Why Building Your Fan Community Is More Important Than Your New Product Build

Evidence shows that over eight out of ten new product and service introductions fail in the marketplace. According to one study, 50% of U.S. startup companies fail within the first four years and 14% are due to poor marketing tactics.

The typical problem is that new product developers are not solving a true consumer problem or fulfilling a customer need. Nor have they defined a gap in the marketplace. Instead, they are trying to force cutting edge tech or product line extensions that fulfill their desire to make shit.

Boo.

Yes, those products might fail because of poor strategy, poor quality, the wrong price or lack of demand. But even superior products that truly found a blue ocean outside of the competitive kill zone, have also failed.

Why?

Simple. Because if you never build the narrative that answers the spontaneous questions spewing from our skeptical human brains, people don’t stop to figure your new thing out. They move on.

Your narrative is not, “Why do you exist?” But, “Why should we care?”

But what if your true strategic differentiator was not the product itself, but how people…