Chers amis, fans de bonnes lectures,
Bienvenue aux 77 personnes qui nous ont rejoints depuis mardi dernier ! Si vous lisez ceci et nâĂȘtes pas encore inscrit, rejoignez vite les 2 447 personnes qui ont dĂ©jĂ eu la bonne idĂ©e de le faire. Câest juste ici đ
Cette semaine encore, je vous propose mes lectures les plus intĂ©ressantes, en mettant notamment lâaccent sur un article principal et en vous partageant mon avis dessus. JâespĂšre que cela vous sera utile.Â
Ecrivez-moi pour en parler, sur Linkedin ou sur Twitter. Les JCNews sont aussi disponibles sur le Blog Alan. Je compte sur vous pour les partager đ
đĄMust-read de la semaine
Chaque semaine, je publie un must-read, que vous choisissez.
đCelui qui dĂ©finit la catĂ©gorie, la gagne (David Sacks)
Nobody ever gets fired for buying the category leader. The category leader wins the easy sales â the order taking â while also-rans must sell hard to win every deal.
Many customers will automatically order from the category leader once they understand themselves to have the problem that category solves.
The purpose of brand marketing for all SaaS companies, therefore, is the same: to establish category leadership.
Jâadore cette approche sur lâimportance de dĂ©finir sa catĂ©gorie (le livre Play Bigger est intĂ©ressant sur le sujet).
In the case of a new category, this requires proving that the category actually exists. In the case of an existing category, it requires redefining the category around your disruption.
Je pense quâAlan est entre les deux :Â
Nous sommes une assurance santĂ©, et la seule assurance santĂ© digitale.Â
Nous sommes en train de créer une nouvelle catégorie dans les services de santé.
Jâadore la communication de Salesforce depuis le dĂ©part.
1. Define your category.
It is imperative that you define your category. This is best done in 2â4 clear descriptive words. Avoid flowery language; it needs to be immediately obvious what you do.
For example, Internal is âNo Code Internal Toolsâ; Product Board is a âProduct Management Systemâ; Sendoso is a âSending Platformâ for direct mail, corporate gifts, and customer swag.
Forking existing categories around new verticals or platforms is a viable approach. In 1999, Salesforce could differentiate from CRM leader Siebel by introducing the concept of âCloud CRM.â
The new category should underscore your differentiation.
Une catĂ©gorie doit ĂȘtre courte, simple Ă comprendre. Il y a Ă©normĂ©ment de boulot pour en arriver lĂ .
2. If you canât define it, redefine it.
If youâre not creating a new category, you need to redefine the existing one.
If we had been placed in the âSocial Softwareâ category, it would have been as a âchallengerâ or âniche player.â Jiveâs sales reps could have used this to undermine us in every deal. Better not to be mentioned at all.
We advanced our own category definition, Enterprise Social Networking (ESN), a private secure social network for inside your enterprise.Â
Our north star was user engagement and bottom-up freemium adoption by employees. On-premise competitors deployed by IT struggled with actual usage and could not compete on these dimensions.
Approche intéressante si votre catégorie existe déjà , et comment la compartimentaliser.
3. Categories are how business understands problems.
Business understands problems by categorizing them, so convincing the world that a new category is valid is tantamount to winning.Â
For example, letâs say youâre a SaaS company creating tools for product managers. Your argument would go something like this: âEvery other team in the company has its own system: Sales has CRM (Salesforce), the Finance team has ERP (Netsuite), Customer Support has CS Ticketing (Zendesk). But Product has been ignored. Product Managers need their own software â a Product Management System. In fact, every company needs a PMS or it will be shortchanging their product managers and ultimately their product.âÂ
Then, every time you announce a new customer or revenue milestone or a new fundraise or a product release, you will cite it as evidence that PMS is a major new category of business software.
La derniĂšre phrase est super importante Ă mon sens. Une fois quâon a choisi sa catĂ©gorie, il faut la rĂ©pĂ©ter sans cesse.
4. Use customer testimony to prove the category.
Your most powerful weapon in proving out a category is customer testimony. Prospects will naturally be suspicious of any claims you make. Your message is most credible coming from others, especially customers who can testify to their first-hand success with the product.
One of Salesforceâs most successful ad campaigns showed photos of CEOs with pull quotes about how Salesforce had helped their business become more successful.
Nous avons commencé à le faire chez Alan, et on adore l'exercice.
5. Shape the category requirements to position yourself and de-position competitors.
Once youâve defined the category, you can flesh out the category requirements. This is the time to talk about features. You can position yourself and de-position competitors by explaining what functionality is critical for a product of this type.
If you can position yourself around an architectural strength and de-position your competitor around an architectural weakness, it will be very hard for them to respond.
Quelles sont les fonctionnalités qui vous sont uniques ? Pourquoi sont-elles différenciantes ?
6. Pick noble fights but keep it positive.
Going up against a large legacy incumbent is common when youâre redefining a category. Itâs fine to draw sharp contrasts â and even pick fights â as long as you punch up not down, stay product-focused, and keep the tone positive.Â
In the early days of Salesforceâs ascent, Benioff obviously drew pleasure from ridiculing Oracleâs cost and complexity. When Oracle introduced its âprivate cloud,â an expensive on-premise database, Benioff mocked it by showing a picture of the massive piece of hardware under the headline âBeware the fake cloud.â
Lighthearted mocking of an incumbentâs legacy product is the best tone.
Il y a une bonne balance Ă trouver sur le ton de la marque, et comment attaquer la concurrence. Je lâai fait ici en rĂ©action aux courtiers et agents dâassurances. Ravi dâavoir votre feedback.
đŻConstruire une entreprise
En plus dâarticles triĂ©s sur le volet, je partage un principe de leadership dâAlan par semaine. Le mĂȘme que je partage en interne et Ă nos investisseurs tous les mercredis.
đSans cesse enchanter nos Membres (Healthy Business)
Pour nous diffĂ©rencier par lâimpact, nous avons dĂ©cidĂ© que nos produits ou nos fonctionnalitĂ©s devaient ĂȘtre delightful (quâon pourrait traduire par « dĂ©licieux » en français), câest-Ă -dire apporter du plaisir.Â
Qu'est-ce que cela implique ? Nous transformons notre produit en le rendant remarquable. Selon les mots de Seth Godin : "Soyez la vache pourpre dans un champ de Holstein monochrome." Alors, ne soyez pas un peu différent. Soyez trÚs différent. Ne soyez pas si prudent qu'il en devient facile de vous ignorer. Donnez aux gens une raison de parler.
đFramework pour prendre des dĂ©cisions en pĂ©riode de changements (a16z)
Matrix with structurally positive changes or ephemerally negative changes. Structurally positive means that something is 10x better, 1/10th the cost (roughly speaking on improvement and cost scale!), and has finally caught onâthereâs no going back to the older, worse, more expensive alternative.
From a companyâs perspective, itâs dangerous to get sucked into things that are ephemerally positive, since things are changing so quickly, but even more dangerous to ignore things that are structurally positive or structurally negative. The key is to make sure the cost structure is aligned to persevere past anything ephemerally negative and to invest in things that are truly structurally positive.
đDans lâactu
đ±Monde des technologies
đLes nouvelles perspectives du commerce online (Ben Evans)
I think we all now understand that anyone will buy anything online, given the right experience, and if your retail model is based on being an end-point to a logistics chain then you have an existential problem.
đLa fin dâun internet amĂ©ricain (Ben Evans)
80-90% of internet users are now outside the USA.
By 2017, almost half of new (straight) relationships in the USA started online.
We are entering a period of increasing regulatory expansion, overlap and competition from different jurisdictions, from the EU and UK to Singapore or Australia and, of course, China.
đSpaceX lance le premier vol opĂ©rationnel de la capsule Crew Dragon avec quatre astronautes Ă destination de l'ISS (Vox)
đApple annonce un programme pour les plus petits dĂ©veloppeurs (Apple)
à l'avenir, les développeurs qui gagneront moins d'un million de dollars par an ne paieront plus que 15 % de commission, soit la moitié de ce qu'ils paient aujourd'hui.
đ„ SantĂ©
đLa start-up britannique Unmind lĂšve 10 M$ pour une application sur la santĂ© mentale au travail (Telegraph)
Users are then pointed to content around mindfulness, measures to improve their sleep and other exercises that they can use daily to help manage issues such as stress.Â
To date, over 350,000 people have signed up to use the app in more than 50 countries.
đLes Dossiers de SantĂ© sur IPhone sont maintenant disponibles au Canada et au Royaume-Uni (Apple)
In the US, over 500 institutions currently support Health Records on iPhone, listing more than 11,000 care locations.
Health Records creates a direct connection between medical institutions and a patientâs iPhone, allowing users to see a central view of their allergies, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, procedures, and vitals across multiple institutions, and to be notified when their data is updated.
Apple worked closely with Cerner, Epic, Allscripts, and InterSystems to enable the FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standards-based integration with the Health app for their UK and Canadian customers.
đ AlanÂ
đLes communautĂ©s pour les parents sont "live" ! (Linkedin) : Discutez avec d'autres parents, modĂ©rĂ©s par des mĂ©decins, sur des thĂšmes comme le sommeil, l'alimentation du nourrisson, la motricitĂ©, etcâŠ
đAlan apporte un soutien psychologique Ă ses Membres (Linkedin) : Deux confinements en un an, ça pĂšse sur le moral et sur la santĂ© mentale. C'est pourquoi nous avons mis Ă la disposition de nos membres, une ligne gratuite pour parler avec des psychologues pendant cette pĂ©riode de confinement.
đđșLivres et sĂ©ries
đ 7 Power, The Foundations of Business Strategy
7 Powers d'Hamilton Helmer est un superbe outil pour parler de stratégie en interne. Vous devriez acheter le livre, et je vous en propose un résumé.
Câest dĂ©jĂ fini. A vous de jouer maintenant. Invitez vos amis Ă sâinscriređ
Et écrivez-moi pour en parler, sur Linkedin ou sur Twitter. Les JCNews sont aussi disponibles sur le Blog Alan.