The Issues With Startup Guides, Frameworks...

A guide that places validated assumptions and the appropriate data in either the right place, or next to it so you can pick and choose. Segmentation of the data for each persona so you get multiple versions of some marketing collateral. You’ll be donning those hats like you’re on a catwalk.

You’ll form personas and profiles from the information gathered at various stages of the framework, so say goodbye to Fictitious Fred The Financial Fiddler.

Note market specific language such as slang, jargon and phrases, or interviewees own words. Use in marketing collateral, to promote tighter cultural fit.

Stop regurgitating onto the content marketing heap, instead cover topics focused on your audience needs as well as gaps not addressed by the competition.

Content mapped to the funnel, addressing reservations, motivations, and information as required by a persona at each stage of the funnel.

Email marketing templates take undue credit because it is the [blank] that makes or breaks it. You’ll find out the blanks, so you’ll hone in on what targets need to know.

Landing page suggestions for each persona. The structure of them is based on various permutations including problem, solution, benefits, goal, vision, UVP, description, etc.

Using industry benchmarks for landing pages, email marketing, Google Ads, etc, so you can estimate more accurately than you would valuate a startup.

Roadmap features and benefits prioritised with greater clarity, as well as highlighting possible avenues for continued competitive advantage and market penetration.

Sub-systems to aid in accountability, evaluation, and improvement. For example:

1. Content used in the funnel has key metrics combined in various ways to aid in quicker accountability, but to also minimise glossing over, and things going unseen.

2. Roadmap surveys to ascertain if the person/s requesting a feature has internal consistency or not in regards to do they really want the feature or not

Now you’ll look into the problem, and note any audiences affected by the problem.

The information you obtain addresses key points, provides a composite value of the problem, and is affected by information pertaining to the goal. Assessment is based on quantitative and qualitative data.

A granular multi-pronged approach aids in extracting information and drawing conclusions that tell more of the story.

Going in with an open mind is good, but open doesn’t mean empty. The people you interview will have their own biases, frames, filters and anchors, and you may not be equipped to sieve through it. You’ll lack the deeper insight and context, because you don’t know what you don’t know.

The danger is blank slates may well accept all that is shared at face value. Be in a more informed position to evaluate the value in the responses you obtain.

I get multiple great ideas while using the toilet. More if it’s a number 2. But you’ve seen the state of my ‘great idea’. Should I really test that with a landing page? And say what exactly? Superficial words that fail to show insight, understanding and resonance?

Stop invalidating by default, or validating ignorance. Either way, I seriously need to stop listening to my toilet. [Courtesy flush].

Ok, so I’m going drive traffic to ‘3 lines and a sign-up form’ landing page. Waste of time, capital and resources. I am all in favour of bootstrapping, but it has to be resource efficient. If this is what bootstrapping has become: bourgeois bootstrapping, then it isn’t for me. I’ll jock-strap it.

Besides, are you really testing market demand when you don’t know the problem, the solution, the audience, the channels nor the message?

There are a number of sub-steps in this step:

The questions probe problem and goal attributes, with both scales and open-ended input to promote a more rounded evaluation.

Define codes (a word or phrase) to highlight key points, enabling the structuring of qualitative data to further aid in segmentation, classification and analysis.

Easily insert the codes from a dropdown list, cutting down on mistakes, and increasing efficiency. You’ll also submit quantitative and demographic data.

Results will declare whether the problem exists and is at the required level, whether a problem attribute is validated, and which groups are of particular interest.

With both a macro and micro evaluation, coupling quantitative and qualitative assessment of the problem, your next step is made with greater clarity.

Dig into the demographic data if you interviewed 15 people from the same group. If your initial problem hypothesis was a complete fail, then this section enables you to ascertain which challenge warrants a closer inspection.

If Sir Isaac Newton had to operate within the confines of this innovation paradigm, his reaction to the apple would have been a hard-hat.

Talking about the future can be invaluable when wanting to ascertain deeper motivations, what makes people tick, etc, etc, but for product feature validation? Pinch of salt, maybe a bucket.

Do we need a problem in order to justify aiming for a future vision? Are we denying our higher state of being by prohibiting our ability to transcend the confines of problem validation?

Formulaic blandness, stripped of personality and character as of we are connecting to robots. Context-less practices, shuffling decks on the Titanic. Data driven? More like fear driven. Where data can be a short-sighted sell-out, human insight gets buy-in.

The guide is rigid and sequential. I myself believe in fluidity within structure, where the structure is strategy focused on attaining goals. Plans need to be opportunistic, flexible, evolve, etc and thus be open to a certain amount of deviation.

No point not stating the painfully obvious, painful for me being the operative word. I filter reality to verify my blinkered perception of it, to verify myself within it, and so, my biggest blind spot is me.