The web and 3D printers have taken a toll on marketing and branding. The web, because you can put stuff up on the internet and pretend you have a product or service when you don’t. Pick a name, buy a URL, add a few stock pictures and you are off. Use social media to promote it (for free) and start your skin-deep business. This is desktop publishing not product marketing.  As for 3D printers, you can create stuff to hold in your hand, prototype and walk around to buyers as if it’s something you might find in Best Buy. With no thought toward production, supply chain, consumer law, or patents.

It’s a popup business world.

What’s even worse is these pop-up entrepreneurs tend to do all the marketing ground work in-house. They build websites with WordPress, ads with online templates, name things as they might their children, and fund startups with credit cards. Fail. Fail. Fail. Albeit Fun, fun, fun – until the credit card comes due.

Startups and entrepreneurs that do things the right way (and there are thousands of them), start with a plan. A strategy. A product requirements document (PRD).  They are more business-focused  than play-time focused. They make lots of paper before starting up the 3D printer or HTML.  

As Keith Hernandez would say, they start with the fundies.

Peace.