I was recently talking to an entrepreneur who has been running his startup for the last 4 years. One of his challenge was lack of differentiation in how his business was perceived. That is, for each and every sale â he has to be personally present and convince the customer that they are actually âmuch better’ and âaffordableâ than their competitor.
Now go back and visualize the first time you heard about a device called iPad. If not for Apple, who else could have done that? If asked âWho do you think has built this device?â, would you have said âRIM, Nokia, Microsoftâ?
Probably not.
Easier said than done, but thatâs what a company soul [read: Entrepreneurs : Define Whatâs Non-Negotiable. Define a Soul.] is all about and biggest validation comes from your customers when they ask:
âIs that You?â
That is, when people tend to relate you (you as in you : the product, the brand) with a certain product/feature (of course in the right sense) without even knowing who built it.
An Exercise
Now open all the ecommerce websites in India, hide their logos and tell us âwhich is which and who is whoâ. You will be surprised that half of these sites never cared to built that connect with the audience â they just focused on transactional aspect of a business and spent more time on âFacebook likesâ than an emotional like.
Similarly, a whole lot of companies/startups are getting lost in âwe need to win the raceâ and in the whole process, they are not focusing on âembeddingâ their soul in the product. In fact, there is nothing that comes out as a core differentiator. And while we are talking about differentiators, letâs not forget that even a bad/ugly looking site with great content or great product (think craiglist) stands out vs. several other mediocre yet good looking products.
Long story short, answer what aspect of your product would you prefer to be related with when somebody asks âIs That Youâ?
Are you prepared for this question?
*Title inspired by Pink Floydâs Us and Them. Aside, another interesting read: How Pink Floyd Can Help Every Entrepreneur [Heroes for Ghosts?]
[Img credit:wikipedia]