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Marketing for Entrepreneurs

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Submitted By MelodyMWu
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Core Marketing: Marketing for Entrepreneurs
Summary of the posted Powerpoint deck: What I would have said if we had more time

Note 1: I consider this to be extra material. I don’t expect you to know it for the exam. I present it because I think it may help you in the lab-to-market sequence.
Note 2: My comments in this talk are based mainly on a decade of talking to students about their start-up ideas. Take this advice for what it is worth. You should keep in mind that I am not an inventor, an entrepreneur, or a venture capitalist.

The AirMount: more information about this amazing failed invention, in case you want to look any of this up. Plus a possible new version based on similar principles from a company called Tesla Amazing. (Notice that they call their product “magnetic” even though it doesn’t involve magnets)
Main lessons from the AirMount: Just because a product is cool doesn’t mean you should invest time and money developing it. You have to solve a real customer problem at a price customers are willing to pay. If you do the EVC on the AirMount, and you take staples or tape as a reference product, you’ll notice that you don’t have much room for a margin.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to start a business: start with a solution and find a customer need it solves; or start with a customer need and find the best way to solve it.
Both ways can work. There are lots of successful, rich inventors who start with solutions first. However, I think that MBA education equips you better for the second approach (finding the need first) by giving you tools to conduct market research. Plus, I think that starting with a customer need will lead you to consider more alternative solutions and will make you less likely to get “product blinders”—the feeling of ownership and irrational confidence that inventors often have in their products.
Whichever way you

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