A marketing reading list for founders
Three important marketing ideas for the men and women in the arena
It takes a lot to build something meaningful. There’s the cliched blood, sweat, and tears, which is true enough, but the amount of mental fortitude it takes to be be a founder is remarkably less talked about. It’s a long road, and there’s a chance it will lead nowhere. And yet, people throw themselves into it. Sure, they might get rich at the end of it, but I have always refused to believe that as the only motivator.
Founders build because there is joy in building, in creating, in making something that did not exist before. The journey is the payoff.
Last month, I ran a SaaSBOOMi Playbook on using storytelling to build a SaaS brand. I was spending that weekend in Tranquebar, a small fishing town 3 hours south of Pondicherry. In the 17th century, Danes arrived there, and established a short-lived colony, trading in the spices of our fragrant land. Before the session, I was walking along the sea, looking at the fort they’d built, marvelling at the courage and almost foolhardy determination it must have taken for people from another continent to come so far and stay so long.
How different are entrepreneurs, though? Does not courage and foolhardy determination characterise them too, especially in times like these?
This year I wrote a few essays that were specifically aimed at founders and helping them think about their marketing better. I’m compiling the best of them together here.
Readers who signed up for the newsletter late and those who would love a reread, I’ve got both of you covered here.
This essay argues for investing in the founder’s personal brand as a marketing activity. If marketing can help amplify personal brands as extensions of the organisation’s, I think it can be a viable channel for branding and distribution? Founders who start off with an audience will have an advantage other founders don’t. It’ll be criminal to not build and wield that advantage.
There’s no way around it. All of us still suck at that critical thing: positioning. Here, I point to two immediate, actionable resources to understand positioning, and do it well. What I loved about both is their simple, no-nonsense approach to positioning, and also their contempt for category creation - an overrated concept, at least for Indian SaaS.
An example-rich essay I wrote to encourage founders to do the smallest viable thing that will immediately get them attention: Pick a fight. There are nuances, of course, and we have to remember to always punch up, never down. But in committing to a path and declaring an enemy, startups will gain incredible clarity (and hopefully press). We need to be using this tactic more.
The next edition is a reading list like this one, but for young marketers.
I hope to curate and send that soon.
Again, like last time, I would encourage you to take a minute to share one of these essays, or endorse the newsletter itself (you can use the CTA below), on LinkedIn or Twitter.
I would appreciate that.