Forget startups, where are unicorn customers?
Build it and they will come.
We’re constantly reminded not to believe this. Instead, we have to proactively reach out to potential customers by setting up funnels, doing content marketing, engaging on social, giving away freebies, providing value, advertising, putting calls to action everywhere, hanging out at community watering holes, and otherwise poking and prodding our audience to turn them into customers. Or else they won’t check out or buy our products.
Or will they?
Maybe I’m a unicorn. But I’m always on the lookout for valuable products to try and buy.
I proactively click interesting links, read shared content, subscribe to newsletters, google stuff, research products, follow blogs and creators, check out the websites and works of creators, and go down rabbit holes when something rings a bell. All without calls to action or solicitations.
If you build it, I’ll likely come.
Am I alone?
Do such potential customers exist? Are they a significant fraction of the audience? Are there products, demographics, markets, or niches more likely to attract such customers?
Have you ever seen these mythical creatures in the wild, the unicorn customers?
They exist. We used to call them 'ponies' when I was working as a door-to-door salesman of educational books. Same thing. These were the customers that would need a little-to-none demo of the product and would buy everything you had to offer.
The thing is, you gotta put in the work to 'stumble upon' the ponies.
Why ponies? Glad you asked. It derives from an old joke:
Twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities – one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist – their parents took them to a psychiatrist.
First, the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys.
But instead of yelping with delight, the little boy burst into tears.
'What's the matter?' the psychiatrist asked, baffled.
'Don't you want to play with any of the toys?'
'Yes,' the little boy bawled, 'but if I did I'd only break them.'”
“Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his out look, the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure.
But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist.
Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands.
'What do you think you're doing?' the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist.
'With all this manure,' the little boy replied, beaming, 'there must be a pony in here somewhere!'”
LOL
I don't think this makes sense. All of those things are forms of marketing. Interesting links - to what, a blog post about a product? Marketing. Newsletters? Marketing. Google stuff? What you find is SEO optimized using marketing techniques. Research products? By doing what, visiting marketing (landing) pages. Etc. Etc.
I think you're comparing inbound sales to outbound sales.
In any case, being interested in new products is very common, that's why product hunt is so popular. But that's also why product hunt success doesn't mean financial success... Because people who are interested in trying out a product because it's cool or new aren't often willing to purchase the product. And that's all that really matters, isn't it.
Good point. But many users, especially on social, are much more passive and click or engage far less.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
Yeah, when starting out you won't grow easily unless someone already established brings some traffic your way.
This comment was deleted 5 years ago