20 Sep 11
This may be the most valuable post I write. And while I can't claim this list is sufficient, it certainly is necessary. If you haven't read everything on this list, get on it.
- Product / Market Fit
- The most important thing and a really well written article – ALL startups should follow this: Product / Market Fit
- Go To Market Strategy for Startups
- This is like "Four Steps" (below) but shorter (and written by me - so it's awesome).
- Part 1 - Market Phase Model, Part 2 - Market Exploration, Part 3 - Market Investigation
- Four Steps to the Epiphany
- PDF Intro – I think you can get most of the benefit from this first chapter.
- Full book – I, quite frankly, never made it through the entire book. For some reason I didn’t like it that much and felt most of the benefit was in the intro. But perhaps I’m missing something. http://amzn.to/1m4R1S
- Crossing the Chasm
- This is THE bible of high tech marketing. Steven Blank of Four Steps would say this is mostly irrelevant since this only comes after customer discovery, but I think he’s non-trivially wrong. This is the book. http://amzn.to/9YPB3n
- The Innovator’s Dilemma
- This is right after Crossing the Chasm with respect to marketing strategy books. Love it. http://amzn.to/ahEhhN
- The Sales Learning Curve
- HBS article. Very good article on how to think about sales. Genesis of the concept of the Renaissance Rep. Link.
- Obviously this isn't essential if you are building a online-only or consumer startup.
Note - Crossing the Chasm and The Innovator's Dilemma are two-thirds of the holy trinity of high tech strategy books. I'm still looking for the third.
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