startup hustle

A trend I am starting to see among young internet entrepreneurs as well as more established startups is a lack of understanding how customers use the internet to research and buy. This information is more basic than understanding your target customers, it is common consumer processes.

There are many reports written on how consumers use the internet to buy products and services. Its not new information, but hardly any of us (us = startups and entrepreneurs) use that knowledge to our benefit. I recently sat in a meeting with a colleague to help weed issues in his startup marketing plan. Before the meeting, someone was mentioning the new purchases they had made on the internet. The amount of research this individual conducted was what you would expect from a twenty-something that is internet savvy. This startup didn’t build a product under the assumption that their customers would do the same product research. They did not do it on purpose, they just didn’t put themselves in the consumers shoes.

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I love researching new domain names. My first website was a forum for pay-per-click marketing. When I found the domain PerClickForums.com as an unregistered domain, I thought I was a genius. I sold the site and the new owners drove it into the ground (wish I still had the domain though). Later I came up with StartupHustle.com. What startup doesn’t hustle a little at the beginning?

When looking for a new domain you have to research to see if that great domain you just thought of is available. You might not buy a particular domain that moment as you are checking the availability of multiple names. Hopefully you weren’t doing any domain research at NetworkSolutions.com recently. There are rumors is evidence that Network Solutions is registering domains that individuals are checking the availability of, and selling them at a higher price. I wouldn’t even be able to describe my anger if that had happened to me.

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