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
Resources and Links Mentioned in this Episode
- CareMonkey – electronic medical, emergency, and permission forms for schools
- Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
- MeetUp.com
- Slicing Pie equity calculator
- Melbourne Comedy Festival
- Netregistry answers your marketing questions for free
- The Small Business Big Marketing online community
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Over to you!
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