The document provides a checklist for how to spend the first $10k for a startup. It recommends (1) investing in zero-cost acquisition channels like SEO, content, and social media; (2) targeting "active seekers" who are actively looking for your product rather than push marketing; (3) learning from competitors' successful strategies; (4) gathering feedback from early customers; (5) starting small with testing paid channels; (6) addressing hurdles preventing conversion; and (7) learning from failed tests to improve future experiments. The overall advice is to maximize learning and ROI with small, incremental tests in the early stages.

1. Where to
spend the
first $10k?
 Steven Dupree (@MarketFound)
 November 4, 2016
 Weapons of Mass Distribution
State Highway 7
New Zealand
April 2008

2. Who is this guy?
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

3. A handy checklist:
 Invest in “zero cost” channels
 Pull through active seekers
 Copy your competitors
 Harass your early adopters
 Test on the cheap
 Mitigate business hurdles
 Learn from failure
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

4. 1. Invest in “zero cost” channels
 Consider front-loading “zero cost” acquisition
channels such as search engine optimization,
content, and social
 Understand the true cost of “zero cost” channels
 Distinguish between long-tail initiatives and hits-
based initiatives
Key idea: For a young startup with
upside, “zero cost” channels can
yield long-tail returns at $0 CPA
(excluding the cost of your time)
Credibility
CrawlabilityContent
Three “C”s of Search
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

5. 2. Pull through “active seekers”
 Understand the difference between push marketing
and pull marketing
 Know the advantages of pull marketing
 Identify sources of “active seekers”
Key idea: It’s much more cost
effective to acquire customers who
have a need for and are actively
seeking your product or service.
PUSH
PULL
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

6. 3. Copy your competitors
 Identify the 800-pound gorillas (and 80-pound
chimps) that you can study as a starting-off point
 Include complimentary products or services that you
can learn from too
 Realize your competitors are not investing in certain
channels for a reason
Key idea: People generally discount
competitors as inferior, but there’s
usually a reason they do things the
way they do. And hey, it’s better
than starting from scratch.
Source: Whiteflash.com
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

7. 4. Harass your early adopters
 Learn everything you can from your first 100
customers
 Have multiple people in your company administer
interviews and/or read survey feedback
 Track “How did you hear about us?” in addition to
cookie data and attribution models
Key idea: Your early customers
know better than you or I. Glean
everything you can from them to
surface ideas for tests or channel
opportunities.
Early adopter data points:
Books
Movies
Influencers
Life events
Recent purchases
Social media habits
Music
Sports
Education
Mobile usage
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

8. 5. Test on the cheap
 Find paid channels that allow you to start with small
tests
 Try a traffic light approach: scale, tweak, or kill new
channels based on ROI
 Build a queue of incremental tests and
transformational tests
Key idea: Initially test channels (such
as Google) that enable you to smart
small, scale, and run adjacent tests.
As your company grows, your test
budget will allow for larger tests.
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

9. 6. Mitigate business hurdles
 Identify the hurdles your prospects must overcome to
become customers
 Note that your conversion rate is the product of
success rates across all hurdles
 Prioritize tests that naturally mitigate hurdles
Key idea: All things equal, channels
that naturally overcome hurdles in
your business have higher
likelihoods of success. Examples
may include “active seeker”
campaigns and online channels
generally.
X% are qualified
Y% get off their butt
Z% trust enough to pay
Conversion Rate: XYZ%
Sample hurdles:
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

10. 7. Learn from failure
 Recognize tests with greater upside tend to have
higher probability of failure (transformational vs.
incremental)
 Parameterize future tests based on past learning
Key idea: Failed tests yield
knowledge which inform
future tests and improve
ROI. The worst thing to do
is nothing.
Steven Dupree
@MarketFound

11. Q&A
 Invest in “zero cost” channels
 Pull through active seekers
 Copy your competitors
 Harass your early adopters
 Test on the cheap
 Mitigate business hurdles
 Learn from failure
Email me: steven.g.dupree@gmail.com
Follow me: @MarketFound
Subscribe to e-newsletter: www.market-found.com