UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

by M.J. DeMarco

Simulating the Market: Landing Page The most effective soft proof is an email address evolving from a one-page sell sheet, commonly referred to as a landing page. Create a web page solely for the purpose of collecting email addresses or pre-orders. Your landing page sell...

Interest and commitment are not the same:

Captured email addresses are circumstantial soft proof; cash is a verdict and hard proof.

Testing the Market: Mock Prototyping Similar to the landing page, mockup prototyping involves creating a nonfunctional, dummy version of your idea and exposing it to the marketmind. The goal of the mock version is to gauge a

market response, using any “ask the market”...

THE PROCESS PATH Congratulations, you’ve proven your idea’s potential. Now we want to draft a nuts-and-bolts road map to your first sale. The process path is a “low-level” stair-stepped estimation at executing your idea to reality. A typical process path shows numerous bulleted action items, each representing a major laddering toward your first customer. Each bullet itself is not one action but represents dozens of subtasks.

In this example, the process path contains only five major elements. However, within each of those five elements are numerous subtasks, which could take weeks to complete. The subtasks could entail a variety of actions, from meeting with manufacturers to learning new skills to outsourcing expertise where needed. The key for an effective process path is to define the major action blocks and their requirements while eliminating unnecessary actions and their costs.

day.) Another element of the process path involves self-reflection—knowing what things you can learn and what you cannot. For example, “learning to code” was a part of my process path years ago. I am very much a “hands-on” guy, so many of my process paths involve doing things myself. However, this “learn it” and “do it yourself” process path might not be right for you. The truth is, not everyone can learn how to code. You might have a knack for communication and delegation, whereas outsourcing, partnering, or hiring is the better process path. UNSCRIPTED is not about my way as the best way. The best way is your way: the one that fits your personal strengths. The process path’s objective is not detailing every actionable nuance but breaking down execution into broad progress chunks, each with bite-sized actions that can drive Chapter 28’s motivation cycle and spark the feedback loop.

PROTOTYPING After outlining the process path and confirming soft proof, you probably need a functional prototype. For digital services, this is your beta version. Your objective in the prototype stage isn’t a feature-rich masterpiece but something simplistic yet valuable and economically demandable to the marketmind. In the end, it must do what you claim.

build the right prototype. Optimally, it should be reverse engineered from the solution you envision. Specifically, start at the end. Begin at the customer experience. Visualize EXACTLY how you, as a customer, want your product to function, and then move backward using the act, assess, adjust model. What actions are needed to make your solution a reality? What skill sets are needed, and can they be learned, hired, our outsourced? What challenges block the way? Focus only on the required actions for the necessary features. Bells and whistles can come later, and only if the marketmind signals for them.

The prototype stage is the valley within the desert of desertion where entrepreneurs are clubbed with shiny-object syndrome—every idea seems better (and easier) than the one they are working on. With no feedback loop—zero sales, emails, or market resonance—for months, the motivation cycle stalls and passion can quit us. This is normal. Expect a long and lonely walk. Mud through it and let the marketmind light the way.

CUSTOMER LIFE CYCLE The next three stages within the kinetic execution model all occur within the customer life cycle, a transitional process where strangers are turned into prospects, prospects into customers, and customers into disciples. The life cycle has seven steps: AWARENESS: Exposing your product to the target customer. Example: Your target customer sees your product’s ad in their Facebook newsfeed. EVALUATION: Providing your customer with enough information to make a decision—a website visit, a white paper, FAQs, an internet search. Example: Your target customer visits your website and reviews your offer. ONBOARDING: Converting strangers into prospects by securing them into your marketing ecosystem. Example: Your target customer provides an email address or signs up for a FREE trial. PURCHASE: Converting from a prospect to a customer. Example: Your customer converts from a FREE trial to paid premium or buys your product

after being emailed free content. USE: Management and monitoring how customers use your product. Example: Most of your target customers renew or reorder your product; others ask for a variation of it that you do not have. ENGAGEMENT: Interaction and relationship building with your customer to foster retention and/or repurchase. Example: You send your customer a periodic email regarding trends or topics within your industry. DISCIPLESHIP: Creating loyal customers who become evangelists for your company, hence f...

PUSHING PROOF (HARD) Once the prototype or beta version is fully functional, seek a verdict. Will the marketmind pay for it? Your aim is hard proof which is a sale (or pre-order) and the receipt of moola. Hard proof is a market oscillation that says, “I like your stuff; here’s my money.” Every so often, I’ll get an email from a reader who experiences hard proof, and let me tell you, it’s like having billionaire parents on Christmas day. Once the motivation cycle closes its circuit, affirming your offer though a sealed value loop, it’s game over. Addiction. There’s no going back to time clocks, nine to fives, and dismal Sundays. But more importantly, hard proof sparks the endorphinous feedback loop, inspiring passion, self-worth, and an overall feeling of accomplishment. Above all, hard proof is your first goal worthy of celebration.

Acquiring proof starts with the first three steps of the customer life cycle: awareness, evaluation, and onboarding. Rarely will all of these things happen at once (an event) but take weeks (a process). No matter which, everything starts with awareness and exposing your offer to the target audience. But where and how?

There are many venues to choose from. Amazon, Reddit, ESPN, Twitter, Craigslist, Instagram, Pinterest, Yahoo, and Bing are just a few mass-market websites with targeting functions and plenty of eyeballs. Post or advertise your product, send the customer an offer, and see what happens. If you have cash to throw at hard proof, my favorite mediums are Amazon, Google AdWords and Facebook ads, all of which offer enhanced audience targeting. No cash? Try Reddit, Craigslist, or targeted Facebook groups.

If your budget is drawn from a dishwashing job, social-media venues offer excellent opportunities for a targeted reach at minimal cost, and sometimes for FREE.

Once your product is exposed to your desired audience, onboarding or a sale is the next objective. Onboarding is the conversion of a stranger to a prospect, usually involving the capture of an email address, a registration, or acceptance of a free trial. Onboarding is sometimes referred to as a “sales funnel” or “lead channel.” Onboarding (and sales) results are solely dependent on the effectiveness of your offer. If your landing page conversion optimized? Does your copy promote benefits over features? Are the pictures sharp, or fuzzy? Have you demonstrated social proof?

Prototype proof and moving through awareness, evaluation, and onboarding within the customer life cycle depend heavily on the act, assess, adjust modality. It is NOT act and then give up. It is NOT spend twenty-five dollars on Facebook ads and quit because

you had zero conversions. Execution failures during hard proof are often premature due to misinterpretation. You see, any time you push your product out into the marketmind through any medium, your outcome is guaranteed to be one of three things: An echo (colored gumballs) Diffusion (white gumballs) A conversion (the sale or an onboard—gold, baby!)

The Echo: The Marketmind’s Voice Echoes are any feedback or measurable data that isn’t a conversion. Essentially, it is the voice of the marketmind. An echo could be a question from your “contact us” form. It could be general feedback, such as “interesting, but I’ll pass” or “lol” or “pretty cool.” It could be tweets, Facebook comments, or website usage data. Whatever the echo, it is your job to analyze it. For example, were potential customers emailing product questions? Was there confusion about what your website did? Why did someone write “lol”? Did most of your users leave from the pricing page? Any echo should be assessed and then adjusted when needed.

Marketmind Silence: Is Nothing Really Nothing? The second outcome for your awareness push is the most likely: The white gumball of diffusion. Nothing happens. No sales, just the stiff sound of silence and a lighter wallet.

If you’ve soft proven your concept, nothing usually means there’s another deficiency in your campaign and not that your product is a bust. Don’t let a false flag end execution. Before you “fail fast” and move on to seemingly greener pastures, confirm that nothing really is nothing. You do this by checklisting your channel,

reach, and message.

1. Checklist Your Channel: Are you sure you’re leveraging the right channel with the right targeting measures? Or is there a better medium to reach your audience? If you’re advertising a facial cream on a Mustang forum, it's the wrong channel. If you’re Facebook ads target “all adults over twenty-one”, you’re targeting the wrong audience. Before concluding a product failure, checklist your channel. You must constantly test varied channels and targeting opt...

2. Checklist Your Reach: The other failure of nothingness is a lack of reach. You might have selected the right channel and the right targeting, but you haven’t reached enough of them. If your ad had only one hundred impressions or thirty-two clicks, you are drawing conclusions from an inadequate sample size. No matter what the industry, conversions need large samples. I don’t care what the product is, zero response from thirty-two clicks isn’t unusual, no matter what the offer! Just because you burned through one hundred dollars at Amazon and nothing happened, it doesn’t mean failure. You might have failed r...

3. Checklist Your Message: Probably the most common false flag is your message. Your offer is weak. Your copy sucks. Your call to action doesn’t exist. Your design and UI lo...

Marketmind “Yes”: Victory Pushing proof’s third outcome is the desired: a sale! Congratulations. Light a cigar and toast the champagne, you’ve just proven the viability and value of your offer. Someone wants your product and is paying for it. You’ve just accomplished more than most entrepreneurs ever dream of. Once the celebration is over, get dirty, and again, act, assess, and adjust. Is your marketing message as effective as it can be? Based on the sales, what is your customer acquisition cost and how does it relate to your cost structure? Did it cost you fifty dollars in advertising to generate twenty-five dollars in profit? Assuming a positive margin, your first sale segues into the next phase of kinetic execution: a productocracy.

PRODUCTOCRACY: USE, ENGAGEMENT, AND DISCIPLESHIP A sale proves you have effectively communicated perceived value. Your marketing works. However, have you delivered actual value? Only your customer knows. This unknown establishes the

Within the customer life cycle, the productocracy stage covers use, engagement, and discipleship. Your objective in the productocracy stage is to confirm gravitons—investigating if actual value is delivered (worthy of discipleship) over perceived value (worthy of nothing). If your customers aren’t loving your product, the objective becomes to skew value until they do,

establishing a productocracy. You can only do this by listening, observing, and engaging your customers. Are they complaining or not using your product as intended? Are they reordering, or is it one and done? Do they comment on your email blasts? Are they recommending your products on social media? The answers to these questions determine your potential product power in terms of transforming customers into loyal disciples.

Anytime you prod the marketmind, rise to full attention and see what’s bouncing back to you. These three gravitons could be a sign of a productocracy: Reorders or renewals: both say, “Yes, you’ve delivered on your promise.” Private emails: Written accolades or testimonials signify success. Public reviews or praises from strangers: a positive blurb (blogs/social media) from strangers hints of a productocracy.

PROPAGATION The final P of kinetic execution is the money stage: propagation. This is where millionaires and billionaires are created. It’s wild growth, scale, and exposing your productocracy to the masses. The productocracy confirmation validates a self-replicating

product, like fire, and propagation becomes an accelerant.

Once disciples start evangelizing for your products, it forces an expansion loop, which in turn forces growth, expands margins, and fudges mathematics. Recommendations, shares, and word of mouth fires the growth engine. Marketing becomes not a necessity, but an option. While I’m not suggesting a zero-marketing strategy, a productocracy survives one. Regardless of industry, propagating a productocracy is accomplished by reach expansion, channel expansion, and/or network expansion.

Another popular avenue of reach expansion is content marketing, where you provide valuable content for your target audience, free of charge.

As long as channel expansion hits your audience, maintains your brand, and fits into your cost structure, add, add, and add.

Network expansion involves networking and partnering with others: business development, affiliate marketing, and win-win joint ventures.

Network expansion is finding partners who share a similar purpose and synergizing your effort. It is NOT about compromised principles or being disingenuous for the sake of making money.

For someone not selling a book, network expansion consists of joint ventures, affiliate relationships, and business development.

So how do you expand your network if it can grow your business? The same way you would if you approached a mentor. Focus on value and what you can offer your potential partner.

Preservation of cash and its ultimate redirection into growth is the only thing that matters. When cash is tight, propagating a company is impossible. More sales, traffic, and users demand more resources. Every dime of revenue (and profits) should be reinvested into the company to fund whatever growth challenges await.

Everything is an echo and an opportunity to act, assess, and adjust.

Second, expect your initial business purpose to deviate. Once you learn acting, assessing, and adjusting, your original business intent will veer.

Faithful monogamy is

commit to one business and one business only. Then after striking it big,

can be a world-class anything—but it requires an unrelenting focus. Whatever your thing, you have to eat, sleep, and shit it. Execution is tough enough.

Great results come from great imbalances. The incredible life I live today is not because of balance; it’s because I meandered into the world of the obsessed. Periodic, huge life imbalances often precede success.

Ahh, the great irony of long-term balance is short-term imbalances win it. If I want to launch another multimillion-dollar company, I implicitly know balance will be forsaken. Decide what’s more important to you: permanent balanced mediocrity or temporary unbalanced exceptionalism?

Environment is everything.