Having a great product or service in and of itself is not enough to succeed. The reality is you need to have both a great product, and also great marketing. Unfortunately many startup businesses focus soley on the product, and don’t think about marketing early enough. The fact is marketing for startups is critical to success.
Conversely, no amount of marketing can make up for a bad product or service. Although when done correctly, you can leverage marketing for both customer acquisition, as well as improving your product-market fit.
More than 600,000 companies start in the US every year. However more than three quarters of those fail because the founders don’t know how to take those products to market.
In this episode of The Females in Tech Show I interview Jill Soley, who has spent the last 16 years launching and growing innovative cloud-based software products through effective marketing. Jill is currently the Chief Product Officer at Obo, an agile product management software that addresses the high failure rates of new products.
Jill is also the best selling author of Beyond Product, a book that helps entrepreneurs and enterprise executives avoid common pitfalls, and build their ideas into successful businesses.
Beyond Product is based on Jill and co-author Todd Wilms own startup marketing experience, as well as interviews with 50 successful entrepreneurs, startup investors, and business leaders from companies like Slack, Box, Linkedin, Hubspot, Zendesk, Marketo, and many others.
Bottom line, marketing for startups is essential to their success.
In this episode Jill Soley provides an overview of her career, and also shares so much insight into how business owners and startup founders can leverage marketing to be successful. Here’s an outline of what we cover.
- Jill’s career journey from media to best selling author and chief product officer (4:25)
- Some of the challenges Jill has faced in her career, and how she overcame them (8:08)
- The difference between mentors and sponsors, and what stage you need them (12:55)
- We talk about her book Beyond Product, who it’s for, and what is covers (21:03)
- We discuss some common mistakes entrepreneurs and business owners make in marketing and releasing products (33:50)
- Why marketing is so important in technology – this is a biggie! (27:00)
- The importance of creating an MVP, and how to get comfortable releasing a product that’s not “perfect” (36:25)
- Her advice when pitching to investors and venture capitalists (39:49)
- She explains the concept of always be evolving (41:10)
Episode Resources
- Jill Soley personal website
- Website for Jill’s startup marketing book, Beyond Product
- Buy Beyond Product on Amazon
- Jill Soley on LinkedIn
- Obo Product Management Software
- Spotify “I’ve Got This” Collaborative Playlist
- Shonda Rhimes – Year of Yes
[Full Disclaimer: Some of these links may be affiliate links, which means we receive compensation, at no extra cost to you, if you purchase through the link.]
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