One of the biggest challenges for a new company is getting the word out. Most start up companies don't have the money to buy ads or hire a slick marketing firm. While this might be seen as some to be a bad thing, a lack of funds can force creative thinking.
A few months ago, one of my favorite technology bloggers, Robert X. Cringely, posted that he was going to do a documentary on start up companies outside of Silicon Valley. We saw this opportunity and took it. The cost of entry was perfect (the time it would take to fill out a web form) and the possible reward was national press. Worst case, we get a little bit of traffic from his site. Not a bad deal! We submitted our application and began brainstorming ways that we could give ourselves a competitive advantage.
This is what we came up with (Eat your heart out Mr. Spielberg!)
(For the tech geeks reading this, we shot everything over the course of 2 days with a $250 Flip camera and cut everything together with iMovie)
Seemed like a pretty good idea, right? Sending world-famous BBQ ribs to a tech journalist would SURELY get us some attention. There was one thing that we failed to consider. Imagine this: you are sitting at home with your family about to settle in for a fun Memorial Day weekend. A FedEx driver knocks on your door and presents you with a package containing BBQ ribs. What would YOU do? Lucky for us, Bob was a good sport. Less than 24 hours after we placed the order, I got the following email from the one and only Robert X. Cringely:
Mark,
Did you send us BBQ? My wife is eating it. If she dies you are off the show.
Bob
At first I laughed. Oh, the wit! Then I started thinking - what if she DOES die? I know for a fact that the ribs are safe - The BBQ Shop has shipped HUNDREDS of slabs and has NEVER had a complaint. My paranoid side said, "Yes, but there is a first time for everything!" (I should note that my paranoid side is also a HUGE fan of the show House M.D.) WHAT IF I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING SOMEONE??!?
Actual picture of my reaction to the news:
Once I could breathe properly, I quickly fired off the following response:
We did send the ribs - I hope that they were ok! I hope that you enjoy them this weekend. PLEASE let me know if there are any problems - I would hate to think that I got you or your family sick. Maybe I should hold off on sending that sushi to Scoble...
Please don't die,
Mark Dinstuhl
I paced around, worried, paced around some more all while checking my email every 5 second. A few hours later I got the following response:
Mark,
All the best,
Bob
Attached to the email was this photo:
So there you have it. 1 day of brainstorming, 2 days of video production, 2 slabs of ribs and one stress-induced episode later, we managed to get the attention of one of the most influential writers in the technology community. Our team learned a lot from this exercise. We didn't have to spend thousands of dollars with a marketing firm to do this, we didn't have to get signed permission from anyone. We just did it.
And so can you.
(Note: The jury is still out on whether or not we made the cut for the show. Keep your digits crossed!)
