I've recently joined a hardware startup,the first shipping of their product -which is a cool gadget- will be around November, they have already gone through crowdfunding and all that and have around 150k in pre-orders. Few days ago the CEO of the company told me that they want to change their strategy and focus more on growing the number of followers on social media and the hype around the product until the manufacturing and launch in November and not the actuall sales because he thinks people dont like to wait,he even wants to stop any futther more orders. i just wanted to see what you guys think,sorry if it got too long
I agree with Armando and Shaun, customers bring you revenue, social media followers do now. I would go even further to say that social media followers represent a cost center, an expense, because you need to have a paid employee or a contractor to manage social media followers and keep the brand message consistent.
Businesses exist because they have paid customers. It's that simple. Regarding hardware startups, I just published a case study about FitBit vs Jawbone: http://www.anagard.com/blog/2015/05/06/case-study-bootstrap-vs-venture-funding/ In just three years FitBit took 70% market share for fitness trackers with only $83M in venture capital funding and yesterday they announced $100M IPO even though valuation is $1B. FitBit has to thank paying customers for the success. In contrast, Jawbone, their competitor raised $518M, took 19% market share and is in debt today -- epic fail.
Please call if you and your team need outside feedback.
Answered 9 years ago
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