In an article on entrepreneur.com, Taylor Pearson, a guest writer to the site, published an article about three different entrepreneurial values that keep internet entrepreneurs focused. His first tip to new internet entrepreneurs is to focus on your 1,000 true fans. “In the internet era, you do not need millions of fans.” Honestly, you probably will not have a million fans so focusing on your true 1,000 fans is all the more important. Most internet small businesses will take time to get to their first 1,000 fans and retaining as many of these initial fans is crucial. Pearson defines true fans as individuals who would be willing to spend at least $100 per year on your products or services. Most internet entrepreneurs focus on building a personal relationship with these fans through content marketing, specifically webinars, social media, and blog posts. He stresses aiming at niches instead of aiming at masses as to attract loyal fans.
His second suggestion for new internet entrepreneurs was to do things that don’t scale. He starts this section by giving an example of an online payments company that got its’ first 100 fans from literally setting up the service for individuals in coffee shops. They would ask if coffee drinkers were interested and if they receive a yes answer the founders would ask for the individual’s laptop to personally set the payment system up. This was not a scalable action but helped to lift the company off the ground. The first 100 fans helped stripe, the online payment company, spread and around 1,000 fans is where Pearson describes that a company can start to spread like a virus.
Pearson’s third and final suggestion to new internet entrepreneurs is to stay on the bus. He says that for many entrepreneurs they will lack differentiation from others in their lane for a long time towards the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey. Many will try to pivot or give up on their idea before they even see it through. Many will lose hope before they see the fruits of their labor. Pearson is trying to point out that a large part of entrepreneurial success is tied to sticking with it. All three of Pearson’s tips are fairly basic to understand but are important to be reminded of as internet entrepreneurs. This market is so saturated making differentiation and focus important to make money off of a new internet business.
I really appreciate this blog post and the emphasis on zeroing in on your true target market. I will always have Dr. Powell in the back of my head saying “Lose your focus, lose your shirt”.
I never knew that story about Square! It reminds of me of an older method of going around and knocking on peoples’ doors and asking them if they would buy your product. That is quite a unique entrepreneurial story of how to effectively gauge viability in the market and bringing the product to the customer.
Awesome post! I think that being persistent is the best thing an entrepreneur can do to be successful.
Totally agree with the 1,000 fans part of your blog post! There’s a huge difference between the people that support your efforts first and foremost and the people that jump on the bandwagon to support a product. I like your take on attracting loyal fans. That is such a vital part of startups in general!
I enjoyed that you gave an example of a successful venture that focused on his immediate customers rather than the trivial many. Personally I believe that it could be easy to waste time and resources on reaching a mass crowd when your true customers and conversions are found through that small group of people who is willing to buy and continue to use your product. Good post!