

Your Product Needs an Engine of Growth - mtmoore55
http://www.matthewmooredesign.com/your-product-needs-an-engine-of-growth/

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kurtvarner
_Virality is the engine that’s powered many of the biggest sites on the
internet (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc). If you’re aiming to have a huge
user base, user to user spreading is the most effective, if not the only way._

It amazes me the number of people trying to build consumer internet products
that don't get this.

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billpatrianakos
There's also people who know this but just don't get viral itself. It's one
thing to know you need something and another thing to really know how to
implement such a strategy. I'm a great example of this. I know I've got at
least one product that people would love but I just don't get viral partly
because I'm not exactly a social/share-everything-on-social-networks type of
person. To me it seems like most people know the importance of viral marketing
but are lost on how to actually put it into practice. I have a job where I
talk to people about similar things and they come to me and say "I know I need
to do the social media thing but I don't get it".

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mapster
Re: Sales: it's ok if you want to stay small, but to employ people and grow a
business, sales is the lifeblood.

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billpatrianakos
Not all products lend themselves all that well to sales though. Consider
Google. How do you sell Google? You really can't have a sales team go out and
try to get people to commit to using Google search. With a lot of companies
the best you can do is let people know you exist and hope they'll use you.
Sales in the traditional sense is a waste. To be clear, the kind of sales I'm
talking about is the kind where you have people out on the road personally
interfacing with decision makers, calling people (often they're cold calls),
and generally reaching out to communicate with people one on one rather than
putting up ads and getting exposure which is not sales but advertising.

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mapster
yes, that is meant by sales: travel, meetings, powerpoints, lunches, etc. etc.
etc. I do not know, but would bet that Google "sold" Adwords program to some
key publishers. It is a huge product and had a R&D budget.

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mtmoore55
you're right, there is a place for "sales" in most every company at some point
in their lifecycle. In the post I was more discussing engines of growth
relative to early stage startups.

