Normally, we’re used to seeing startups looking to solve the problems of their customers.
But lately, I have realized that there is actually quite a lot of startups, who are essentially asking their customers to solve their own problems.
I typically see it in outreach emails asking me to go to a service or a product and do something specific; update something, try out a new feature or something of that nature. And it’s all perfectly fine.
But it also sends a signal that something is off; something is less than ideal. We have encountered a problem or a challenge on our end, and you, our dear customer, should ideally help us fix it.
Essentially, what you’re often communicating in this way is a shortcoming. Something you didn’t get right in the first place, and now you’re looking to compensate or perhaps even fix the issue.
You could of course argue that there is no other way than outreach to tell about new offers, features etc., and to a large extend, you would be right about that.
However, I could also make the argument that if you had a truly sticky product that your customers were so habitually using they knew it inside and out, they would find out these things themselves, and there would be little need to do outreach to already existing customers.
In summary: When your need to do outreach to your customers is on the increase, ask yourself where in your product or service, your core offering may be broken or less than ideal.
That is the problem, you should solve. Yourself.
(Photo by Michal Matlon on Unsplash)