Ozgun Erdogan’s Post

A wonderful read on startup marketing. At Citus Data, we went through aspects of "Positioning" via some intuition, trial-and-error, and without really a precise theory behind it. My cofounder Ozgun Erdogan's post gives a great preview on how to do it more deliberately. Highly recommend it, especially if you're looking to position your startup.

Step #2 to launching a new business. Getting some organic help with my SEO. I think it's pretty cool that there have been over 4,000 impressions of my original post on LinkedIn about launching pickleEngine If only 5-10% of would be generous enough with 10 seconds of your time, to visit my website, pickleEngine.com, that would do wonders for my SEO. Note: If you google pickleEngine, instead of going directly to the website, you may learn something about pickling an engine!

Spreadsheets kill a lot of SaaS startups every year. I once pitched this mediocre content marketing startup idea to one of the world's best VCs. His reaction? "Yeah, but can't someone just do that in a spreadsheet?" He had a point and I didn't take the idea any further. A lot of startups and founders take the opposite view. They are attracted to the idea of building a SaaS application to replace a commonly used spreadsheet. Seems logical - why wouldn't you take all of your customer data out of Excel or Google Sheets and put it into a CRM? Or your inventory data? Or whatever... But you need more than that. You need to find something that delivers value above and beyond what the incumbent spreadsheet can provide. Things like: - Automating a workflow - Becoming a system of record - Industry-specific functionality - Opinionated software - Permissions (fine-grained) - Workflow-specific UX ... If you don't find one of these things, most buyers will default to the incumbent - the spreadsheet. It's just too ubiquitous, easy to use, and cheap. And don't forget the tens of thousands of excel templates that get the average user most of the way there. In that same meeting, the VC said something else that stuck out: "We like to invest in startups that use technology to make something possible that was previously impossible". You should definitely remember that rule when trying to displace a spreadsheet.

SEO for early-stage Startups? It's Not the Golden Ticket. 🚫 But genuine stories and engaging content are. Our data shouts loud and clear. Direct engagement trumps SEO plays. In chasing algorithms, many forget what matters: 1. Real stories 2. Real questions 3. Real engagement That’s where growth comes from. Our strategy shifted from keywords to conversations. And the growth followed. It's undeniable. Before you pour more into SEO, pause and think. Does your content resonate? Or just rank? Your audience's questions are your most powerful content tool. Use them... You must.

Problems You May Face While Launching A Tech Product - For many tech companies, creating new products at a breakneck pace is now more crucial than ever to succeed. The profit potential can be increased by maintaining growth, expanding into new markets, and remaining relevant. However, thousands of new software products are never introduced to the market. Countless businesses are competing for a piece of the pie. This requires businesses to maintain vigilance beyond back-end design, engineering, and prototypes. Instead, companies must rely on calculated steps to steer the development and marketing decisions along the way if they want to win the race from confident ideation to successful execution. ×) Distraction from primary objectives When creating a product, you will run into tasks, goals, and opportunities that could lead you astray from your primary objective. Unfortunately, losing track of your goals is simple without a solid understanding. That's why it's so important always to stay focused. Not just for a product but the entire organization. Making sure that your products integrate seamlessly is especially important in the Tech industry, which calls for one thing in particular: unmatched focus. ×) Long-term planning Scheduling is vital to the success of product launches, even though quality is the top priority. Yet, contrary to popular belief, more product launches than you would imagine have scheduling problems. A Gartner survey found that nearly half (45%) of all product launches are postponed by at least one month. Why is this an issue? According to the data, many businesses waste a month not budgeted for. Each product launch needs a budget and specific materials. ×) Early Testing Although most businesses are aware of the benefits of software testing, not all of them are prepared to invest the time or money necessary for it. However, pre-launch software testing has some genuine advantages. It helps: Know Your Maximum Load Reduce Downtime Ensure Overall Functionality Discover Hidden Bugs Boost Consumer Trust ×) Reduced time-to-market A development timeline shortened by a few weeks might allow businesses to profit from various opportunities, such as being first to market, seasonal demand, hot topics, and market dominance in highly competitive areas. However, the desire to speed things up also presents opportunities to skip crucial development stages that ordinarily lead to meaningful outcomes. ×) Unsuccessful marketing campaign strategizing Despite the internet's obsession with marketing tactics and trends, nearly half of the small businesses had no marketing strategy in 2019. Fortunately, things have changed much by now. However, the statistics highlight a crucial point. Finding the funds, motivation, or time to support a marketing campaign might be difficult for a startup business. In addition, marketing might seem like an afterthought when you have many other business operations that need your attention.

Our Product Hunt Launch Summary 1. Why did we decide to launch Releem on Product Hunt? - To build more trust with our current audience who visit the site for the first time - For long-term SEO - To reach a new audience 2. Why did we decide to launch on the weekend? Our hypotheses were: - Lower competition on weekends should increase our chances of being featured (We're not afraid of competitors, but the target audience of the Database Performance Management tool is different from sales GPT assistants, and the last is wider). - ProductHunt audience which intersects with our target audience is busy during the weekdays on their startups and might try new technologies on the weekend🙂 3. What were the goals for the launch? - 200 Upvotes - 1000 Visitors (in 1 week) - 10% Conversion - 100 Signups (in 1 week) 4. How did we prepare? - We created a video, images, and a clear description. - Collected a list of friends and channels to share information about the launch. - Prepared product page on Product Hunt. - Asked our families to give us 24 hours over the Saturday🙏 5. How did we launch? - Published post on social - Sent messages to friends - Sent emails to users - Sent messages to a few public database-related groups - During the day, we sent answers to questions and feedbacks We faced some challenges: - We didn't prepare emails, messages for friends and users, and content for social media. 👆Lesson we learned: messages should be prepared in advance to save time during the launch day. - We didn't know that after 00:00 Pacific time, Product Hunt could cut upvotes and change your position. 👆Lesson we learned: keep pushing till the end. - A lot of upvotes we got after the launch day. 👆Lesson we learned: Users, friends and community need time to help you, that is why important to inform them just after start. 6. Results we achieved: - 4th Product of the Day and featured in the Newsletter - Upvotes: 234 - Visitors: 380 (in 2 days) - Signups: 21 (5% conversion) We couldn't have achieved these results without your help🙌 Thank you for your invaluable help and kind support. ❤️🙌

🍬 Kudos to the Releem team for their successful Product Hunt launch! Despite challenges, they have shown resilience and achieved impressive results. Their journey offers valuable lessons for all. 💡 Excited to see what’s next for this innovative MySQL Performance Tuning and Monitoring Tool. ✌ #ReleemLaunch #ProductHunt #Invictosoft #Techworld #LaunchSummary

One of the most useful things I took away from working in an early stage SaaS startup? Order of operations. 🫡 In marketing, there's no simple acronym like BEDMAS to tell you exactly what to do. It doesn't work like that. But the same concept still applies: 👉 You won't solve anything if you don't do things in the right order. Yet here's where it gets complicated again. Unlike solving a linear math equation, you don't do things in the right order once. It's more cyclical than that. 👉 Do you need to know who your ICP is, in order to nail your website? Yes. 👉 Do you need to have a solid website, before you drive traffic to it? I'd say so. 👉 Do you need to be seeing results, before you scale a program? If not, yikes. But we all know that your ICP, your website, and your marketing mix aren't static forever. So it's a continuous process. And there's nothing straightforward or tidy or easy about it, either. Figuring out what "the right order" means for your specific business, audience, product... It's hard, it's elusive, and it's always going to be imperfect. In other words: it's just like most things in marketing that are worth doing.

Change is scary. But, in business, you need it to survive. At Embarque, we've been helping startups with SEO right from the start. But, recently, we have made a shift in our client base. We are now working with bigger, well-established companies. In this process, we've learned some things: 𝟏/ 𝐒𝐄𝐎 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 Growing a website from scratch is MUCH harder than scaling it. I stand by this. Established companies already have a website and rank for existing keywords. With a little push, it's easier to increase the traffic of established websites by the thousands. A new website has challenges around starting from scratch, publishing in competitive niches, and budget. 𝟐/ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 They have larger budgets and are ready to invest in SEO and the tools that automate the process. This allows us to use advanced tactics and tools to achieve their specific business goals more effectively. 𝟑/ 𝐂𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 They have a solid idea of what they're aiming for, whether it's growing market share, increasing revenue, or boosting brand visibility. This clarity helps us tailor our SEO strategies to support their overall business goals. 4/ 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 Having access to past data helps us make better choices for our SEO. We can use what worked well before and learn from mistakes to improve our approach moving forward. 5/ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐥 Decisions usually go through a chain of command. Requests or proposals must pass through multiple levels of management before reaching the top decision-makers. This makes more established companies less nimble and agile. It’s the price to pay to minimise risk. Despite the change, one thing remains the same: Our best clients are the ones we've worked with for a long time. They see us not just as a service provider… …but as a trusted partner in their journey toward success.

Some founders want a perfect marketing strategy, and let that desire get in the way of putting points on the board. In startups, momentum and a perfect strategy are two ideas that are in tension with each other. The desire for a perfect plan or strategy isn’t conducive to an environment that changes extremely quickly. You could plan out your content roadmap 3 months in advance, only to discover one month in you’re talking about the wrong thing, in the wrong channel, and no one cares (speaking from experience). It’s much more risk adverse to start putting points on the board, here’s are some examples that almost any startup can start implementing: Write short case studies that show how customers are using your product to solve a specific problem, talk about those results, and how customers can replicate them. Collect and summarize interesting industry news and add your own unique takeaways on top of it. Review your customer calls and search for recurring themes or problems your customers talk about - create content that helps them solve or understand this problem. Talk about a specific feature that you have, why you built it, how your customers can use it. Talk about an approach you believe customers should take to solving their specific problem (ex. Fraud is a data problem, so to solve it you need a platform that collects the more important data points.) IMO the big mistake founders make is mistaking length of content with quality and relevance. You can accomplish all of the above activities in a short amount of time, and then launch content on social platforms like LI where distribution is already built in. If you have to pick between launching 1 blog post a month or 8 social posts (2 a week) you’re going to get much better market feedback, inbound, and learning. You start to learn what messaging works best, what topics people want to learn more about, and what causes people to shoot you a message and try to do business with you. Take the volume approach, get some points on the board, then use the foundation you build to invest in bigger content swings.