0 to 1 marketing - are your priorities right?

Hi there,

Welcome to Issue 1 of the 0 to 1 Marketing Newsletter!

(Before we get into it, if you can do me a favor and reply to this email with a quick “hello!,” it’ll help convince your email provider that you actually want to receive this newsletter 🙏)

What does ‘early-stage tech startup’ mean? You’ve probably noticed that everyone means very different things. Just semantics, right?

Wrong. When it comes to marketing, this variance leads to founders trying to replicate marketing tactics that will take a 5-person marketing team to ‘win’ at. It leads to frustration, confusion and overwhelm.

Founders are left asking: what do I prioritize as a marketing team of one, who also needs to run the business?

Today’s newsletter helps you answer that question in practical terms by breaking down 0 to 1 marketing.

Side bar: I love gifs of my all-time favorite TV shows (Schitt’s Creek, FRIENDS, The Office, New Girl, and Parks & Recreation). Expect more of these 🙂

Here’s what’s included in this issue:

• Definition of zero (0)

• Definition of one (1)

• Four startup phases from 0 to 1

• Marketing priorities by startup phase

• Marketing targets & sample activities

What is Zero (0) in 0 to 1 marketing?

This is the moment when you are ready to start marketing your tech startup.

Some /founders are ready before they build their minimal viable product (MVP), while others aren't ready till they have a certain number of customers. For startups that I focus on - self-serve* B2B and B2C SaaS - the sooner you start the better.

But, what is the soonest you can start and what do you start with? Keep on reading!

* Self-serve means that your customers are able to help themselves in understanding, trying, and purchasing your SaaS, without any interaction with a salesperson.

What is One (1) in 0 to 1 marketing?

This is when you have achieved product-market fit.

What achieving it means is a highly debated topic because it varies for every product and market. But, ultimately it comes down to: your product is solving a problem for customers whom you can acquire, retain, and monetize in a way that is profitable for your business.

In short, you have evidence this is a real business opportunity, not just a shiny new product.

The four startup phases within the 0 to 1 stage

Most tech startups go through four main phases on the path to product-market fit:

(I) Ideation: validate the problem and your specific idea to inform the early product.

(II) Minimal Viable Product (MVP) launch: get early paying customers to validate that your solution solves customer problems, and inform your product roadmap.

(III) Go-to-market: Capture 1-2 priority customer segments with the updated product to work towards product-market fit.

(IV) Traction: Pivot (if the initial hypothesized segments didn’t work), or expand to new segments as you transition to scalable growth towards capturing your desired market.

0 to 1 marketing priorities by startup phase

(I) Ideation - market and customer research that will inform your MVP.

Talking with customers and understanding the market will also give you ideas for who your early adopters might be, how to position your product as an obvious choice for them, and launch marketing activities.

👉 Action: Conduct 10+ ‘jobs to be done’ style interviews with prospective customers to uncover the right types of insights. I’ll share my template in an upcoming newsletter.

(II) MVP Launch - launch strategy, especially founder-led marketing.

Focus on getting the MVP in the hands of your hypothesized ideal customers. Don’t worry about scalability. Start with where your strengths and target customers overlap. For example, if you know ideal customers, get on 1:1 calls with them. Or, if you are a strong writer, then consider LinkedIn (or wherever your target audience is).

👉 Action: Get your analytics set up, run 1-2 tests every week, and document your hypothesis* and learning from each experiment. This will inform the go-to-market strategy.

(III) Go-to-market - targeted go-to-market strategy to capture priority segment(s).

Include your (a) specific early customer segment, (b) product positioning and key messaging concepts that make your product an obvious choice, (c) 2-3 channels you’ll experiment with to reach the right customers, and (d) tactical tests to convert them.

👉 Action: I’ll go into go-to-market strategy and provide a template in a future newsletter. Hit reply and share your questions!

(IV) Traction - targeted marketing strategy to capture 1-2 best customer segments while reducing customer acquisition cost (CAC) and churn.

This phase is all about hypothesis-driven experiments to prove you have product-market fit and transition to accelerated growth. Track what is working and investigate why. Learn which segments and 1 high-performing channel you can double-down on (i.e. scale) or new ones you need to try.

👉 Action: Document the hypotheses* for your top contenders so you can prioritize the ones with the biggest impact potential. At this stage, prioritize ones with 2-3x growth potential.

* Pro tip: Taking a hypothesis-driven approach, regardless of phase, enables you to ruthlessly prioritize your limited time and resources, avoid overwhelm, and propel you to the next phase.

• Fill in these brackets: We will know we are right about {hypothesis} if {a metric} moves by {b%} over {c} timeframe, and it will mean {d} for our growth strategy.

• For example: We will know we are right about x type of partnerships being a good fit if free trial signups increase 10% over 2 weeks from when emails from the first 10 partners go out to their networks. It will mean that we can invest in expanding to 100+ partners which will 3x our signups from last quarter.

Marketing targets & sample activities

In each phase as your marketing priority changes, the marketing targets and potential activities you can undertake change as well. Important: The exact targets and activities should be informed by your product, market, ideal customers, and business model.

In the below visual I show the evolution from focusing on having conversations with customers (ideation), to paying customers (MVP launch and go-to-market), to happy paying customers (traction). The emphasis on ‘happy’ is critical to confirming product-market fit.

Similarly, the sample activities evolve from getting ‘something out the door’ (i.e. scrappy) to taking a more strategic approach to achieve product-market fit.

Note: some may argue that revenue is better than customers for targets. This is particularly true for fundraising. However, for 0 to 1 marketing when the focus is on achieving product-market fit, number of happy paying customers is more useful for decision-making e.g. prioritizing the right segments.

👉 Action:

1. Identify which of the above phases your tech startup is in. Use the marketing priority and targets as a clue. Remember, your startup-specific targets may vary.

2. Reflect on: how might we align our marketing priorities, targets and activities to this phase so we can stay focused on making progress to achieve product-market fit? Look at the ‘action’ for each phase under marketing priorities for inspiration.

I hope this clarifies marketing priorities for your tech startup depending on where you are on your 0 to 1 journey.

Have questions? Hit reply and ask away. I will reply to every email.

This is just issue 1 so I welcome your input and feedback on how I can make future issues most useful for you. Hit reply to share your candid thoughts.

Best,
Sweta

Tired of hacking marketing on your own? 2 resources that might help:

• Marketing sprints can help you rapidly get on the right path from 0 to 1 in just 1 or 6 weeks. Explore if your startup qualifies for sprints.

• Upon request, I am starting an invite-only founder-led marketing club for founders running marketing at your tech startup. I’ll launch it free for the first ~30 good-fit founders. Apply to join the club!