Reading the Market: Position Your Startup for Success

I’m sure whatever you’re bringing to market is awesome. I’m sure it’s different. I’m sure it’s nothing like anything else on the market. The problem is that it’s hard to describe whatever you’re selling to the rest of the world.

At this point, you’ve probably explained what you do and how you do it a million times, and you’re confident that you understand the right vernacular and verbiage that leads to immediate comprehension and interest.

However, I suggest you take some time to use a valuable online tool that can help you take advantage of big market opportunities by changing the way you talk about your products or services online.

CentralDesktop is a collaboration tool

A few weeks ago, I spoke at a wonderful workshop put together by a smart VC firm called OpenView Venture Partners. One of their portfolio companies is called CentralDesktop. Now, a few years ago, I scoured the web looking for a project management tool that would fit my needs. I tried CentralDesktop and it was great. It wasn’t the right tool for me, but it was and is undoubtedly a great suite for thousands of customers.

Let’s take a look at their homepage today:

CentralDesktop Homepage

I see the words collaboration, collaborate and collaborative all over their website. (Of course you do, Andrew, they are a collaboration tool.) The question you need to ask yourself at this point is what is the demand in today’s online world for ‘collaboration tools’?

Let’s use Google Insights

If you haven’t heard of Google Insights, you haven’t been to our office in the last nine months. Brad would be happy to give you a full afternoon of Google Insights insights, by the way. We use Google Insights to track, among many other things, market awareness and interest. So let’s check on the interest today for collaboration tools.

Now let’s look at the market share for a brand like CentralDesktop as compared to the market for collaboration tools. I’ve also included the search share for SharePoint, a collaboration tool by Microsoft.

Notice how the search for collaboration tool never moved, but SharePoint took off? Today, people are looking for something “like” SharePoint. They don’t call it a collaboration tool anymore.

I know that it’s hard to market yourself as an alternative to SharePoint, so let’s expand the search a little more.
Here’s a look at the potential market for wiki versus SharePoint and collaboration tool. Wiki is something everyone understands and that people are now looking for. So, if CentralDesktop can start referring to themselves as an enterprise wiki solution, with all sorts of integrated collaboration tools, they can be part of a huge — and growing — market. In addition, if they can help people quickly understand that they are an alternative to SharePoint, they might start moving the dial as they slowly erode Microsoft’s hold on the market.

By the way, you can also use Google Insights to tell whether a market is maturing.

In this example, you can see that the term wiki surpassed the term Wikipedia. This means, that although Wikipedia introduced the world to the concept of a wiki, the use of the term wiki has matured enough that it can be used it in its own context.

Look at the market and exploit it

So, before you start throwing around your lingo and shying away from terms that might be loosely associated to your product or service, check Google Insights to see where the real opportunities lie. You can always educate your visitors about the additional features or functions your solution offers after they quickly and easily understand what your solution is.

About the author

Andrew Davis -

In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.

Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.

When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.

He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.

"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."