Why a Startup needs a Community Manager
Written by Connie Bensen on August 27, 2008 – 11:04 pm -
An article about start-up’s leaped at me today. Chris Keene offers some straightforward advice about not getting caught up in the technology.
Over the course of three software startups and 10 years of teaching entrepreneurship, I have seen one flaw kill more software startups than all the other flaws combined. That flaw is caring more about your technology than your customers - failed software startups are smart about technology and stupid about who is going to use that technology.
He offer two suggestions:
1. Don’t put in all the features possible.
2. Marketing that trashes the competitors.
He suggests the answer is to recruit a business partner that is externally focused.
My suggestion is that a community manager can help out with so many of these things. They offer that external focus that examines the UI from the customer’s perspective. They are connected to the customers & can give feedback that makes the product clean & useful. And in terms of marketing - there is no reason to trash the competition. If a community manager is evangelizing it then they will offer up all choices & explain why their product is unique & meets the needs of the community. Really the customers decide, don’t they?
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August 28th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Thanks for the props! You are absolutely right - a community manager is a key player in helping a startup stay grounded in what customers really need. Of course this works even better in an open source business model, where the community tends to be much more robust and communicative than the traditional “gated” enterprise communities.