Go to Market by Extreme Business Planning

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by: Sigurd Rinde

Don’t know if this is an effort to make own behaviour plausible, but so what…
 
When entering a market the GAMP (Generally Accepted Marketing Practices) has to be right, as in getting certain stuff right:
  • Target market
  • Price
  • Packaging
  • Channel
  • Story
  • And the rest of it
But one forgets, there are two ways to enter a market:

 A. By GAMP

  1. Spend days and weeks in the boardroom trying to outguess your potential customers as to who, how, what and when they will use your product.
  2. Set the choices in stone, get the channel onboard, set the message and story, price it and colour your product.
  3. Go.
Result? Binary. Uncontrolled and rigid outcome. But fast. Success or crash and burn in the fast lane.

B. By EBP (Extreme Business Planning)

  1. Keep everything open with two exceptions; build your product so it can be changed and tweaked easily, ditto for your organisation and cash burn.
  2. Go.
  3. Let the potential customers decide who, how, what and when. Adjust accordingly.
Result? Analogue. Controlled and continuous movement. But slower. Slow and deliberate right hand lane driving.

Think I like B. better. Doable? But of course as long as you question the assumptions you do not know you’re making.

Bonus question: Which method would the time-constrained VC board members push for?

Original Post: http://thingamy.typepad.com/sigs_blog/2009/06/go-to-market-by-extreme-business-planning.html