the role of a VP for SEO and Content at G2 after he built up the SEO activities for Atlassian, let me understand what‘s going on. Kevin and I met through the German Accelerator and meanwhile we are quite connected. I still remember our first session, where, in his uniquely polite way, he discovered a bunch of things to improve. He taught us the right mix between content and SEO activities and is still advising our team. These essential relationships are genuinely unique. Where else but The Valley can you and your team learn from people who have seen many other startups succeeding or failing?

5. Don‘t reinvent—keep your eyes open and learn from what you see

I could (and probably will) write an entire article about how you can learn from the history of Silicon Valley. But first, I would like to share a couple of thoughts on how I use the learnings from existing Valley companies - and this is even something you can do without being here in the Bay Area.

One of my US team members once asked me if I had seen the Oracle offices, as I lived close to the Redwood City HQ when I first started. For me, Oracle was a dinosaur—old and boring. I went to Redwood Shores and saw these buildings shaped like classic databases with a lake in front—and of course, Larry Ellison's America’s Cup sailing boat docked in the middle. I started reading more about how Larry built the company and could see many parallels between our early AR market and the completely new market of relational databases at the time.

I started searching for more examples, and there are many in the Valley you can learn from. Salesforce is probably one of the best role models for changing an entire industry. Marc Benioff, in his own right is an inspiring leader aware of the potential of marketing, branding, and PR. This showed me that sometimes you have to believe in your ideas and push them, even before you have managed to convince everybody else...as not everyone can see the same in a vision.

Food for Thought

Whenever I need inspiration, I spend time at the Computer History Museum . If you ever come to the Valley, I highly recommend a visit. It is such a unique place that shows you not only how it all started, but many of the things that simply disappeared. Every time I visit, I find a lot of learnings in how others built successful companies and products as well as through the scrutinization of the many disappearing acts.

Or, if you want to get networking straight away, Steve Blank has a great Visitor’s Guide listing places where you can find the people. Now, enough said, go and leave your office to meet your future network and customers.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around how to build and market technology products.

10 Podcast Episodes for 2020 Full of Startup Learnings

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 14:10:50 GMT

I always need fresh input — whether it is from books, articles or podcasts. Especially others sharing their learning (and failures) is a great source to grow. Instead of sharing my favorite podcast series, I want to recommend specific episodes which helped me and which I listen to over and over again.

For me, an interesting episode is a lot more than just receiving interesting information. What makes the difference is the people in the podcast. That’s why I don’t have too many sources but love podcasts from Danny Fortson, Reid Hoffmann, Jason Lemkin and Andreessen Horowitz (especially the ones from Sonal Chokshi, and with founders like David Ulevitch).

1. David Ulevitch (OpenDNS & a16z): What Time Is It? From Technical to Product to Sales CEO

Since the startup (and founder) journey doesn’t go neatly linear from technical to product to sales, tightening one knob (whether engineering or marketing or pricing & packaging) creates slack in one of the other knobs, which demands turning to yet another knob. So how do you know what knob to focus on and when? How do you build the right team for the right play and at the right time?

It all depends on “What time is it”: where are you on the journey, and where do you want to go. In this episode, David Ulevitch (in conversation with Sonal Chokshi) shares hard-earned lessons on these top-of-mind questions for founders; as well as advice on other tricky topics, such as pricing and packaging, balancing between product visionary vs. product manager, how to manage your own time (and psychology!) as your company grows, and more. Much of this is based on his own up-and-down, inside-outside, big-small-big-small, long journey as CEO (and CTO) for the company he co-founded, OpenDNS.

2. Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber): How pirates become the navy

Early-stage startups are a lot like pirate ships — they need a buccaneering spirit to survive. But every startup needs to shed its pirate nature at some point, and evolve into something more akin to a navy — no less heroic, but more disciplined. Dara Khosrowshahi, as Uber CEO, took on the most extreme pirate-to-navy transition in startup history. Though Uber blitzscaled to become the most valuable startup in the world, it was also notorious for its toxic culture — and Dara turned the company around. His method? Truth-telling and doing the right thing.

3. Michael Birch (Bebo) & Danny Fortson (Sunday Times): The Bebo Billions

Michael and Xochi Birch launched Bebo, one of the first social networks. They sold it at the height of the market for $850 million to AOL Time Warner. Two years later, AOL sold it again — for $1. In a two-part podcast, we tell the Bebo story: its extraordinary rise, the fall, and how the Birches made away with the GDP of a small nation.

4. Nick Mehta (Gainsight): Founder Struggles from Imposter Syndrome to Vulnerabilites

SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta to discuss what it means to be a SaaS leader. What are the day-to-day struggles? The fears and the worries and what it means to be “crushing it” today.

5. Ben Horowitz (A16Z): “Jeff Bezos should be more like Genghis Khan”

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, to talk about company culture, the Amazon example, what’s wrong with new Uber, Uber’s old culture, Silicon Valley’s moment, how culture can be a company-killer, on whether capitalism is changing, why there aren’t more outsiders in venture capital, seeing what you don’t have, how lack of diversity creates product problems, and seeing culture early.

6. Don Erwin (Mixmax): The Secrets to Managing a Successful Sales Team

How do you manage a sales team when you’re at a company with both Free and Freemium Sales-Driven Segments? What about SMB vs. Enterprise Sales? SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin sits down with Mixmax’s Head of Revenue Don Erwin to discuss it all.

7. Christopher Lochhead (Play Bigger): Category Creation is the Strategy

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses why category creation is the new growth strategy for legendary marketing. Great companies do not focus on incremental growth, rather, they focus on being exponentially different. These leading companies introduce people to new businesses and provide them with new ways of doing things.

Lochhead cites different big enterprises as well as small enterprises as an example. Huge companies now started as small when they changed our way of thinking. Companies such as AirBNB, Google, Amazon, Palo Alto Networks, Cisco and Salesforce not only created great products⁠ — they created a good company and a great category.

8. Bob Tinker (MobileIron): Finding Go-to-Market Fit in the Enterprise

In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Bob Tinker, author of the book Survival to Thrival and founding CEO of MobileIron, and a16z general partner Peter Levine, talk with Hanne Tidnam all about how to find the right go-to-market fit for the enterprise startup. How do founders avoid that moment of reckoning after product-market fit, but before growth? When should an enterprise startup accelerate sales investments? — the “Goldilocks problem” (not too early, not too late!) — and pick the right sales team and go-to-market model for their product and their customers? And if you’re stuck in that moment where growth stalls, what are the right tools to get out of it? What are the important metrics to know both where you are, and when you’re out of the woods?

9. Mark Mader (Smartsheet): Staying Accountable and Scaling a High Growth SaaS Company

Learn how Mark Mader grew Smartsheet from a six-employee startup to a publicly traded company with over 1000 employees serving 82,000 customers. How did Mark and his team convince investors and customers that Smartsheet was solving for what spreadsheets don’t do well? Why did Smartsheet host their first customer conference just three years ago? What did Mark look for in new board members heading into Smartsheet’s IPO? Get the answers to these questions and more in this episode.

10. Dirk Schart (RE’FLEKT): Building the AR Operating System for Enterprise

In this episode, Alan Smithson and myself are talking about early-stage markets, my experiences from building trust in the enterprise sector and realizing a vision to make a difference in the AR market.

Most businesses have the information and infrastructures they need to be more efficient and competitive — it’s just a matter of having it all at their fingertips. RE’FLEKT is working at making that process easier by creating a modular, scalable, open-source operating system for businesses to build their own in-house AR applications on top of. President and CMO Dirk Schart drops in to explain how.

Enjoy listening! I hope you take as much from these episodes as I did.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around startups, tech, marketing and growth. On our blog you can find more about what we do at RE’FLEKT .

From Consumer to Enterprise: How Apple will Change AR Technology

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 17:00:23 GMT

These days, most of the news around Augmented Reality are about Apple and its new ARKit — a development tool to place digital objects into real scenery and display it on iPhones and iPads. Still in its beta version, ARKit has started a second wave of public awareness for AR after the most successful mobile game in history: Pokémon Go. With the consumer market now finally entering the AR world, it is little known that the enterprise sector has already been using the new technology for many years — often in stealth mode with prototypes and proof of concepts as internal apps. This is about to change completely. In this article, I want to share some thoughts about how “consumer first” announcements like the ARKit influence the enterprise business.

You may think that apps like Pokémon Go and all the examples developed by nerds around the globe with the ARKit don’t have anything to do with the business sector. The same applies to Snap’s Spectacles — AR glasses that look like hipster sunglasses — or Pokémon Go, another mobile game with some hype for AR. Believe it or not: you’ll see all of this repeated in some form or another in the enterprise sector.

I’m not talking about single use-case scenarios, I’m talking about how the tools from Apple as well as the AR activities from Facebook, Google and Snap inspire us to rethink the use of AR. These are the opportunities that make better enterprise applications and adapt the technology to the user — instead of educating the user to adapt to the technology.

ARKit brings Augmented Reality to millions of users and developers

Mapping our world with the smartphone camera and using tracking methods, like SLAM, to place virtual objects into real scenery — in a nutshell… this is exactly what the ARKit does. The more realistic the objects look, the better they merge with the real environment. Once our brain perceives the virtual content like physical objects we reach the full potential of an augmented or extended reality. Therefore the size of the objects has to fit to the environment and the objects have to react to different light conditions — just to mention two important factors.

One of Apple’s first applications on iOS is in development with IKEA. It allows IKEA app users place furniture and accessories straight out of the catalogue directly into your living room using Augmented Reality. Apple’s camera and software technology supports what I described before: it identifies the room size and light conditions to scale the furniture to the right size and texture. Imagine this for planning stores, supermarkets, hotels and real estate. This powerful software is giving almost anyone the possibility to create AR applications and will have a huge impact: from September on — with the release of iOS 11 — there will be millions of new AR users and developers building apps.

In the first step, we’ll see a bunch of different apps. Once the developers understand the way AR works and what the possibilities are, there will be more and more daily-use applications. It was the same with the first mobile apps — it took some time to reach the full potential. We will be able to create better and more natural user interfaces and get closer to the point where we use AR in daily business.

Instead of simply placing furniture in our living room, we will be able to visualize operational knowledge in the real work environment. What would you say if I told you that there is no difference between Pokémon Go and a maintenance application for a technician? Both applications embed digital objects or information in the real world.

Image credits: RE'FLEKT/Leybold, Pokémon Go

Yes, for enterprise AR you will need more precise object recognition and model-based tracking, but sometimes simple is also better. Showing instructions, tasks and information on real products and parts is something we already do, but with the awareness through Apple’s ARKit and the fact that many people will get in touch with AR in private areas, they want to have it for their work. Another example you can compare with are smartphones. When I bought my first iPhone in 2007, at work we were still using Motorola or Nokia mobiles. I saw the potential of using the iPhone at work and tried everything to integrate it.

“Consumer First” will bring AR to daily use

Another huge advantage for Apple as they have their own ecosystem that encourages users to integrate the latest Apple products. This is important to consider when looking at the enterprise sector. The industry always requires an integration of content tools that fit to their existing infrastructure and can re-use current data. New systems that don’t work with the old will simply never be considered. As mentioned at the beginning of the article: it’s not so much about single use cases, it’s about the impact of Apple & Co. on Enterprise AR with consumer releases and products. Here are the five reasons why I see the impact from Apple & Co. at a glance:

Apple brings AR to millions of users on existing iPhones and iPads
The new iPhone 8 will enable more AR functionalities with 3D sensors
The ARKit enables millions of developers to create apps for iOS users
AR will be affordable in terms of hardware and content creation
Enterprises will understand the possibilities of AR through new apps

Today, we’re thinking about how we can use AR, in ten years we’ll find it difficult to imagine how we could ever lived without it — like with the iPhone. This is the real change that we see now with the ARKit. In the last five years I have seen the development of Augmented Reality with my work at RE’FLEKT and now with ARKit — and not to forget the Hololens — it is the first time that we can see the daily use of AR coming closer. Also Facebook, Google, Snap and other consumer tech will have a strong impact on the enterprise market. I will cover things like Facebook’s camera effects platform and Google Lens in separate posts.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around startups, technology, marketing and growth. On our AR blog you can find more about what we do at RE’FLEKT. Feel free to reach out via email with feedback or questions.

How Augmented Reality Drives the Internet of Things

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 19:44:25 GMT

It is a pretty familiar scene, that of the classic morning routine of the future. A person wakes up, gets out of bed, and walks over to their window. As they gaze out at their city skyline, a hologram hovering somewhere in the sky informs them of the weather. Other floating projections display the morning news, their itinerary for the day, and whatever else may be relevant to that person at that time.

After updating themselves sufficiently, they head over to their closet and virtually try on a few different outfits in a matter of seconds, finally settling on one they are happy with. As they continue to prepare for the day, all the mundane necessities which humans previously had to do manually now operate automatically, leaving the person more time to do something of importance before they embark out the door.

Anyone who has seen more than a few science fiction movies can attest to the frequency in which a scene such as this starts off a film, setting the tone for the viewer that this is a world far more advanced than our own. And while the average person might still believe this type of world only exists in some far off future, those in the tech industry know we are far closer than most would imagine. In fact, as the powerful concept of the Internet of Things continues to establish itself as the definitive topic of discussion and enquiry among the tech world, we may very well be on the cusp of such a world becoming a reality.

IOT CARS AND SELFIE FRIDGES

The Internet of Things is an idea which is quite simple in its essence, but extremely complicated when one delves into the details. The main idea of IoT is this: eventually, every physical object in our world which exhibits any sort of variation or movement will be connected to the Internet. This will allow physical objects to transmit and receive information, permitting their normal affairs and maintenance to run automatically. This in turn would increase the efficiency and reduce the time needed, cost, and errors of virtually every occurrence and event in our modern world. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?New Paragraph

For those that are still confused, imagine a highway where every car on the road is digitally communicating with every other car, constantly updating their current location to ensure that there is never a single accident. Elon Musk's Tesla is following that approach with the so called <a href="https://blogmitcnc.org/2014/08/21/the-tesla-iot-car-case-study/">IoT car</a>. Or imagine a refrigerator that knows when it is out of lunchmeat and automatically notifies a grocery delivery service that it will need more by noon the next day. Industry giant Bosch made the first step in their Home Connect program with a refrigerator that takes selfies of its contents. In the next step that will be combined with an Augmented Reality app.

CONNECTED WORLD

These are just a couple of everyday scenarios illustrating the unlimited potential of a worldwide connection between the physical universe and the Internet. And while they undoubtedly sound futuristic, the numbers show that our world is irreversibly heading in the direction of connection. Last year alone, an estimated $698.6 billion dollars was spent by businesses on the Internet of Things. By 2019, this number is expected to reach upwards of $1.3 trillion. According to Cisco’s Trend Report , the amount of connected devices exceeded the amount of connected people in the year 2008. Currently the number of connected devices stands at around 13.4 billion, and is expected to reach somewhere between 30 and 50 billion by the year 2020. These numbers are outstanding, and although 87% of consumers still haven’t heard the term Internet of Things yet, they represent a growing tidal wave in the business world which will certainly crash into major markets once circumstances and timing permit.

Considering forecasts, such as GE’s, which predicted the rising presence of connected machines in industry will add as much as 15 trillion dollars to the global GDP over the next 20 years, it is no surprise many businesses are fervently adapting their business models to be harmonious with the Internet of Things. This convergence of machines, data, and analytics is being dubbed the fourth Industrial Revolution, or “Industry 4.0”, and every major Internet company from IBM and Cisco to Google and Microsoft are competing to be the main provider of the platform which makes this convergence possible. The positive effects for businesses constantly connected to their products, customers and manufacturing hardware are quite apparent, including benefits such as increased operational efficiency, faster decision making, better customer relationships, and a larger potential for correspondence between different parts of the company. Ultimately, all these benefits culminate into a “smarter” industry in which every aspect of the supply chain operates with a greater sense of ease and efficiency.

BECOMING "IOT READY"

There are essentially four different elements of the IoT process which companies must incorporate into their infrastructure to truly achieve the status of an “Industry 4.0” company.

1. Implementation of “connectedness” capabilities

This is done by implanting sensors, processors, or any other technologies which allow data to be exchanged between the product and its environment. In support of their IoT platform, Bosch Software Innovations advertises that in 2013 they shipped out more than one billion of their MEMS sensors which are designed with this type of information exchange in mind. Bosch also has the upper-hand in this area since they are already a leading manufacturer of electronic products.

2. Cloud computing and platform systems

Cloud systems can store the flow of data and allow for the oversight of the products themselves as well as any applications a company might sell or utilize. In this area, Amazon’s IoT Amazon Web Services platform dominates with cloud capabilities and services which are quoted as being “many times the aggregate size of all other providers in the market.” Our partner Microsoft offers their Universal Windows Platform which allows developing apps cross-device for smartphones, tablets and smart glasses like the HoloLens as well as for the Internet of Things.

3. Structure and analyze the collected data

This is a huge make-it-or-break-it point for an IoT platform since the technology serving this function needs to ensure that not even a speck of data in the sea of information made available goes to waste. Additionally, the technology should be capable of actively making decisions based on its analytics. IBM has attached their artificial intelligence supercomputer, "Watson", to the front of their IoT platform for precisely this reason, "Watson" is also famously known for winning the popular TV trivia show Jeopardy. Nonetheless, usage of AI supercomputers emphasize the fact that by utilizing the network of information within a platform makes it possible to be actively increase a machine's output to the fullest extent.

THE FOURTH ELEMENT: AUGMENTED REALITY

Now, the fourth and final aspect of this process is arguably the key to bringing IoT from the level of a specialized function into a full on industrial transformation of total connectivity. This aspect is the visualization in real-time of all the data which the Internet of Things will have to offer, and the most obvious candidate to make this visualization occur at the level of scalability which industry requires is none other than Augmented Reality.

Some may ask: If the data can be cognitively analyzed by machines, why is it so important that humans are able to visualize it? The answer here is simple. Ultimately, the whole point of the Internet of Things and the technology which goes into making it a reality is to unlock the full capabilities of human potential. The reason virtually every major tech company is becoming so invested in bringing the idea of IoT to life, and the reason why Augmented Reality is so often brought up alongside this concept, is because they understand the unlimited possibilities it will bring to human existence.

Companies need an ecosystem to integrate Augmented Reality into the Internet of Things. Together with our Industry partner Bosch Automotive Service Solutions we made our content authoring platform REFLEKT ONE "IoT Ready". Whether it comes to the visualization of contextual information or showing live data on machines, cars or any other objects, the platform allows to seamless connectivity to existing infrastructures.

With AR, information will be digitally attached to the physical world, waiting for us to access and use it to further develop our goals and ambitions without ever having to turn our attention away from what it is we wish to do. This will allow for uninterrupted workflows, making processes which previously required a constant shift in attention much more natural and intuitive - thus giving us more time to enjoy life.

And while industry is certainly the first branch of society which is beginning to understand the fundamental importance of what this new development in information processing offers, it will not be long before every other aspect of society catches on as well. It is only a matter of time. Even though very little about this field is still to be set in stone, the knowledge that it could change all of our lives certainly has been. And for now, that knowledge is all Augmented Reality experts such as us require to continue to create and innovate in this revolutionary field, steadfastly propelling us all into the future.

Follow me on LinkedIn or Twitter where I share my thoughts around startups, technology, marketing and growth. On our AR blog you can find more about what we do at RE’FLEKT . Feel free to reach out via email with feedback or questions.