Sales Engineer turned Marketer turned Revenue Operations leader | Go-to-Market process consultant | Marketo Certified Expert
Fortune 500 Global Revenue Operations leader | Marketo Certified Expert and experienced SalesForce designer | Build a go-to-market ecosystem that lets customers buy and your commercial teams sell | Create scalable attribution models to steer investment decisions
Fortune 500 Digital Marketing leader | Proven SEO frameworks | Level-up your content marketing instead of just building links
I’m going through this exact process with one of my own projects. I’m already learning things that will completely change the offering.
I agree that you want to reach out to potential investors, but make sure you have some sort of confidentiality agreement in place. Admittedly, you may struggle to actually enforce it if breached, but it could protect your idea if it’s especially novel. What you’re really looking for is somebody who can pressure test your idea for you. Investors have heard countless ideas and seen companies fail in every possible way. Their questions and feedback will highlight the risks and assumptions buried in your idea.
With your risks and assumptions out on the table now, you’ll want to run tests and experiments to validate and mitigate. There are entire books on this subject, so I won’t try to reproduce that body of knowledge. Depending on your skill set and how you want to test your idea, you may need to contact some freelancers to help. As just one example, you could test demand for a consumer product by creating a barebones e-commerce store and set the item as always out of stock. You could even pay for Facebook ads to test your messaging. Depending on your familiarity with doing these activities, it may be worth paying somebody to do it, especially if you’re prioritizing speed.
I had a question regarding marketing automation specifically in Marketo and Salesforce. What would have taken me hours and hours, one call with Chris and it was solved. This was the most valuable 15 minutes I have ever invested. I highly recommend Chris for all things marketing automation, marketing operations, Marketo and Salesforce.
