222. Product vs Marketing problems

If you want to make a successful product, or have a great career, what do you need to focus on today?

Listen to this episode to find out.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction 

02:06 Product vs. Marketing Problems

03:00 Job Interview Example

05:11 Experience v Networking

06:41 Retention Metrics

08:30 Prioritizing Product over Marketing

10:13 Marketing for Success

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Transcript

Sophia Matveeva (00:00.16)
If you want to make a successful product or to have a great career, what do you need to focus on today? Listen to this episode to find out.

Sophia Matveeva (00:14.105)
the Tech for non-techies podcast. I'm your host, tech entrepreneur, executive coach at Chicago Booth MBA, Safiya Matil. My aim here is to help you have a great career in the digital age. In a time when even your coffee shop has an app, you simply have to speak tech. On this podcast, I share core technology concepts, help you relate them to business outcomes.

And most importantly, share practical advice on what you can do to become a digital leader today. If you want to have a great career in the digital age, this podcast is for you. Hello smart people. How are you today? I'm recording this podcast for you, Mid Packing, which is also kind of mid panic because I'm going to Bahrain to launch the Tech for Non-Technical Founders Program there and to start our Innovation Accelerator.

And so by the time you hear this, I will be sunning myself under the glorious Arabian sun. And are you a subscriber to this podcast? If not, you really should be if you want to have a great career in the digital age. Coming up, we've got lessons on innovation from the woman who leads Gmail at Google. Amazing. And we also have a guide on when not to use AI. And we also have digital transformation case studies from Nike, Starbucks, and many more coming up. So.

This is very high quality education for high quality minds. Tech For Non-Techies is the best place for you to learn about innovation, entrepreneurship and career success in the digital age and we keep it really practical. So if you're not yet a subscriber, then please subscribe. And if you are, then tell your friends. Okay, and now here is today's lesson. Today I'm going to teach you about something that comes up in innovation and entrepreneurship all the time.

And that's product versus marketing problems. And we're going to have two examples today. We'll see a career example and a product example. So literally all of you, whatever you are doing in your career, this is going to be relevant to everyone. I've been interviewing people for the non-technical founders accelerator in the last couple of weeks. And I've noticed that people often want to solve product problems when actually it is not the strategic thing.

Sophia Matveeva (02:36.632)
to do. As an example, they want to keep affecting their site or their app, but the real problem is actually that their product is fine, but just nobody knows about it. And people do this with their careers too, and you might have done this yourself. So let's forget about tokenology for a moment and let's have a work example. Let's say that you are

trying to get a new job and the job you are going for is in the innovation team at Nike. And I actually think that would be really cool. And if I was not running a company, I might want to do that. So anyway, your aim is to get the innovation manager job at Nike. So what's your next move? You might look for job openings and you see a job post on LinkedIn and then you apply and then you don't get the job and that sucks.

So now we want to know, well, what happened? Why didn't you get it? So it could be because you literally just don't have the right experience. So being Nike, they're going to want somebody who has experience in apparel or at least in consumer brands. And because it's the innovation team, they are going to want to see some evidence of you being able to create something new. So it would impress them if you worked in a startup or created new products at your last job.

or maybe competed in a corporate accelerator. So in this case, your experience is the product. But there's another reason why you might not get that job. You might not get that job because by the time you applied, Nike already had three great applicants who knew the team and already had a great relationship with the boss. And maybe the boss actually already had somebody in mind for the job because maybe they worked with them in a previous company.

And yes, your application, maybe it was good, it was decent, but maybe it was just as good as the people already known to the hiring manager. And in this case, the product, your experience, that's not the problem. Your experience is fine. The fact that you are an unknown quantity is a problem. And that's a marketing problem. Because think about this, when you're looking for a job, you're in effect aiming to make a sale to one customer, the hiring manager. So this is why when

Sophia Matveeva (04:55.512)
people who've never been entrepreneurs, they say to me, you know, I don't do sales. I'm not in sales. I'm like, well, how did you get your job in the first place? Because literally a job interview is a B2B sale. Anyway, if you make a product or a service either as a founder or a corporate innovator, then your aim is to make a sale to lots of people. So you see, there are similarities, which is why I'm starting with this lesson. So when you don't get that dream job at Nike, what's your next move?

Well, get some ice cream and have a cry and then look at your situation. Where did I fail? Was it my experience? Was it my network? And if you think it's both, then analyse which one was more at fault, which one was more of a problem and pick one. I mean one, not both, one. If you pick both and not one, I will find you and haunt you in your dreams. I'm serious because a person and a team cannot have

two major priorities. You either have one or none. So then if you see that your experience is relevant, but nobody knows you in the field, then basically go and work on that. That's your plan. Go to networking events, ask for introductions to people in the industry, maybe create a LinkedIn series and interview people in that sector and build relationships. And by the way, it is literally the same with a product that you created. Let's say that you've made an app.

And it's now out on the App Store. Well done. That's quite an achievement. And then you see that some people are using it, but not many. And so it could be a product problem, but it could be a marketing problem. So we have to investigate. So let's look further. What's happening with a product? So the next thing you would want to do is to look at your retention metrics. So out of the people who download and sign up, how many people come back to use your product?

And then you realize that actually your retention rate, well, it's fine. And by the way, as a metric, venture capitalists often want to see a 30 % retention rate over 90 days on a consumer app to consider funding. And if you're not in the B2C app space, then just don't worry about what I just said. Anyway, so what do you do next? From this, we can see that your retention rate is okay, your product is okay. And so your product is not the main problem. And so what does that mean?

Sophia Matveeva (07:18.834)
It means that marketing is the main problem. So you start looking at people downloading. Do people know your brand? Do you have an email list full of customers? Is it growing? If you're a B2C company, what's happening with your social media? And if you're a B2B company, are people booking demos with you? And so look at that data, do that analysis before you take any action. You know, we want to be smart. We do the thinking before we do the action as opposed to the other way around.

So then based on the evidence, work out what your problem is. Do you have a decent product that nobody knows about? Or do you have a terrible product that lots of people know about? So in this example, we were saying that, okay, your retention rate is fine. So it looks like you have a decent product. So we're focusing on marketing. And then you've done the analysis on, okay, where is the issue in our marketing? And if you can't tell where the issue is in the marketing, then that's the first thing to work out.

Because you know, okay, we have a marketing problem, but we don't know exactly what to do. Well, then your plan is to work it out. And here be careful of the trap that I see so many people fall into, which is working on the product at the cost of marketing. And this happened because marketing is just harder on the ego than working on the product. Because you can sit by yourself or with your lovely team, working on the product, coming up with ideas, being creative.

And it's actually really fun. But what's a huge emotional challenge is basically getting your thing out there into the world and asking people to pay for it. Because that's when you are going to get rejected. And marketing is a rejection game. You are going to get rejected way more than actually people will say yes to you. And this is basically just how marketing and sales works, whether you're Coca-Cola, ChatGPT or Goldman Sachs.

And getting rejected is really unpleasant. And that's why people avoid marketing and putting themselves out there. And so when I interviewed founders who wanted to join the non-technical founders accelerator, I actually ended up telling some of them to withdraw their applications because I saw that their product is decent. And at this particular accelerator, we work mainly on the product. So how to make a tech product, how to analyze results, how to work with developers and so on. But if your product is decent,

Sophia Matveeva (09:45.84)
and people aren't using it or you're not getting sales because not enough people know about your stuff, then working on your product should not be your priority. So the general rule, remember, is if it's not product, it's marketing and vice versa. And one final thing, you always have to work on both product and marketing. So what we're talking about today are priorities. So you have to prioritize either the product or marketing.

because you can't prioritize both. And this is true for you as a professional and as an innovator. As a professional, you are doing both all of the time. So right now you're investing in the product of you because you are getting more knowledge. But then when you're done with this podcast, you might message somebody and set up a meeting to strengthen your network. And that's marketing. A company is also going to constantly iterate the product and try different marketing tactics. But my dear smart person,

You have to have one major focus at a time. That's how you win the game. That's how you build something amazing that lasts, whether that's a company, a product or a career. And if you're stuck and you want some help working out whether your issue is in product or in marketing, then book a call with us using the information in the show notes. We love working with smart, dedicated innovation teams and would love to hear from you.

And if you enjoy this episode but you're not yet a subscriber to the show, then press the subscribe button wherever you are listening to this podcast. And if you are a subscriber, then do share this podcast with your friends. My aim is to help you thrive and enjoy the digital age and never be intimidated by a tech row. Because you're smart, you're brilliant and this is your time to shine. Have a wonderful day.

And I shall be back in your delightful smarties next week. Ciao!