Wednesday was indeed, a new day. Still kind of reeling from the faux invader of the previous night, I didn't have too long to dwell on this as I had a meeting with the fortune 500 company who wanted to use my technology. Now when I try and learn a new subject, I go on a reading spree, and so I've recently purchased about 6 books on marketing.
I was going through one such marketing book about a half an hour before my meeting, and one of the points it made was that competition in the market place can be good. The whole Coke v. Pepsi thing actually helped both companies by increasing awareness of the dark cola market. Polaroid shot themselves in the foot by suing and kicking Kodak out of the instant development film industry. I'm not sure why, but then I began to wonder to myself "but what if you could own both "competing" brands? You could market one against the other to create a buzz, get loyal followings for both, and come up the big winner".
Putting that though aside, I went downstairs to my computer to get ready for my meeting. That's when the crazy made-for-tv light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel music would have began if there was a producer in the house. I checked my e-mail, and I had received an e-mail from my former company which I had proposed to work with on this type of technology, back in October.
At the time, I gave them a totally sweet offer that would have cost them nothing, but looking back, the marketing mistake I made was I didn't "find the pain". They didn't have a need, so the potential reward was outbalanced by the perceived risk of working with an outsider.
Wednesday morning, they had their pain. For the past 3 years since I left the company they've been advertising this program that only I knew how to create. Now it seems, someone wants this program, in a big, big way. A typically customer might have 5-8 products they want highlighted. This company wants 50. In short, it's roughly 8 times bigger than the standard project. It's so big, that it would take about 2 months of engineering development time.
So now, a half an hour prior to my first project which is very large in it's own right, my former employer, who only 7 months ago thought this type of technology was not worth pursuing, now has a very interested client.
So only 7 hours from the faux burger incident, I have the potential to have my first two projects, both of which are unusually large. And remember the Pepsi v. Coke scenario I had been thinking about only minutes earlier, it could totally happen here. My brand takes off, I create a project for my former employer with their company brand, and presto! There's a buzz in the industry, and the two leading brands are controlled by yours truly.
Granted, there are about 50 ways this whole thing could go wrong, but I do think God's timing is really interesting. Who knows what the future holds, but our dreams of traveling the world 2-3 months out of the year to do mission work, school Elliana in far off cultures and places etc. seem more and more like a real possibility each day...
No comments:
Post a Comment