How To Test Market Entry Strategies Before Launch

✨ What does iterative multivariate testing look like? Take a look at the chart below. A couple of years ago we helped a client make a big decision: should they enter a new market? Serious investment would be required, and the company’s board wanted evidence that the company could generate demand in a market with a lot of established competitors. The company had ZERO knowledge of the new market (and the market had no knowledge of the company). Together, we developed hypotheses about what might work to position the company for success. I want to note the plural in that last sentence: HYPOTHESES. That’s how multivariate testing works. You test MULTIPLE hypothetical strategies at once with MULTIPLE audiences. It’s very different from how most people approach strategy, which is to test (if they test at all) that one perfect strategy. Multivariate testing of strategy is incredibly powerful. In the chart below, you can see the results of the first set of tests—those first lumps of traffic and revenue on the left. Clearly there’s something there, but nobody’s killing it, right? Wrong. Averages are deceiving. In the second wave of testing, we dropped the losing strategies and audiences and focused on the winners. Things started to pick up. By the third wave of testing (which was really a series of mini-waves), we weren’t just finding what worked—we were optimizing it. We call this sort of testing HEAT-TESTING, because it finds the ‘hot spots’ between strategy and audience. What does heat-testing tell you? Which audiences are most receptive How large those early audiences are How to position your product Which user flows are most productive in generating interest or revenue The cost to acquire a customer Whether you should move to the next step of a big investment I’ve been a strategist my entire career and here’s what I know: no amount of competitive analysis, focus groups, and surveys will deliver the one perfect strategy. Testing multiple strategies, ideally in an environment that gives you real-life, behavioral feedback, gives you raw material to iterate your way to a validated strategy. Always be testing.

92% of healthtech founders make the same mistake: They wait until their product is perfect before launching. Founders spend months building - refining features, fixing bugs, polishing UX. But when they finally launch? – No users – No feedback – No market pull Because they were optimizing for perfection - not market validation. The best founders don't wait to sell. They start before they're "ready." Here's the exact playbook that works: ▶︎ 1. Build your target list first Identify 100 specific people who feel your problem daily. Whether its a diagnostic tool or a workflow software, be as specific as you can. ▶︎ 2. Find them where they already socialise Join medical/health groups on LinkedIn, attend conferences, follow their publications. Don't cold email - engage with their content first. Comment thoughtfully on their posts about industry challenges. ▶︎ 3. Share one painful problem you've discovered each week Example - "I noticed ICU nurses spend 40% of their shift on documentation instead of patient care." Ask if others see this too. You'll get replies from people living this problem daily. ▶︎ 4. Turn conversations into 15-minute calls When someone engages, offer: "I'm exploring solutions to this exact problem - would you spare 15 minutes to share what you've tried?" Most say yes because you're asking for expertise, not selling. ▶︎ 5. Test demand before building Mock up a landing page. Show what the product might do. Then ask: “If this existed, would you pilot it for 30 days?” Real demand = budget, pilot interest, usage. Founders who do this aren’t waiting to get “fundable.” They’re testing their demand and product from day 1. Because your goal isn't to impress investors. It's to find 100 people who can't live without what you're building. So if you are still in the pre-launch stage, DM me what you’re building and I’ll send a few ways to test it fast. #entrepreneurship #startup #funding

Stop launching your dang Ag biological product everywhere all at once. Start in a small geographic region. And by small, I mean REALLY small. Like one state small. One county small. Launch your MVP (minimum viable product) in that region ONLY. Test your product concept in real time, tweak the things that need to be tweaked, and grow your credibility through time. Win in that tiny region before you expand. And then chose only ONE expansion strategy: add another use case OR additinal geographies. You don't have time or money to do both. What do I mean by use case? For bio-yield, biostumulants, or soil amendment type products, that looks like expanding into another crop or going from in-furrow to seed applied. For cattle supplements or feed additives, that looks like expanding from milking cows to calves, or from Holstein to Jersey operations. Or from confined operations to grazing operations. Or cow/calf operations to backgrounding. Ag isn't one market, its many many different segments. And each segment operates differently based upon geography. Launching in all locations in all crops is a sure fire way to tank in the marketplace. Add the complexities of biology to the mix, and there is zero chance you understand your product enough when you go to launch broadly. So stop wasting everyone's time, and take it one step at a time. Stop chasing the money, and start chasing customer experience, robust science-forward expansion, and test cases that show off your product. This strategy also gives your applied science team (product development) a chance to create a robust science story for each expansion event. No more extrapolation. You will have the data and sales materials to present to your customer at each stage of company growth. Now doesn't that feel much better than always playing catch up? It's time to be proactive, not reactive. It's time to respect farmers' time and budget. It's time to stop insulting farmers' intelligence by trying to convince them to try something that was never developed with their enterprise in mind. Lastly, it's time to level up your product development strategy. You don't have the time or budget to wait another day, week, month. What else is it time for? Leave a comment with your suggestion. #agriculture #livestock #cattle #productdevelopment #biologicals #feedadditives

Everyone says you should start marketing early — and they’re right. But early marketing isn’t about cranking up the volume. It’s about learning your audience, figuring out what matters to them, and testing your story until it clicks. The companies that have a successful launch are the ones that get the message right before they amplify it. Here's how to do the right marketing at the right stage: 1. Do 300 discovery calls before building anything There are companies spending $100,000+ building products in isolation. The market inevitably rejects them. Look at Scout RFP (now part of Workday): back in their startup days, the founders conducted nearly 300 discovery calls with procurement leaders before writing any code, shipped a one-page MVP, and eventually sold for $540M. Ask three questions: What are you doing now to solve this? What budget do you have allocated? Who else needs to approve? 2. Document everything like an anthropologist Interview every stakeholder type. Record their exact words, their objections, their internal metrics. Map who actually signs checks versus who evaluates. Learn what triggers budget allocation. Name 200 exact accounts and the specific buyers within them. This intelligence becomes your entire go-to-market strategy. Most empty pipelines at launch are list problems, not timing problems. 3. Get 3 paying customers before you scale Not free pilots. Paying customers. These design partners become your proof that the market actually wants what you're building. They should match your exact ICP - same size, same industry, same buying process. They're your template for everything that comes next. Three referenceable wins changes everything about your launch. 4. Test your story before you amplify it Early noise locks you into promises that don't match what buyers actually want. In complex B2B, sales cycles run 6 to 18 months. Use this initial stage to test messaging with ideal customers, validate what resonates and refine your positioning. Every conversation helps you understand exactly what makes your audience lean in versus tune out. Lock in your message before you amplify it. 5. Run a concentrated blitz when ready Once you have proof - real customers, real outcomes, validated messaging - concentrate your entire budget into a 90-day blitz. You need three fast, referenceable wins you can deliver inside those 90 days. A short campaign with locked-in messaging outperforms months of scattered experiments. You only get one chance at a first impression. TAKEAWAY: Start earlier. Test everything. Refine your message. The companies that explode at launch didn't start marketing later. They used early marketing to understand their audience deeply. When they finally amplified, they knew exactly what would resonate. That's the difference.

I used to think product-market fit came after launch. A 100K mistake showed me it didn’t __ At the first SaaS company I worked at, we floated a new service. Something we 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 the market needed. Everyone we spoke to loved it: “This is brilliant.” “Exactly what we’ve been looking for.” “Let me know when it’s live—I’d buy this.” So 𝘄𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗶𝘁. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁. 𝗪𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗮𝗹𝘀. 𝗦𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻 — 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲. Crickets. No signature. No feedback. No Sales. This internal product never sold, never scaled, and never closed a single deal. That mistake changed how I think about business: 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗺 ≠ 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. A signed contract does. Now, 𝗜’𝗱 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝘁, staff it, or try to scale it, 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝘀. Instead, bring prospects and customers 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 of a new product’s lifecycle. Define it 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 them. Build it 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 them. And sell 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲. That way, you’ll never miss the market. Why does this matter? Because 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 pitch a new idea and 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁, polite interest disappears. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝘂𝗽. So if you're testing a new idea: 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱. This way, you're not guessing what the market wants—you’re building 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁, which helps ensure you're solving a problem that matters 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸. Validation isn’t what people 𝙨𝙖𝙮 — it’s what they’re willing to 𝗽𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿.