Slides from my talk to the Startup Track at Harvard Arab Weekend 2013

1. Designing for Networks:
Four provocations
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for Harvard Arab Weekend
9 November 2013
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by Ian Fitzpatrick

2. Hello. My name is Ian.
!
Principal / Chief Strategy Officer, Almighty
Mentor, TechStars
Mentor, Harvard Innovation Lab
@ianfitzpatrick

3. A brief history:
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Student of philosophy
to founder of Unwrapped
to music journalism
to design research at Mattel
to production at Havas / Euro RSCG
to founder, Almighty

4. A caveat:
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It will, occasionally, seem as though I
particularly dislike marketing. And startups.
This is not really the case.
!
I just believe in people.

5. Let’s start here:
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Using channels and tools designed for the
needs of larger competitors, but at a smaller
scale, is not a viable strategy for resourcestarved startups.

6. Here’s a useful way to
think about ‘marketing’:
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The price that organizations pay for
improperly aligning the value they provide to
the needs of users.

7. !
Put another way, courtesy of John Willshire:
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Make things people want >
Make people want things

8. Value:
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It’s what gets me to buy/use/pay attention to you because it’s
more useful/helpful/enjoyable than the 1000 other important
things I could/should/would otherwise be doing instead.

9. The product experience
and the marketing
experience are
intertwined.

10. Currency is (a) measure
of value, and it takes
(at least) two important
forms:
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1. The direct value of a product, service or
experience (or information about it).
2. The indirect value of exclusive access to
that information, product or service.

11. Four provocations for
the startup enterprise:

12. Provocation #1:
Who uses what you
make?

13. When someone asks
what you do, do you
describe a market need
or a human need?

14. Audiences are passive
receivers. Users are
active participants.
This distinction is not
trivial.

15. It has never been easier
or less-expensive to
learn about what your
users want and need.

16. It’s probably time to
start thinking (far)
beyond your vertical.
!
Only organizations talk about ‘best in class’.
People talk in terms of what they like.

17. Provocation #2:
It’s time to stop equating
byproducts with ‘waste’.
!
When we make one thing, we almost always
make something else. Too often, that
byproduct goes unused (which is why we
tend to confuse the two).

18. Stories are one kind of
byproduct.

19. Data is another.

20. Data & stories about us
will spread more than
data & stories about you.

21. Provocation #3:
Build for, rather than
take from, networks.
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It’s more than a magical place to push stuff.
No one wants you at their dinner party.

22. Get to know
Metcalfe’s Law.
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The value of a network is proportional to the
square of the number of connected users
within it.

23. Adding scale to a
network should create
value for each user, not
just each shareholder.
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How does adding more nodes make your
product, experience or service better for
users?

24. As a rule of thumb, you
should add more value
to a network than you
take from it.

25. Provocation #4:
Design for non-linear
engagement.
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(and stop saying ‘engagement’)

26. Traditionally,
communications hinged
on the sequential
consumption of
messages, hence
‘communications
stream’.

27. In an ecosystem defined
increasingly by search
and word of mouth
(social), sequence is a lot
less relevant to the way
we process things.

28. Design for a crowd that
comes in through the
windows, not through
the doors.

29. Try this:

30. Pick the most important
user and build only with
them in mind.

31. Go deep on that user, in
their lives, where they
operate. Look for gaps in
value.

32. Place a lot of small bets.
50 ideas x $100 is better
than 5 ideas x $1000.

33. Thank you for listening.
!
@ianfitzpatrick