Launching our product has taken years of research, planning and development. As a web development company, we had a need that the current products could not solve. Developing client projects with the ecommerce platforms on the market currently had several downsides. These included astronomical license fees, bloated and breakable software, and vendor lock. So, way back before our launch, we researched to confirm the widespread need for our MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Marketing Feelers
From Sean Ellis’ Milestones to Startup Success, before coding we must find out if the problem exists, is worth solving, and the minimum features needed to solve it. Through discussions with other web developers, web development companies, and freelancers we discovered what was missing from the ecommerce market. Shuup’s product strategy and development followed the needs of these users. Our research and development efforts paid off through subtle marketing and niche segmentation. User feedback and analysis shows that Shuup fills the void in the web development market.
Niche Marketing and Micro Universe
This niche marketing strategy has shown to pay off for numerous startup giants. From Pipes to Platforms, we need to conquer our micro universe to break into the macro universe. Facebook, targeted Harvard students; Quora and LinkedIn targeted Silicon Valley startup founders and employees. Our niche market is those developers who need a better ecommerce platform, both for use at work and for their own use. They are the ones who understand the current problems with vendor lock, license fees, and poor code.
Getting Some Love
The feedback, code contributions, and feature requests from these web developers shows that we are on the right track. We are seeing Ellis’ milestoneof Where’s the Love? where those users that need Shuup, show us. These users are in fact web development companies and web developers working for ecommerce firms that need a better platform. We need to learn everything about them including specific use cases and demographic characteristics. We need to focus marketing to get more of these people as they are the keys to the kingdom.
Web Developers Push Progress Forward
These web developers seek open source, zero hidden costs, and software that gives them the right development capabilities. The signals they provide give us direction for our product development and fuel our further marketing efforts. They contribute to our product and its features and provide precious word of mouth exposure to more web developers. By focusing on our niche market or micro universe we can hope to snowball our usage growth and conquer wider markets.
