New marketing technology companies seem to be born everyday, and no wonder. The marketing industry is ripe for innovation, as digital advertising is expected to finally overtake television as the top destination for brand spending. With more and more inventory flooding the market daily, there is room for adtech startups to find ways to better serve and display this inventory.
It’s in this ecosystem that my startup Cedato has flourished. After a year and a half in business we’ve learned that the presence of opportunity is not enough to spell success for a newborn company. In this competitive environment, you need to get it right from the moment you launch. Starting out with a winning combination of entrepreneurial experience, domain expertise and top notch talent is what helps attract the initial paying customers needed to get the company off the ground.
Beyond early customer acquisition, we’ve found there are five key factors to actually establish growth within your startup:
1. Solve a really hard problem: It’s not enough to be just another service provider today. Look beyond improving what other companies are already doing and instead set yourself up to solve a problem that’s so hard others won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. By tackling a problem viewed by the industry to be unsolvable, chances are you’ll find customers looking for a solution so desperately that they’ll be willing to pay for and trust your product, even in the early stages.
2. Focus on getting paying customers before funding: I’ve met…