Working with IT Consultancy Seshaat on telecoms blockchain crowdsale for OpenCryptoTrust: www.openct.io.
Part of the Lampix team which raised $14.2m in August 2017. Worked with BABB, the blockchain based bank, on their $20m ICO.
ICO marketing fun, includes Lampix's $14.2m, blockchain bank BABB, and telecoms crowdsale with OpenCT.
The short answer is to start by getting the business basics right before writing a marketing strategy.
Another communication route is to access the relevant online community for the membership body for CFOs.
For example, in the UK the chartered accountants' organisation the ICAEW has an online community with 104K members: http://www.ion.icaew.com/
As I recall gaining access to CFOs, and their associated influence on purchasing decisions, was a key reason why Microsoft UK financially sponsored the creation of that community back in 2008.
At the risk of sounding simplistic, and bearing in mind price is based on demand, you should factor in that demand component when calculating your worth.
Hi Ken, I'm testing out the hypothesis that posting in a local London, UK) Facebook Group for startups should do the trick. After all in business development the closer you go to find prospects from existing relationships the better - aka farming your patch.
Cheers, Stuart
Having helped launch an innovative pay-as-you-go medical imaging software platform without first getting customer validation, and seeing that fail and burn X million dollars, I would 100% concur that you need to test your SaaS proposition to find where/why is the demand. And importantly to be open and honest with their feedback. Good luck!
Having led a team of growth hackers to help grow a 20+ year old software company, which was transitioning from a licensing model to a SaaS approach, and encountered many obstacles along the way I would offer one piece of advice. When choosing such an expert think honestly about two candidates types. The ideal candidate who appears to offer everything you want and more. And the experienced candidate who isn't perfect, but who can show they've been through similar tough growth challenges and delivered the goods, with testimonials to back that up.
(1) Provide a detailed business plan which shows the route to return on investment for investors.
(2) Make sure you promote the platform where your potential investors are most likely to come across it.
(3) Make sure you have prepared detailed answers in advance to potential investors questions.
Those are 3 useful variables to consider in creating the best go-to market strategy for acquiring investors on an equity crowdfunding site
To manage technical people you don't need to understand each and every detail, and how they relate to each other, what you really need is to ensure IT people understand you, and your customers' needs. And to keep on checking and improving on that understanding. After all it's end benefits to the customer that sell products, not features, however technically advanced they are.
PS: I am not a techie, but picked up a few things from my father who worked in the 1960s on new types of transistors which would work at high frequencies in the hostile environment of outer space!
Hi Slava,
I haven't scaled an agency, but I was today fortunate to be talking with an extremely successful smart guy in London who told me how he scaled up his marketing agency using retainers.
To get the work done he uses freelancers, and even then due to the scale of the massive PPC campaigns he runs finds freelancers can be less than perfect.
So I certainly think retainers are the way forward to build your business, but I would think carefully as you grow the business about how you scale up in terms of human resource.
My consultancy viewpoint is that it all comes down to the organisation of the business. Happy to explain further what I mean by that business organised approach, if you think that could be valuable to you.
To select one tactic to help grow an engaged community? "Personalised moderation’ works well with large complex communities."
I worked in online community management and this insight comes from the last serious article I wrote on this subject, which delved into the science behind growing an online community: http://www.stuart-hall.com/2013/04/16/how-to-design-an-online-community-using-social-science/
Great useage of our 30 mins, Stuart was clear at what his strengths were and weren't. He was able to articulate clear solutions.
Brilliant, I hope we could keep working with Stuart
Stuart is a rockstar! very generous with his knowledge and a great guy overall. Will definitely be talking to him again in the future.
Stuart was extremely helpful - thanks for steering me in the right direction!
Great advice from Stuart! He took the time to read the information I sent before the call and gave me great points and ideas which I will be working on. I am looking forward to catching up with Stuart again.
