I’ve seen the tech world make such buzz about early adopters and how good they are for your startup and it’s initial growth. I’ve read one too many articles and books, seen one too many tweets, and seen a bus load of Youtube videos; if something gets repeated often enough it begins to sound like the truth. It worries me. I run a startup with our product still in alpha and like any startup founder, I obsess about how to get customers. Startup founders want a profitable business and so we hunt for “best practices” to lure customers in and locked in. Very much from observation, the prevalent advice is ” KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!” if you can get that right, everything else will fall magically in place. It doesn’t. If it did, the articles on customer acquisition and retention would have stopped flooding the internet. Everyone would be running in the street nude to show the world how happy they are. I’ve done a lot of thinking and what I’m about to suggest may seem like common knowledge but I’d rather utilize my mind fart and share it with the world. I have come to the realization that there are three kinds of customers in this world categorized as;
1. Go Go Go
2. Go Wait Go
3. Wait Wait Wait
The Go Go Go category are the early adopters and early leavers. They’re always looking for the next thing. They’re fickle. They’re like teenagers waiting for the next pop sensation. They don’t last. Worst case, they have broken most companies with these words “X company or product isn’t cool anymore”. Stocks plummet, CEO gets fired, more money is thrown at dreadful ads to get noticed. Everyone is in tears. A lot of investors fall in this category actually. They’re always looking for the next x.
The Go Wait Go category includes people who don’t hang their wallets in the air until they’re significantly impressed by the company or it’s product offerings. This group is a lot more loyal. Even when the company fails catastrophically, they live in hope that the company will return to its former glory and delight them with something. Picture a lover waiting for the better half to return whilst refusing to court no one. They are in love. The customers in this group actually take a long time to deliberate before committing and that is where the loyalty comes in. They think it will be too much work to commit to another company or product or heck they simply love the company.
The Wait Wait Wait category are the ones that have no interest whatsoever in what you’re doing. They simply don’t care. You might hear them say ” My windows 3.1 machine still works great! What do I need a new computer for?” These are the people that companies spend most of their waking life trying to attract and they fail most of the time.
Now why do I think it’s important to bear these categories in mind? They make up the customer base. After finding your customers you run into these categories these are categories inherent in us all. So how do you sell to these people? I’ll suggest marketing to the category that seems more like you. Are you a Go Go Go type of person, a GO Wait Go type, or are you a Wait Wait Wait person? Knowing which one you are will ultimately provide you with tools to sell to your target group since you already know what will make you buy, what will make you stay, and what will make you leave. It sort of fits in with the maxim of solving a problem you have yourself then turning it into a product. I have also realized that the people whom we glorify as marketing/ product geniuses managed to understand one group really well or focused on just two groups. Focusing all three is extreme and will reap no benefits. Picture the titanic attempting to sail in a puddle. The good thing about knowing your category is this can also help in product development in this area I’ll paraphrase Steve Martin ” Be so good they can’t ignore you”. Weaving knowledge of this category into your product development will help generate and cancel out features that will work or not. Saves you time cause you already have a focus group. I dare say Steve Jobs’ genius was focusing on a group that just wanted something simple enough and looked gorgeous. Apple made products for those people. Everyone else joined in. Apple catered to the Go Wait Go group and in turn they got loyal evangelists. This group brought in the Go Go Go category and the Wait Wait Wait. Am I saying the Go Wait Go category is the best? The best category is dependent on you and your product category. Every category has their own evangelist it is just depends on hitting the sweet spot. Let’s look at SnapChat. A perfect fit for the Go Go Go category. The ephemerality is the attraction but they have one foot on the gas the other on the brake. The moment SnapChat does anything that affects the products ephemerality they’re gone. SnapChat stops being cool. So to keep this group, SnapChat has to keep producing features that will make it more ephemeral. The people in the Go Go Go category will love SnapChat and will preach SnapChat to their friends and family as long as it ups the ephemeral game. The Wait Wait Wait category won’t budge until whatever they’re using goes to shreds or the company goes out of business. These are not tech people but they transition to the Go Wait Go class once hooked. They can only be sold to by a Go Wait Go person. They scorn at the Go Go Go group because of their indecisiveness. Very valuable once acquired. Their conversion will be inspiration enough for other Wait Wait Wait people to convert.
I think it is important to note that we actually have traces of all three groups within us. One dominates most of the time which dictates our consumption habits. It is also important to note that this little difference is the reason why many many companies find lasting success with a few products while others have thousands of offerings hoping one will stick.
Mental Famous 