How to market a start-up.

182 182 – How to Market a Start-Up with Ex-Google Manager, Troy Westley

Ever wondered what someone does when they leave Google? And why would you leave Google in the first place? Troy Westley answers both those questions and a whole lot more in this episode of the Small Business Big Marketing show. Troy’s the founder of CareMonkey, an award-winning app that helps schools and other organisations keep track of health and emergency information.

This episode is all about how to market a start-up. Listen in as CareMonkey’s Troy Westley shares the inside tips, tricks, and strategies he used to launch CareMonkey and win awards such as Best Startup Idea 2014. He talks about how to validate your idea before taking the plunge, how to get your business idea in front of the right people, and some surprising (free) marketing tactics you can start using today to grow your business.

In this session of Small Business Big Marketing, you’ll discover:

The importance of validating your idea so you don’t waste money and (more importantly) time on a dud idea
Understanding the life-cycle of a product, and why it matters
How to harness the power of “early adopters” and use them as examples for the rest of the market
Why you should niche down and not try to market to everybody
What Troy has found to be the most costly marketing experiments
How Troy allocates his start-up’s marketing budget (you’ll be suprised by the size of the budget!)
A little-known creative marketing tool Troy’s using to gain free publicity for CareMonkey
The unlikely place that Troy found his business’ co-founder
How to decide on the equity split when taking on a partner
The surprising email tricks Troy uses for connecting with influencers
How to stop people from copying your idea (hint: the value isn’t in the idea itself)
PLUS, my five marketing tips from the Melbourne Comedy Festival!

Episode Timeline

1.00 My 5 marketing take-aways from the Melbourne Comedy Festival
8.15 Introducing former Google Enterprise Sales Manager Troy Westley
14.15 How the idea for CareMonkey came about
17.00 The “jumping off” point for Troy’s new business – how did his family react?
18.45 How to validate your idea with the help of people you know
21.30 The importance of nailing one specific vertical before you target a wider market
25.30 How your messaging gets easier the narrower your target market
29.30 How Troy used lean startup methodology in creating CareMonkey
32.00 CareMonkey’s marketing budget and the most effective channels
36.00 Has Troy ever wondered if he’s doing the right thing?
38.30 How Troy decided on the equity split for him and his partner using an “equity pie”
42.00 Troy’s counter-intuitive email strategies for connecting with influencers
49.30 My top 5 take-aways from this episode