Start With Your Why? NO. When you are a #startup. Start with THIS!

8 min readApr 30, 2019

Simon Selek’s “Start With Your Why” was a revelation for many in the business world. The idea that in your marketing you start not with what you do. Or how you do it. BUT why was a paradigm shift in understanding.

The success of which is proven by his examples like technology brands like Apple.

BUT… This doesn’t mean it should be used by start-ups.

Let me explain why. Or why not….

Why “start with your why” is HORRIBLE advice for a startup.

A startup isn’t a brand. It’s not a brand that’s lost its way. Its not a huge company trying to reengage with it’s changing millennial workforce. It’s not an organisation trying to change it’s company culture. It’s often just an idea that doesn’t have a community. And in some cases doesn’t even have customers yet.

SO for a startup start with your why is bad advice. AT a time and time is at a premium. In the early days of life every second counts. Many a startup has died due starting with their why. So don’t start with your why.

Start with your WHO.

Starting with your WHO means you start with your customer. You start with a chosen person to talk with and to. You start with an idea of growing a community. Or placing your product or service in a community.

With digital marketing, depending on your offering, you can be literally taking your product to market. Anywhere in the world. And now with the internet — the world can be your market place. Almost instantly. And so we can forget that choosing the RIGHT market — choosing the right WHO. Can be vital.

It can be the difference between success and failure.

It almost seems obvious. But without the right WHO. You will fail. No matter how great your product or service is. No matter what. You need customers. You need case studies. You need cash. Even if you have investment. You need a product / market fit. So why not start with the market. Start with the customers. Start with the WHO.

Perhaps even before you build the idea. Maybe ask people if they want it. Do your market research. Ask questions. Be open. Change things. Do a focus group. Do some surveys. Do a round table or two. Get to know your market place so well that you KNOW what to give them. Do this BEFORE you start..

This isn’t just business plan market research. It’s not just macro studies and white paper stats. It’s talking to real people about their real problems. Especially if you start up is marketing to business people. If you are going for companies then your what is crucial. Not so much in B2C. But….

“Start with your who — to find out WHAT you should do.”
Dan Sodergren 2019

And don’t get seduced by the catchy idea viruses of meme’s and sayings like:

You know WHY not?

As unless you have a one in a life time paradigm shifting product or service. And believe you me — your ego might say you do — but 99.99% of us don’t. Then these statements are terrible advice. AS pointed out by others…

“Henry Ford’s genius lay not in inventing the assembly line, interchangeable parts, or the automobile (he didn’t invent any of them). Instead, his initial advantage came from his creation of a virtuous circle that underpinned his vision for the first durable mass-market automobile.”

Also

“there’s no real proof Ford ever said this… [and yet] the words are still applied to him as proof that true innovation is done without customer input. But, even if one of the most successful businessmen in American history had said it, it wouldn’t make the maxim any more applicable.”

So why do so many people think this is good advice?

As the thinking of the ego stops the overly confident and ambitious from being 100% customer focused. They believe they know best. Take it from someone who has thought so many times. And learnt the hard way that this over confidence is one of the main reasons why startups fail.

We build something without a market. That no one wants. Especially tech companies. That are created by people that code. That create first and ask questions later. They start with their why. WHY they want to build it. And not with their WHO.

Can you have more than one WHO?

Yes many products do. But again be careful. Just because everyone COULD use your product or service it doesn’t mean they WILL. And it doesn’t mean they are your WHO.

“If you aim for everyone — you will get no one.”

So think in terms of ideal types. Ideal customers. Or just one customer ideal. A customer that will give you the most amount of money in the quickest way. For the lowest output. When you are a startup. The early adopters in your market. Especially if it’s a new idea.

SO… Who is right for FLOCK?

FLOCK is an HR tech company I invested in after using the service myself. They have two target customers. As they help HR consultants help their clients save money and make more money. They have created a dashboard for company cultures and values.

This allows the HR consultant to speed up their processes. And help their clients more quickly and effectively. It also helps the businesses they help. So FLOCK could help ALL businesses.

So who are FLOCK’s target customers?

One — are the HR consultants. Or business consultants that help company culture change.

And two might be companies going through cultural changes. Or technological changes. That mean they HAVE to consciously grow a different company culture.

Not everyone wants to do this. Every company or organisation has a culture. En masse it’s the beliefs and values and actions of all the employees of the endeavours.

BUT not every company wants to change their company culture. Not every company needs to. Not every company even understands the idea or wants their employee experience to change or knows about the importance of employee engagement. Whilst different verticals or sectors in industry have different places where they are — on the hype curve. Around adoption of both the idea and of technology in general.

So who would be best fit? Who is the right who?

To be the right WHO for FLOCK a company must have certain criteria. And it’s the same process for your startup.

For FLOCK an organisation MUST:

- Have an understanding of the need to change.

- Want to change their culture.

- Not have a way so far to help them diagnose where they are

- Have enough people in the company to benefit from seeing group differences in values.

- Appreciate the power of technology and psychology

- Have the money and desire to pay for the service.

- Maybe be in an industry that is going through change due to digital technology as a trigger.

So for different verticals — this could be:

- Professional services groups especially lawyers.

- Banks and those in finance.

- Manufacturers affected by Industry 4.0

- Creative, PR and digital marketing agencies

- Those in the public sector going through changes like councils and universities

Which one would you choose? The point is where FLOCK is at right now on the Lisbon Accelerator is to pick the right WHO.

Have you picked the right WHO?

Start with this when you are a startup. You should know your WHY already. And don’t think it’s about the mass market. You HAVE to go for a niche first.

Start with your WHO.

Could you business benefit from a FREE FLOCK OVERVIEW?

Based on Michal Wisniewski’s research, FLOCK methods measure a Person-Organisation Fit (POF). The latest research shows that POF has a significant correlation with:

Job satisfaction
Work commitment
Employee Experience
Employee Retention

The FLOCK methods used to help create company cultures are unlike any other commercially available solutions. FLOCK creates unique culture profiles for companies, business units & individuals accommodating for the relative importance of values.

The culture fit assessment matches people and organisations together based on their core values and motivations. So you can achieve more together.

FLOCK, believe that each business is unique, drives success through collaboration, and should achieve it by working with long-lasting committed employees.

Birds of a feather FLOCK together…

Thanks for reading…

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Here are some other LinkedIn articles written by me:

· The F word and why we should celebrate it

· My letter to Kate Winslet — please don’t…

· Twitter vs Facebook who has the eyeballs for it?

About the Author:

Dan Sodergren is a professional trainer and speaker. He is a digital marketing trainer based in Manchester with Great Marketing Works. He specialises in mobile and social marketing with ideas ranging from augmented reality, to RTB and back again.

He trains companies and individuals in digital, social and mobile marketing. He also sometimes gets to talk about it all on radio and is even occasionally on the BBC.

He is an early stage investor in HR tech company FLOCK and now works as head of business services and marketing at the MediaCityUK innovation tech hub — The Landing.

The Landing @ MediaCity UK is workspace, community, business support, user experience testing labs, maker lab and events. The Landing is the technology enterprise incubator for high-growth companies at the heart of MediaCityUK.