Week 4 - MKTG 6101 - Ascend Your Startup - Chapter 4

Hello everyone!

This post will be covering the content covered in Chapter 4 of Ascend Your Startup (https://www.amazon.com/Ascend-Your-Start-Up-Disconnects-Accelerate/dp/1641466219).

In the last two chapters, we spoke about defining your MVP (minimum viable product) and your MVT (minimum viable team). This week, we discuss how to Go From Market to Scale.
This is done by asking yourself the following three questions and coming to a decision that would best fit your business:

1. What distribution channel will you build as a pathway to customers?

2. What is your pricing strategy?

3. How will you help your customer’s customer scale and grow?

One key aspect that author Helen Yu covers in Chapter 4 is the “product-market fit.” This is extremely important for new business owners to understand because in today’s business market, there are hundreds of businesses and products all competing towards the same industry. But as Yu perfectly describes it, you must first identify a product or service that customers want to buy because it is a solution to a problem in the current market.
For example, the company HelloFresh identified a need in the market based on customers that wanted to consume healthy home cooked meals but were unsure/unaware of what recipes and ingredients to use. Therefore, the company came up with the idea to create weekly subscriptions to food boxes that contained recipes and their exact number of ingredients so customers can easily prepare meals at home.

This is a prime example of product-market fit and is key to understanding how to go from market to scale. Furthermore, I want to note that in any given situation or “need” in the market, there are already numerous businesses with “solutions” for that need/customer. Your business must be able to distinguish itself from the competition with a varying and adapting solution. 

Thank you for reading!

Until next time,

Mariana Munguia