Meeting Nico <-> Georgi 28/10/23
A post or just the strategy itself? It's been a while, I'm currently working with Bash and we are very early stage so there's usually just no data to go about it. I think we do use JA4 just to kind of like see where our traffic comes from but there isn't really, like it's not like I go in, pull a sheet, do some SQL queries and get some dashboarding out of it. So I think last time I did it in that much depth was Rock Days, probably around this time last year when we did Black Friday. So we used to have like a quite dense kind of like backend data reporting so we would know who each user is, how they would behave on the platform and then we would segment them based on geographical locations, activity, team size and all that stuff and then change messaging depending on like what their team structure looked like. In the sense of, like could you further elaborate on that? I think early stage not as much, just because of the lack of bandwidth I'd say. I'm owner of the whole funnel plus post signup whereas I feel like if it's a bigger team it's more specialized so probably not as much like into the funnel itself. We do have the points set up to a certain extent and I think with Bash we've definitely taken a more analytical stance with it like we use post hoc right now which kind of like some of the usual behaviors on the platform for the signups but that's most of it. I don't think we do like extensive reporting on funnel and then connect that to the marketing campaigns as of now. I think the marketing team is currently just me. So it's also, it's bootstrapped low budget where it kind of ends up being more of a time investment than returns you get out of it. I think like back in the rock days for example I was very much focused on SEO so then I would say if my role were to be full-time SEO then yes it would be relevant because I have more of a focus on that but now because I'm stretched so thin I'm like by the time I've done the analytics the data might be outdated already. Maybe I think it's a mix of things. One data expires too fast just because it's early stage like a lot of the activities are very short turnaround so like the response from it is like in a short time frame. So then doing extensive analytics kind of feels like an overkill for it. Like it's kind of like did you get users from it? That's like the one metric you're doing but it's not an extensive funnel like someone who might be selling enterprise SaaS would have where there's like 50 different touch points in that customer point until they become a paying customer. Is your main focus PPC like paid ads? I feel like it's got quite a sales approach to it. I feel like a company needs their proper documentation for this to work. Recommendation for me being early stage is be careful with a lot of the early stage companies because their data and link tends to be a mess. Have you spoken with Virtuagym? I know they're like Amsterdam based and they have a very big enterprise SaaS CRM system. I used to work there like five years ago but one they're Amsterdam based so you can just drop into their office if you want to speak with someone there and there's still a scale up I think. So in case you haven't spoken with them, I know they have a heavy sales focus and I know they work. They don't use Hotspot, they use Salesforce. I'm not sure if you're going to, if you integrate that but you're assuming that it's like one of the top priority ones that you want to add. Maybe we'll give you more relevance if you're looking for like early stage users or get some feedback from someone who is actually dealing with a funnel this complex. I think I'm usually just one, our products, the purchasing price is too low for this to be relevant. I think if you have a bigger SaaS product where clients are paying 100 to like 500 bucks a month or like annual plans where they go over like 10k then something like this is useful because they have the data systems for it. For Rock, our plans used to be up to like 49.95 a month. Now I think we're at 65 but I think still for like what you're building, we might be a bit too small. Makes sense. We're running out of time. So, it nudges people to experiment more with campaigns or the channels they have by showing them the issues and then it kind of like takes them by the hand to identify the issue, find a solution for it and then write down their learnings, right? So, a question you might get from that is, is my data secure and protected when I kind of like connect it to your system or will you be training other marketers with my kind of like organizational data? All right, I like it. I think maybe you're doing a lot of channels in one go, like maybe you could niche down a bit and then take like one approach that goes best. So, for example, you said like we don't only do PPC, we do like all these other ones as well, but your point is not live yet and will probably take a lot more development plus starting niche helps you find more people early on, at least from what I've experienced so far. It's kind of like you don't say you don't do them, but you also don't leave it too open because then you kind of like enter a situation where you're a bit of everything, but you're not really targeting anything in specific. Because it's like early stage, let's say like those first 50 to 100 users, usually it's better to just narrow it down and then obviously you continue building the product and you're not ruling things out. But I would be careful in your messaging that you don't focus too much on all of the alternatives, but maybe check the use case that works best with your product as you have it now. Yeah, we have that with the tool I'm doing now, it's called Bash, it does everything and we're like, OK, let's just focus on two or three things as the product is being built out, because it's such a harder message to say, do growth experiments on all your marketing than saying like, do growth experiments on your inbound and then like another thing. And that will like touch on a pain point someone experienced every day, which will then push them to try out your tool. In the future, as you get like hundreds or thousands of customers, obviously you will expand and your messaging expands to the bigger tools you see either way. But it's kind of cool to have, well, it's more effective messaging early on if you keep it niche, plus you avoid over promising and under delivering to people because it creates a certain expectation of, OK, is this tool going to do everything? And like obviously you're still bailing it out a bit as well. So it gives you the hypothesis. Can you walk me back through that, like those specific parts? Just from like, I see our hypothesis, like where does it take me now again? Like, OK, I see our hypothesis, I accept it. So I'm like, OK, I accept this hypothesis. I don't want to do anything else. Then it takes me. Probably. And if you want to do it manually, you can just like input something there. Right. So like those options. I think your main question for this process is what's your customer's aha moment and really make sure that your onboarding pushes them to it as much as you can. Not sure if you're familiar with the concept. Reforge is like a whole bunch of like articles on aha moments and like product like growth would be helpful. It's a good question to like experiment with. I think a tool or like software that it doesn't take this approach, but it does take kind of like seeing everything in a funnel or a system, not really a funnel but more like a system process mining. You can look into kind of like what's aha moments in process mining and how it translates kind of like to how you've defined your product with AI and kind of like the marketing funnel. So it's not the same thing, but process mining very much looks into bottlenecks as well and kind of like solving those. That's kind of like the connection between the two. Also, a fun thing you could still do is you have like those learning things, right? Like that's like you could like set up like for the user, like this is like future, maybe like whatever, weekly or monthly digests in their email with the learnings that because then it brings your like product's name back into their inbox. I think my niche is too early. Like everyone I know is like really small startups and like doing that, whereas I think your product is more, it will fit better with scale ups, generally speaking, just because scale ups start looking more into consolidating their data systems and then converting those into action driven marketing approaches. Whereas I have yet to see a startup that has a very well consolidated database that they work on in like a regular basis. But you're in the Netherlands, like there's loads of really good scale ups. Like have you spoken with Ajin? Have you spoken with Virtuagym, Molly? I think a lot of the payment providers will probably be interested in this just because by nature they have a very quantitative mindset in how they conduct marketing. So they're quite big teams. Like there's always someone that will probably hear you out. Plus they're in Amsterdam, so you can also change to like meet in person or can tap into your network to see if anyone works at one of those. You can always test out our tool, give some feedback. Also, I'll send you a link, just take your time to play around with it for a few days and you can always send me a loom or a video with like any thoughts or feedback you have regarding using it, use cases you found from it or like overall experience you've had with it. Or you have ideas for marketing growth or whatever, like feel free to just send us results. We're always looking for an external eye on things, you know. So, yeah, I think that's it for this video. I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below. We're always looking for an external eye on things, you know. Kyna, like your marketing team, early stage startup were quite cheap compared to like other alternatives. I think they're just playing around with like what the product is. So like it breaks every like two to three days. Early days, but there should be value you get out of it with like a few of the things like it just automates a lot of this stuff. Like I created meeting minutes for like our conversation today. I'll just send them to you afterwards. That could be an interesting use case for you since you have so many calls with people. To what extent do you document that information and then share it? Like do you transcribe it? Do you create minutes for it and that stuff? I'll show you the one that I made for this meeting and you can see kind of like how that works, like because our app does it is I just press record, then it gives me the transcript of our conversation. It summarizes it and then I use a template to convert it into meeting minutes and then you can make changes to it and stuff. But like it just reads everything and kind of like converts it into something new. All right. Yep, stay in touch, feel free to ask me anything if I can help with anything else and good luck with the venture. I guess I'll see online how things go. All right.
Meeting minutes
Agenda Items
Use of analytics and data reporting in marketing
Funnel analysis for early-stage startups with limited data
Integration of marketing tools and platforms in growth strategies
Engagement with scale-ups like Virtuagym, Adyen, and Molly
Identification of aha moments in products
Automation of meeting documentation
Summary
The conversation addressed the role of analytics and targeted marketing in product growth, with emphasis on the constraints faced by early-stage startups. The importance of niche focus in messaging, especially for companies with limited resources, was also discussed. The participants talked about the potential for AI-driven systems in analyzing marketing funnels, while expressing concerns about data security.
Talks included how tools like Hotspot and Salesforce are being incorporated in growth strategies, as well as mentioning the experience at Rock Days during significant sale events. There's interest in exploring collaborations with Amsterdam-based scale-ups who would benefit from the marketing tools, given their data-rich environments.
Furthermore, the possibility of automating the creation of meeting documentation was considered an attractive option for improving workflow efficiency. Dialogues also covered the need to understand customer aha moments and the applicability of process mining in growth marketing.
Action items
Contact scale-ups to explore feedback on current marketing tools and potential collaborations
Focus messaging on niches that align closely with the product's current stage and capabilities
Ensure data security when integrating AI-driven systems into marketing analysis
Investigate customer aha moments and process mining in relation to marketing funnels