Josh Kopelman, Redeye VC, fired a few shots at the current crop of internet startups in his post “53,651” this past week.
Among other things, he challenged the insular thinking he’s increasingly observing within young companies, particularly their focus on building products and services that appeal to the TechCrunch readers of the world, but then, sadly, fall terribly short of achieving any sort of broader consumer interest outside of this early adopter community:
“As more and more entrepreneurs start building what Fred Wilson referred to as second derivative companies, I think they run a big risk of designing a product/service that is targeted at too small of an audience. Too many companies are targeting an audience of 53,651. That’s how many people subscribe to Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog feed. I’m a big fan of Techcrunch – and read it every day. However, the Techcrunch audience is NOT a mainstream America audience.”
Now, from a PR and marketing perspective, there’s a couple of ways you could slice up Kopelman’s post, one way is to simply ask:
Could a web startup, today, achieve mass consumer interest *without* support of the TechCrunch/Web 2.0 “influencer” community?
Like it or not, popular opinion isn’t born, it’s built, and it still starts with the early adopters and the tech enthusiasts. Thank you Mr. Moore. I think now, probably more than ever, the influence that this group collectively wields is dangerously intoxicating, especially for startups just coming out of the gates (one of Kopelman’s main points). For the lucky ones, the nod of approval from an influential source, like TechCrunch, means so many things, not least of which is customer leads — thousands of them.
And from a PR standpoint, the word-of-mouth effect of influencer chatter can definitely carry a company’s story/message to a broader media community, also potential investors, partners, recruits, and more. In fact, you could argue that influencer WOM is often the best inroad to industry attention and the fast track ticket to big media stories.
This being said, I think the new, new media gatekeepers are taking shape, be that by design or not, and it’s hard to fault younger companies for marketing to them, especially when so much of their business can be propelled or punished by the opinions these sources make. One thing’s for certain, whether you’re selling a product for geeks, grads or grandmas, industry influencers *have* to be a factor in a startup’s marketing plan, and yes, for some companies, 53,651 matters — a lot.
Technorati Tags: Influencers, startups, 53,651, Marketing, PR, WOM, Redeye+VC
Technorati Tags: 53,651, Influencers, Marketing, PR, Redeye VC, Startups, WOM
