As the curator of the INSIDER Guide to New Product Development (NPD), I’m constantly keeping an eye out for bite-size information that will help you develop and scale better subscription products. Here’s my “Five on Friday” list for July 31th, featuring the five best trends, tips, quotes or stats from my reading this week.
1. Just Starting Out? Think Less, Do More
Pamela Wilson’s article, “The Dangerous Myth of the Magical Tool” is excellent advice for those of us with newer subscription businesses. She’s included some specific recommendations about using Dropbox, Evernote, Skype and other free-to-low-cost tools as you start. But, her main advice? Don’t spend a lot of time analyzing your options – just go. My favorite quote:
“Sure, Photoshop does more, but for most of the images you’d want to create, it’s overkill. It’s like buying an ber-expensive Viking stove to make a dish of scrambled eggs.”
We can spend too much time on platform choice, design tools, even product design; it’s better to get something to market and modify or expand when you notice the need.
2. Free or Paid? Questions to Ask Yourself.
The second half of the article, “How to Decide Which Content to Sell and What to Give Away for Free” is more interesting than the first, as that’s where it lists reasons why your content will sell, versus being something you should give away. The best reasons are listed here:
- People will pay for in-depth, step-by-step guidance
- People will pay for access and tailored advice
- People will pay for experiences
3. What We Can Learn from the Demise of Google+
The past several days have seen the announcement of Google+’s sunset, and industry reports discussing why. But – we all know why Google+ didn’t work. However, it is valuable to spend a moment thinking about what we know, and how it could apply to our own subscription strategies. This article is worth a read in order to get those lessons from the experts, but here are a few of my own takeaways:
- No business ever succeeded by forcing an audience to take a product it doesn’t want in order to get at the product it does.
- Products that rely on massive acceptance in order to be valuable to the market are very difficult to displace.
- Being massive, and massively well-funded, doesn’t mean you’ll win every battle.
Everybody fails. It’s what happens next that’s the difference between good and great. Google is, of course, a great cyber behemoth that will only continue to grow, and it will be interesting to see what’s next.
4. SIIA’s Call for 2016 CODie Award Judges
The Software & Information Industry Association needs you – to judge its annual CODie awards. I’ve done this for the past five years, and it’s a real treat to get an in-depth look at some of the new information products out there, and speak to the teams who built them. Click here to learn more.
5. Using Fear to Succeed
Stepping out on our own to create a new business, even when we do so from within an established, successful one, is stressful and frightening as well as exhilarating. Leveraging that fear as a directional tool, however, is a valuable skill to learn. Here’s a good quote from a recent Entrepreneur article:
“If you’re afraid to call a prospect, launch a product take a moment to look at where the fear might be pointing…Entrepreneurs live this experience every day and use fear as a form of GPS.”
I agree with this statement, but would add – use your exhilaration to go off that GPS grid every once in a while. Use your fear to improve your subscription business, but – enjoy.
The summer is flying by – enjoy August! Have a great weekend everyone,
Diane
Diane Pierson, our INSIDER Guide to New Product Development, is a leader in product management and marketing, having delivered results to companies including Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis, American Lawyer Media and Copyright Clearance Center. She has built products & services that have delivered over $100 million in revenue and knows what works, and what doesn’t, when executing product plans and strategies. (Read Diane’s full Bio)
