Why would any bootstrapping startup drop cash on a marketing consultant? At what point in your first 6-9 months is a dollar ever well-spent on a workshop or "strategy session"?
We are customer development experts for bootstrapping software firms. We work with a number of very talented technical teams who are trying to manage their market risk and minimize product-market mismatch. The article was not intended as a sales pitch but a warning to potential new startup founders that many of the folks encouraging them into the water have a vested interest in seeing new startups no matter what the economic climate (in the same way that car dealers will always find a good reason to buy a new car and realtors to buy a new house).
We facilitate the Bootstrappers Breakfasts (http://www.bootstrappersbreakfast.com/) where you can meet and compare notes with other bootstrapping entrepreneur just for the price of your own breakfast. Those are peer to peer strategy sessions that many attendees find quite valuable.
We're in the information security field, and we facilitate monthly CitySec meetups in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Boston; each draws ~40 people, and all are free and totally unbranded. But that has nothing to do with our service offerings.
I guess I'm asking, why do early-stage startups pay you, and what specifically do you provide them? "Managing market risk and minimizing product-market mismatch" is pretty vague. Do you do market research? Do you conduct surveys?
I'm very familiar with marketing consultants in later-stage startups, where, in my experience, they are largely used by the management team as a tool to reinforce consensus or sell the CEO. No viable early-stage startup has those problems.
I am responding with more detail at your request, offered as a clarification, not as a solicitation.
They pay us because they want early customers, both for revenue and for references, and their efforts to date have either not worked or only worked selling to friends. We have been doing this for more than 5 years: we started in early 2003. We are hired by founders/owners.
We work with startup teams that are primarily composed of engineers. We follow Steve Blank's customer development paradigm which merges sales, marketing, and business development into a scientific model based on forming and testing hypotheses about your product, your customers, etc.. Part of the customer development paradigm is that the founders must sell, we help them as virtual team members with tools, methodology, and advice. Our focus is business to business software.
The founders must sell because it's not clear when you are first starting out if prospects are not buying because the product has missing or misfeatures, is priced incorrectly, is being described incorrectly, or the startup is talking to the wrong prospects for the product that they have. Only the founders have the perspective to address all of these issues.
