November 19, 2025 • 38 mins
How a Growth Mindset Drives B2B Marketing Success
In an increasingly competitive business environment inundated with digital noise, relying on “play it safe” tactics will only result in your brand drowning in a sea of sameness. The path to true differentiation, innovation, and standing out is not an easy one as it requires a significant mindset shift. For B2B marketing initiatives to succeed, you must create room for experimentation and data-driven discovery. How can B2B marketers approach this effectively and secure internal buy-in for it?
That’s why we’re talking toVincent Weberink (Founder, Pzaz.io),who shares expert insights and proven strategies on how a growth mindset drives B2B marketing success. In this episode, Vincent talked about why design experiments are crucial in B2B marketing and highlighted the need for structured, data-driven growth experimentation. He shared his proven methodology consisting of ideation, ranking, and rapid prototyping designed to quickly and effectively validate concepts. Vincent also shared some common B2B marketing pitfalls that teams should avoid and emphasized the value of iterative testing and learning. He broke down how teams can build an entrepreneurial mindset and get internal buy-in for experimentation-driven B2B marketing.
https://youtu.be/SlQa58iKf3k
Topics discussed in episode:
[2:09] The importance of running structured experiments in B2B marketing
[5:21] Common challenges marketing teams face when designing and executing experiments
[13:53] Key pitfalls marketing teams should avoid and some practical solutions
[20:36] How to align internal teams and consistently generate strong experimental ideas
[31:31] Actionable steps B2B marketers can take to run effective experiments:
- Understand and acknowledge that what you know is probably wrong
- Use ideation and designing experiments
- Trust your team
- Be creative in applying growth hacks
- Get external help if stuck
Companies and links mentioned:
TranscriptChristian Klepp 00:00
In a B2B landscape that has become increasingly competitive and inundated with digital noise, using play it safe tactics will result in your brand drowning in a sea of sameness. That said, the path to differentiation, innovation and standing out is not an easy one, as it requires a change in mindset. You need to have room for experiments to truly create something that is relevant to customers. So how can B2B marketers do this, and how can they get internal buy in for it? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp. Today, I’ll be talking to Vincent Weberink, who will be answering this question. He’s the founder of pzaz.io who specializes in developing business growth through creative, structured data driven growth experimentation. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketers mission is.
Christian Klepp 00:51
Vincent Weberink, welcome to the show.
Vincent Weberink 00:54
Hello Christian. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Christian Klepp 00:59
Absolutely I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation. I think we’re going to have a great time. We’re going to have a great discussion also about topics, and a main topic in particular that I think is going to be so relevant to B2B marketers and their teams in general. So you know, without further ado, let’s not keep the audience in suspense for too long. Let’s just jump straight into it. All right. So Vincent, you’re on a mission to drive business growth through creative, structured and data driven growth experimentation. So for this conversation,
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In a B2B landscape that hasbecome increasingly competitive
(00:04):
and inundated with digitalnoise, using play it safe
tactics will result in yourbrand drowning in a sea of
sameness. That said, the path todifferentiation, innovation and
standing out is not an easy one,as it requires a change in
mindset. You need to have roomfor experiments to truly create
something that is relevant tocustomers. So how can B2B
marketers do this, and how canthey get internal buy in for it?
Welcome to this episode of theB2B Marketers in a Mission
(00:30):
podcast, and I'm your host,Christian Klepp. Today, I'll be
talking to Vincent Weberink, whowill be answering this question.
He's the founder of pzaz.io whospecializes in developing
business growth throughcreative, structured data driven
growth experimentation. Tune into find out more about what this
B2B marketers mission is.
(00:51):
Vincent Weberink, welcome to theshow.
Hello Christian. Thank you verymuch. Pleasure to be here.
Absolutely I've been reallylooking forward to this
conversation. I think we'regoing to have a great time.
We're going to have a greatdiscussion also about topics,
and a main topic in particularthat I think is going to be so
(01:12):
relevant to B2B marketers andtheir teams in general. So you
know, without further ado, let'snot keep the audience in
suspense for too long. Let'sjust jump straight into it. All
right. So Vincent, you're on amission to drive business growth
through creative, structured anddata driven growth
experimentation. So for thisconversation, let's focus on the
following topic, which is howB2B marketers can create a
(01:35):
mindset and design experimentsto understand what customers
want. That kind of sounds likeit's very, I'm going to say
pedestrian, but it's incredible,and I'm sure you'll have plenty
of case studies to show thatthere's a lot of people out
there that don't follow thisprocess, and then they get into
trouble. So I'm going to kickoff this conversation with two
(01:57):
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them all right? So the
first question is, why do youthink that design experiments
are important for marketingteams? And based on that, where
do you see a lot of marketingteams struggle?
I think they're very importantbecause as human beings, we're
emotional when we makedecisions. Problems is that,
(02:18):
therefore when we try to drivegrowth. We have this idea about
something, and then we tend tocompletely jump into it, build
everything. Spend a lot of timeand money and resources on
building that thing that webelieve is going to be very,
very successful, and that takesa lot of time. And the reality
(02:38):
is that most of the time you'reactually wrong, even though you
think that you know yourcustomer, even though you think
that you know this is the besttrick or marketing tactic that
you're developing. And what thisexperimentation model does, it
sort of forces you to go througha very structured, almost
(03:03):
scientific process, becausethere are some steps in there
that help you to remove thatemotion from your decision
making.
And an example of how decisionmaking often is influenced is
when you're in a small team or alarge team, you're sitting
around the table and you'retrying to brainstorm, say, oh,
(03:26):
you know, we have this, thischallenge. We're launching a new
product, or we're changingsomething, and we need to
communicate it, driving salesup. And then the people who are
best sort of equipped with salescapabilities are the ones that
(03:46):
you know will dominate theconversation, and what we tend
to do is then listen to them,whereas there are other people
around the table that you know,they might be more introverted,
might say less, that also havereally, really great ideas. So
what happens is that you collectall these thoughts and ideas,
and then the person that's verygood at selling is selling their
(04:07):
idea to you, and you end uptaking that one. But it has
nothing to do with reality,whereas in the methodology that
I'm sort of promoting, what youactually do is you try to
capture as many ideas aspossible, as quickly as
possible, and then, in almost ademocracy, you rank and rate
them according to severalcriteria, and that will help you
(04:30):
to make some of those ideasfloat. And the ones that pop up
are the ones you should actuallyfocus on, because now, within
that democratic decision makingprocess, you've tried to
optimize the chances that one ofthose ideas will actually lead
to much quicker success than anyof the others. And you can also
(04:50):
use it in the reverse, the ideasthat completely sink because no
one voted for them, maybe onlyjust the person that was
selling. You know that they goaway. You just throw them away
and forget. About them, becauseclearly they didn't get enough
support. And the other questionyou were asking, sorry focused
on the first question.
No problem, absolutely,absolutely no. Well, that was a
(05:11):
great way to, like, set up theconversation. And I guess it
segues to the question, where doyou see, based on what you said,
where do you see a lot ofmarketing teams struggling?
Well, I see them oftenstruggling is that they tend to
spend money and time on just theordinary things that everyone
(05:32):
sort of accustomed to, becausedepending on the type of company
you work in, that's the safechoice, and that ultimately
doesn't really help you grow.It's typically the stuff that
you would never expect to work.And I'll give you a great
example of this in a moment thatmight give you this amazing
(05:57):
growth overnight or amazingsuccess. It doesn't necessarily
have to be growth. It can bespecific campaign where you just
need people to sign up, becauseyou're trying to obtain
information from them and to getthose people to sign up. It
could be a problem. You'redesigning your funnel, and then
something isn't really working.
So in my experience, whathappens is that people will say,
(06:22):
Okay, let's build a landingpage. Let's build a website, and
let's make it beautiful. Let'smake it perfect. But while
you're in this early stage, youhave no clue if it's going to
work or not. You're now wastingall of those resources where
it's so much better to very,very quickly, design
experiments, run them as quicklyas possible, see where something
(06:44):
is happening, and then sort ofiterate upon that specific
experiment that you wererunning. And then slowly, over
time, you get to a point wherethat experiment can be fleshed
out, can be refined. You mightdo some A/B testing, and
especially in the world we'removing into with the rise of AI
(07:08):
speed is everything past earlydays of when I was starting to
do, you know, growth marketingor growth hacking, depending on
what you like to call it. Let'ssay 15 years ago, you could
simply run an experiment, andthat experiment could would last
for certain periods of time. Youcould get away with some of the
(07:30):
experiments, even running themfor months. But with the rise of
AI, what we're seeing is thatexperiments only work for very,
very short periods of time. Andwhat I see with a lot of the
marketing teams is that, youknow, they're not accustomed to
driving fast and quickly runningand failing fast, so that you
(07:51):
can very quickly learn to seewhat ultimately what ultimately
works.
So a great example of somethingthat I experienced it when I was
running one of my startups,which was a streaming service,
and I believed I got everythingright. I was just convinced that
(08:11):
there was nothing wrong with theproduct, but I wasn't getting
any traction, nothing,literally, no one was signing
up, and I just couldn'tunderstand. So what I started to
do is just run one experimentafter another. First obviously,
I went out and spoke to people,because that's the first thing
you should do most of the time,especially when you're in
(08:34):
startup mode, either a startupor you work for corporate, maybe
running a division or launchinga new product, you have no data.
But if you read all of the booksout there, they all tell you,
Oh, let's look at the data.Well, guess what? You don't have
any data. So what you need to dois you need to go and speak to
people and find the soft data toreally understand, you know,
(08:56):
what's going on. How do I createa product that people will be
willing to buy, and I did that,and then it sort of confirmed
that there was nothing wrongwith the product. And then
months into that process, Istill wasn't getting any
traction, and the startup wassort of moving to a point where
(09:17):
it started to fail, because, youknow, you're running out of
money, you're running out oftime. So I kept running
experiments, believing that themethodology that I use simply
works. You just need to keeprunning, running, running. And
then one day, I essentially wasclose to giving up, and I
decided to take on anotherproject because I had run out of
(09:38):
money. But on the side, I keptrunning experiments, and what I
did is I put a play button onthe homepage, allowing people to
watch television for fiveminutes without signing up. And
that simple trick got me 11,000euros overnight. It took me 11
(09:59):
months. To uncover that, I hadnow proven that indeed, the
product wasn't wrong. Theproduct was always right, but
the way we were marketing waswrong, and it is always one of
the two. It's either there's noproduct market fit or you're
selling it in the wrong way.Your marketing is wrong. And in
a way that was very frustrating,because this very simple thing,
almost as simple as a paperclipnow gave me all the growth in
(10:23):
one way. It was too late for me,because I had to go into that
other project. The revenuewasn't enough to sustain the
business, but it did allow me tosort of keep the business
afloat. And I was working thisother project, and then I
returned, after like a half ayear or so, back full time onto
the startup once I wasgenerating enough recurring,
(10:44):
recurring revenue there, andyeah, that's sort of, you know,
what I strongly believe in. Youjust need to keep running those
experiments.
Of course. The third option isthat your timing is completely
off, which is another thing thatI've experienced several times.
I've run many startups, most ofthem failed over time. I'm proud
(11:09):
to say that I never had to raisemoney for any of those startups.
I was sort of in the last 30years of my career. Thank you. I
always managed to, you know,make enough money to sort of
sustain, but many of them neverbecame the big winner. They were
just doing enough, and then atsome point, there was an end of
life, because either the marketwas fooled or or just turned out
(11:35):
that there was no point incontinuing to run that company.
An example is VPN product that Idid in 2003 that's when the
first idea started. VPN was abusiness to business product,
and we decided to consumerizeVPN because our only competitor
(11:55):
at the time was called hide myass, and the technology was
very, very complicated. Andafter sort of what happens after
911 where a lot of governmentsstarted to invade everyone's
privacy, we decided that, youknow, it is also important for
(12:15):
individuals to retain a level ofprivacy, you know, within the
boundaries of the law,obviously. So we spent a lot of
time in developing thattechnology, creating a product
that was very, very easy to useand that was secure and safe.
And we were very, verysuccessful in the first year and
a half. We even managed to getin Google on the second place,
(12:38):
right after Cisco, which is theinventor of VPN, but by the time
we had about 40,000 customers,that was it. That was just, we
just couldn't grow anymore. AndI then decided to abandon that
project. Over time, someone elsecontinued it for several more
years, and of course, now VPNmass market product, but over 20
(13:00):
years later, and it's the mostcommon product out there, and we
were just too early. So eventhough it was an exciting,
exciting adventure, it made usmoney. It was a profitable
business. Ultimately, at thetime, there was no point in sort
of continuing, trying to sort ofpush it, push it further.
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutelygreat points. And you know,
(13:22):
thank you for sharing those,those experiences and the you
know, those past successes andchallenges, failures and so
forth. I think it's, I thinkit's an important part of the
overall process, right? I'mgoing to move us on. And you've
mentioned some of these already,but like, what are some of these
on the topic of designexperimentation and growth
(13:44):
growth marketing. What are someof these key pitfalls that
marketing teams need to avoid,and what should they be doing
instead?
The key pitfalls they need toavoid is to believe that they're
always right. I mean, that isthe first thing is, in essence,
(14:06):
that you should learn that mostof the time you will be wrong,
and that success lies in theability to admit that and to
move forward very, very quicklyby running a lot of those
experiments, and by designingthose experiments very quickly
(14:26):
and having the ability to turnthem into minimum viable
products. And the pitfalls thatmost people fall into is that
they think you'll just read abook, and then you can just do
it. It's simple, right? Oh, it'sjust like marketing. It's the
(14:47):
same way how I learn how to doadvertising, I can simply learn
how to do, you know, growthmarketing. But the reality is,
it's then it is a thing or atrick so that understanding and
the realization that you justneed to start thinking
differently, start thinking outof the box, be creative, because
(15:10):
a lot of those hacks come fromplaces that you simply will not
expect.
I guess Airbnb is a typicalexample. You know, as far as I
remember the story correctly.Two guys set up Airbnb. It was
literally an air bed insomeone's house. They were
running the business. They hadabout 10,000 you know,
(15:30):
customers, and they could havesaid, Oh, you know, we're doing
great. Our marketing is doingwell. We're making money. But
ultimately, they were notsatisfied, so they decided to
continue, and then what happensis, this is before the big thing
that most people have heard of,which is correct, Greg's list.
That's when they reallyexploded. But before that,
(15:51):
something else happened, andthat was when one of the
founders said, Well, how do weexpand our capacity, and how do
we get more people interested inour products? And it was around
the organization of trade showswhen there was always a shortage
(16:12):
of capacity in hotels, and theydecided to try that out. And if
I remember correctly, they grewsort of from 10,000 people to
200,000 people in just a coupleof months. And that was actually
their real growth hack, the realspurt, whereas reckless took
them to millions. And that's thething that everyone knows. But
(16:34):
it was that mindset, thatunderstanding of not being
satisfied with what you'redoing, and the ability to pivot,
because it was a complete pivot.It was no longer just an air
bet. Now you were renting out abed in someone's house, and that
was sort of the foundation whatthen became Airbnb. And I think
most marketing teams have neverbeen exposed to that way of
(16:59):
thinking. You know, they've beentaught the simple stuff on, how
do you do advertising, how doyou look at data, you know, how
do I build a website? How do Iorganize a trade show, etc. But
it's these things where you takean idea, where you're almost
stepping into the entrepreneur'sshoes by looking at, how can I
(17:23):
make the business grow throughextraordinary ways of
marketing?
Absolutely, absolutely. You knowwhat? That's a phrase that I
also heard at a business meetingon Friday where I was talking to
the branch manager of a bank.And one of the things that she
said, why, how she helped thebranch to grow, is because she
(17:45):
came out of a business. She wasa family business, and she was
running her own business, so shecame with an entrepreneur's
mindset. And I do think thatthere is that is really, like,
significant, especially ifyou're talking about and I don't
want to, like, use these, like,overused buzzwords, let's say,
(18:06):
but like, you know, if you'reentering this world of, like,
the scrappy entrepreneurs oreven the scrappy marketing
teams, right, you can'tnecessarily go in there with the
corporate mindset. No offense toanybody that's in corporate but
if you're stretched for, as youcan rightfully attest to
Vincent, if you're stretched fortime, bandwidth, resources and
(18:29):
budget, you've got to, you'vegot to think more like a
guerrilla fighter versus aconventional army, right?
You need to test as early aspossible whether or not the
ideas or your hypothesis,hypothesis that you have are
actually true, and especiallywhen you're an entrepreneur or
(18:49):
in a product team. And I have anexample for there was a famous
UK bank that had an idea wherethey wanted to test if friends
and family would be willing tobecome guarantors for young
people that would want to buy ahouse in London. And you know,
(19:11):
banks are very, very big, sloworganizations, and typically, if
not alone, figuring out how thislegally works will cost them
millions right to develop thewhole full product. So how do
you do something? How do youcreate this experiment where you
can prove whether or not there'sany viability in even thinking
(19:32):
of offering such a product? Andwhat they came up with is
essentially to build a landingpage where they would simply ask
people to sign up for theservice. They ran a 500 pound
budget against it, so the totalcost of the whole experiment was
maybe 1500 pounds, and nowthey've managed to validate it,
which saved them literallyhundreds of 1000s of pounds and
(19:52):
the risk that that product mighthave failed. And I think that is
exactly the entrepreneurialmindset that a market. Marketer
needs to develop and understand,Okay, I'm not just responsible
for selling this product, butI'm also responsible for
understanding, you know, who doI sell it to? How do I sell it?
What should the product looklike? How can the product evolve
(20:14):
so that there's a good productmarket fit?
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.You brought some of these up
already, but let's dig into itdeeper and unpack it. I should
say, like, so based on yourexperience, like, how do you how
can B2B marketers get tractionas early as possible? So how can
they build experiments? What arethose key steps that they need
(20:36):
to take?
The first thing this is, so Isort of use a methodology and
which is very, very structured.And I use that because if I
don't, I get lost in ideas.Because it is very easy to come
up with 100 ideas. A lot ofpeople you know, can do that. So
what we do is I sit down, eitherwith a team, or I might take a
(20:59):
certain periods of time, whereall I do is just collect as
possible. Then for every idea, Iwrite down, what is the idea?
What do I believe this idea willgive me? So what is the outcome?
How do I prove, potentially, asa hypothesis, that what I
(21:20):
believe is true? And then I sortof make those notes, then I
store them in cards. And you cando that in any kind of project
management tool, whether it'snotion or cell or bunch. Just
create those cards.
Then what I do is I rank andrank them so, and I ask the team
to do that, or the people I workwith, for example, if I was
(21:43):
doing consultancy for clients,we would have a specific,
specific group of the clients dodoing the same thing, and then
all we would do is see, Okay,which of those ideas are
floating. And we would take thetop 10, again, it was very easy
to then generate, like, 100different ideas, and you take
the top 10, and then for each ofthose, you're now going to
(22:05):
discuss them and essentiallysay, Okay, if I need to turn
this idea into minimal butviable products, allowing me to
prove that I am right or wrong,what is the least amount of work
you can then do? And you know,so in my book, I publish a whole
(22:27):
list of MVPs (Minimum ViableProduct), but actually, with
ChatGPT, you could probably justtype, give me a list of all the
different type of MVPs andexplain how they work. So for
example, you have a Wizard ofOz. A Wizard of Oz is, is an
MVP, where everything happensbehind the scene. The product
really doesn't exist, but thecustomer thinks it exists. And
(22:47):
you do everything manually.That's just an example.
So what you then do is you thengoing to think about, okay, who
needs to do what? And then yourun a short sprint. You design
the sprint. Say, Okay, nextMonday, with the three of us,
we're just going to spend oneday on building that thing. And
(23:08):
I, most of the time usedistribution hacking, or in
other words, advertising, todrive some traffic to whatever
that experiment is to then proveof my whether or not my
hypothesis is correct. And fromthere onwards, you then, of
course, have some analytic tool,or, depending on how you how,
(23:31):
you then prove it, and then youstart to iterate and but I
promise you, most of thoseexperiments will fail, which is
great, but if you run 10 veryquickly, maybe in the course of
two weeks, if you have two orthree where you see the needle
moving a little bit, now youhave something to take the next
step. And a classical mistakethat I've seen is that people
(23:55):
always tend to make it toocomplicated. So what they do is,
rather than designing anexperiment that gets you one
answer, they try to get as manyanswers as possible. And that
doesn't work, because you know,if you have any exposure to
data, if you have multiple datapoints, then it's now up to your
(24:16):
interpretation, and then you'reselling it to yourself, because
you want the hypothesis to betrue. So it's very difficult to
then again, step back and say,Ah, you know, can I really be
honest with myself? So test onething at a time. Once you've
proven that one of those thingswork, you just design the next
one and the next one and nextone, and then within this very
short periods of time, you'llget to a point where, where it
(24:37):
starts to work or fail. Youcould prove that the product
simply is not viable. Which,which I've had many times, and
then even pivoted afterwards,given up on many products,
because simply, even though Ibelieved, you know, was going to
be amazing, yeah, it turns outto be wrong. So, yeah.
(25:00):
Absolutely, absolutely. Like,it's really a fine, a fine
balance between speed, but alsolike, like, the quick
experimentation, as you say, andyou know, as you were, as you
were discussing your process, itactually just made me think of
another question, which I'm sureyou faced countless times, and
(25:22):
you brought it up in thebeginning too. How do you get
this internal alignment? Youtalked about, like a team
getting together in the room,and I've been in one of those
teams right, where there were acouple, like, we used to call
them the stars of the show,because, you know, when they get
up on stage, they want thespotlight to be only on them.
Forget about what everybody elsesays. My idea, my baby is the
(25:44):
most beautiful baby in theworld. And how dare you insult
my baby, right?
Exactly.
But, but the reality, as yourightfully pointed out, which
I've also seen firsthand, thereality, is that the one that
shouts the loudest doesn'tnecessarily have the best idea,
right? It's sometimes thesepeople. It's sometimes these
(26:06):
people that don't say anything,that don't contribute to the
conversation, they actually havethe solution that perhaps the
market is looking for. Butunfortunately, their voice is
drowned out by these so called,I'm just gonna call them the
Divas in the room, right? Soback to the question, how do you
(26:28):
get that alignment? How do youget those ideas out of everybody
in a way that it's not justfair, but it's also like more,
more in line with what themarket is looking for. Let's put
The people around the table thattypically don't speak up, you
it that way.
know, some of them are the deepthinkers. They really think
(26:51):
about something, and they havereally great ideas, but they'll
then struggle to properly defendtheir idea and to explain it,
whereas the other person on thetable, who's good at selling
themselves, you know mightthey'll do everything to defend
their idea, and therefore theywill attack the other ideas. And
(27:15):
what you sort of see is byimplementing this rank and rate
model by definition, you'reexternalizing the decision
making, so you're agreeing witheveryone on the around the
table, that everyone writes downtheir idea on the paper, on a
(27:36):
piece of paper, and you definewhat that structure should then
look like, which means is no onehas to defend it. They just
write it on paper. You thengather those pieces of paper and
you add them to the tool. Thenyou ask everyone to rank and
raise which, by the way, couldbe done anonymous, which I've
done many times. And that wayyou just look at the one that
(27:58):
floats, and you just, if theteam look, we don't know who's
right, we can't afford for thisventure to fail, and therefore,
we're just going to focus on theideas that have the greatest
potential of propensity. Andthat's how I do it, and it's
always worked well for me.There's, of course, when I would
(28:19):
introduce this to new startupteams, very often it's the
entrepreneur that is the biggestproblem. You know that they're
the hardest to convince, becausethey typically have the
strongest opinion of all.
So you're talking about thefounder, right? The founder
Yeah. About the founder? Yes,yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah,
(28:40):
because they look, you know,there might be a great marketer
or great salesperson who havevery strong ideas, and they
might, you know, accept inputs,but it's typically the founder
that will then say, yeah, now ifyou know, it's my money, so I'm
going to just do it my way, andit's wrong, because you're now
(29:01):
letting your emotion again,getting In the way. And this
example that I gave you with theplay button that was sort of
happened while I was in theprocess of creating that
methodology that I use, which issort of based on me having read
1000 books where I reallystruggled that most of the
books, even though they'rewritten for startups, if you
(29:24):
really dive into it, they'reactually more for startup teams
and corporates, very often, theway they're described, that you
just can't apply them to normalstartups, because normal
startups work differently. Andwhat I then did is I sort of
took all of the models in there,and then figured out, what if
(29:44):
you combine them, crunch them,and then create this
methodology. And I was doingthat for myself, because I
really struggled, having done somany startups, and then I found,
okay, so now I have thismethodology. I just kept doing
it. Kept. Believing thatultimately, it would work with
the idea that sometimes you knowon this path and that other
(30:08):
people need to help you to sortof step out of your comfort zone
and sometimes think from theleft, from the other side,
because your growth might comefrom a different direction, and
which could even be true withinyour customer persona. You think
you have the persona, right. Butwhile you're digging and running
(30:29):
the experiments, it might be thepersona next door which is the
true, real customer, and youjust need to uncover that by
believing in that methodology. So...
Absolutely, absolutely. Youknow, we did one of those
exercises in Q2 with a clientthat had was very convinced of
their ICP (Ideal CustomerProfile). And then we went
(30:50):
through this exercise where wedid, um, we did a diagnosis on
the ICP to determine, like, isthis the right is this actually
the right ICP you should begoing after, right? So I'm 100%
with you on that one. Okay, myfriend, we come to the point
where we're talking aboutactionable tips, and it's really
just a recap of all the greatrecommendations you've given us
(31:12):
already. So just imagine thatthere's a SaaS (Software as a
Service) marketing team outthere, or somebody in B2B
marketing that's listening tothis conversation. They're like,
wow, that's exactly what I'mgoing through right now. So what
are the maybe three to fivethings you would say they can
take action on, like right now?
First of all, understanding youknow, coming to the realization
(31:36):
that whatever you know isprobably wrong. Which is, which
is the hardest thing to do. Thesecond thing is you should
really start working by usingideation and designing
experiments, create MVPs fail asfast as you can, because that's
the way you learn as quickly asyou can. And I sort of describe
(32:00):
that in my book that I justlaunched, because it, you know,
yes and into the same problem.Also, you know, trust your team.
Trust that other people havegreat ideas as well. And very
(32:22):
often, the great ideas come fromthe people that otherwise
wouldn't, wouldn't say anythingand be as creative as possible.
Try to prime yourself by just,you know, search online, what
are great growth, growth hacksor other marketing tips and
tricks, and then try to figureout, how can I apply those? How
(32:42):
can I use those as potentialexperiments? Because that way
you can just simply moveforward. But you know, if you're
stuck, get external help,because they're like people like
yourself, you know, who canreally help to sort of leapfrog
this, because otherwise, you'rejust stuck and trying to learn,
and while you're running out ofmoney, you have no time. Most
(33:05):
starters will last for sixmonths, and then they've run out
of money, prove that you'reright before you build anything.
And that is really, I think, themost important. And so the last
tip I want to give, don't juststart building any product,
because you will fail. It's notfor nothing that 95% of startups
(33:26):
fails within within the firstcouple of years. It's because,
you know, you believe thatpeople will flock and will love
whatever you're building. Butthe reality is just very, very
different, and it might be thesmallest thing that you get
wrong, but you know that'senough to fail, so...
(33:46):
Prove that you're right beforeyou build anything. I mean, if
there's anything that theaudience should be taking away
from this conversation, I thinkit's that sentence, right?
Absolutely, that's fantastic.Thanks again for sharing those
tips, and I hope the audience istaking as many notes as I am
during our conversation. Okay,two more questions before I let
(34:09):
you go, Vincent, so here comesthe bonus question. So you're,
this is the understatement ofthe year, but you're a bit of a
nomad, right? Like you'reoriginally from the Netherlands,
you've lived in Greece, and nowyou've relocated, I think the
last time we spoke, you were inFlorence, and now you've moved
somewhere else in northernItaly, right? So how has this
(34:31):
lifestyle impacted you,personally and professionally? I
mean, it's clearly changed yourview of the world, I'm sure.
Yes, so somehow I felt I wasalways stuck in the Netherlands
as an entrepreneur. BecauseAmericans have the not invented
(34:52):
syndrome, not invented heresyndrome, the Dutch people have
the invented hair syndrome,which means it's all your Dutch.
So therefore it can't be good.And I felt I was very often,
sort of, you know, locked up.And at the same time, the world
(35:18):
fairness, some of the moveswe've done were actually caused
because of the failures we'vehad, not that we run away or
anything, but it was sort of, Iwas trying to do something
locally. It didn't really work.And then it was time for
(35:38):
now live in a completelydifferent country, with a
different language, with adifferent culture, and that
really enriched my life. Istarted to look at things very,
very differently, especiallylearning that everyone has a
different view, whereas as ayoung person, I always had a
very strong opinion, and theworld had to be the way I saw
(35:59):
it. But nothing is further fromculture plays an incredibly
important role on how peopleperceive things, how to behave,
what kind of products they buy,how you should sell. Language
plays an incredible, incrediblyimportant role. So, yeah, I
guess I was, I can't say I waslucky because I created my own
(36:21):
luck. I created my owndecisions. I was lucky that my
lovely wife and son have alwayssupported me and that we've been
on this journey through sevencountries in the last 20 years.
Yeah, and we're in Italy at themoment. Indeed.
Wow. Seven countries. Yeah,yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
That's about the same number asin terms of my own experience.
(36:43):
Like, I live in Canada now, andthat's country number seven. So
there's more, there's more of usout there than you think, right?
Like, exactly. So it's verysimilar to my story. But, like,
how's your Italian? By the way.
It's getting there. I'm studyinghard at the moment, and, yeah,
(37:05):
we sort of arrived here inJanuary. Officially, my son is
studying at university, and he'sfinishing. But I guess, you
know, I speak some Spanish, soItalian is slightly easier.
It's, yeah, it is helpful. Irealized, like, I also speak a
certain level of Spanish, andthat helped me get by even in a
country like Portugal, where,Let's appreciate it's a complete
(37:27):
it's a different language, butthere are some similarities. So
they can understand what I'msaying, they'll just answer in
Portuguese, as long as you alsounderstand what they're saying,
more or less. Yeah, I mean, Itry to figure it out, and then
they, they'll, they'll speakslowly, and I'm like, okay,
okay, I got it. Obrigado, allright. Like, fantastic,
(37:48):
fantastic. Vincent. Thank you somuch for coming on the show and
for sharing your experience andyour expertise with the
listeners. So please, a quickintroduction to yourself and how
people out there can get intouch with you. And by the way,
I really love that we're colorcoordinated. And for those that
are listening to the audioversion of this, we're both
(38:09):
Yeah.
wearing, like denim colored outfits.
Well, thank you Christian. Thankyou very much for having me. It
was a real pleasure. Yeah, ofcourse. You know. My name is
Vincent Weberink. My email isvincent@webberink.com and if
anyone has any questions orpotentially is interested in the
(38:29):
book that I've just released,which is condensing 1000 books
and failures and success, thenof course, please, please get in
touch with me. Thank you again.
Fantastic, fantastic, and we'llbe sure to include a link to
your book in the show notes. Soonce again, Vincent, thank you
(38:50):
so much for your time. Takecare. Stay safe and talk to you
soon.
Looking forward, Christian,thank you very much. Take care.
Thank you. Bye for now.
In a B2B landscape that hasbecome increasingly competitive
(00:04):
and inundated with digitalnoise, using play it safe
tactics will result in yourbrand drowning in a sea of
sameness. That said, the path todifferentiation, innovation and
standing out is not an easy one,as it requires a change in
mindset. You need to have roomfor experiments to truly create
something that is relevant tocustomers. So how can B2B
marketers do this, and how canthey get internal buy in for it?
Welcome to this episode of theB2B Marketers in a Mission
(00:30):
podcast, and I'm your host,Christian Klepp. Today, I'll be
talking to Vincent Weberink, whowill be answering this question.
He's the founder of pzaz.io whospecializes in developing
business growth throughcreative, structured data driven
growth experimentation. Tune into find out more about what this
B2B marketers mission is.
(00:51):
Vincent Weberink, welcome to theshow.
Hello Christian. Thank you verymuch. Pleasure to be here.
Absolutely I've been reallylooking forward to this
conversation. I think we'regoing to have a great time.
We're going to have a greatdiscussion also about topics,
and a main topic in particularthat I think is going to be so
(01:12):
relevant to B2B marketers andtheir teams in general. So you
know, without further ado, let'snot keep the audience in
suspense for too long. Let'sjust jump straight into it. All
right. So Vincent, you're on amission to drive business growth
through creative, structured anddata driven growth
experimentation. So for thisconversation, let's focus on the
following topic, which is howB2B marketers can create a
(01:35):
mindset and design experimentsto understand what customers
want. That kind of sounds likeit's very, I'm going to say
pedestrian, but it's incredible,and I'm sure you'll have plenty
of case studies to show thatthere's a lot of people out
there that don't follow thisprocess, and then they get into
trouble. So I'm going to kickoff this conversation with two
(01:57):
questions, and I'm happy torepeat them all right? So the
first question is, why do youthink that design experiments
are important for marketingteams? And based on that, where
do you see a lot of marketingteams struggle?
I think they're very importantbecause as human beings, we're
emotional when we makedecisions. Problems is that,
(02:18):
therefore when we try to drivegrowth. We have this idea about
something, and then we tend tocompletely jump into it, build
everything. Spend a lot of timeand money and resources on
building that thing that webelieve is going to be very,
very successful, and that takesa lot of time. And the reality
(02:38):
is that most of the time you'reactually wrong, even though you
think that you know yourcustomer, even though you think
that you know this is the besttrick or marketing tactic that
you're developing. And what thisexperimentation model does, it
sort of forces you to go througha very structured, almost
(03:03):
scientific process, becausethere are some steps in there
that help you to remove thatemotion from your decision
making.
And an example of how decisionmaking often is influenced is
when you're in a small team or alarge team, you're sitting
around the table and you'retrying to brainstorm, say, oh,
(03:26):
you know, we have this, thischallenge. We're launching a new
product, or we're changingsomething, and we need to
communicate it, driving salesup. And then the people who are
best sort of equipped with salescapabilities are the ones that
(03:46):
you know will dominate theconversation, and what we tend
to do is then listen to them,whereas there are other people
around the table that you know,they might be more introverted,
might say less, that also havereally, really great ideas. So
what happens is that you collectall these thoughts and ideas,
and then the person that's verygood at selling is selling their
(04:07):
idea to you, and you end uptaking that one. But it has
nothing to do with reality,whereas in the methodology that
I'm sort of promoting, what youactually do is you try to
capture as many ideas aspossible, as quickly as
possible, and then, in almost ademocracy, you rank and rate
them according to severalcriteria, and that will help you
(04:30):
to make some of those ideasfloat. And the ones that pop up
are the ones you should actuallyfocus on, because now, within
that democratic decision makingprocess, you've tried to
optimize the chances that one ofthose ideas will actually lead
to much quicker success than anyof the others. And you can also
(04:50):
use it in the reverse, the ideasthat completely sink because no
one voted for them, maybe onlyjust the person that was
selling. You know that they goaway. You just throw them away
and forget. About them, becauseclearly they didn't get enough
support. And the other questionyou were asking, sorry focused
on the first question.
No problem, absolutely,absolutely no. Well, that was a
(05:11):
great way to, like, set up theconversation. And I guess it
segues to the question, where doyou see, based on what you said,
where do you see a lot ofmarketing teams struggling?
Well, I see them oftenstruggling is that they tend to
spend money and time on just theordinary things that everyone
(05:32):
sort of accustomed to, becausedepending on the type of company
you work in, that's the safechoice, and that ultimately
doesn't really help you grow.It's typically the stuff that
you would never expect to work.And I'll give you a great
example of this in a moment thatmight give you this amazing
(05:57):
growth overnight or amazingsuccess. It doesn't necessarily
have to be growth. It can bespecific campaign where you just
need people to sign up, becauseyou're trying to obtain
information from them and to getthose people to sign up. It
could be a problem. You'redesigning your funnel, and then
something isn't really working.
So in my experience, whathappens is that people will say,
(06:22):
Okay, let's build a landingpage. Let's build a website, and
let's make it beautiful. Let'smake it perfect. But while
you're in this early stage, youhave no clue if it's going to
work or not. You're now wastingall of those resources where
it's so much better to very,very quickly, design
experiments, run them as quicklyas possible, see where something
(06:44):
is happening, and then sort ofiterate upon that specific
experiment that you wererunning. And then slowly, over
time, you get to a point wherethat experiment can be fleshed
out, can be refined. You mightdo some A/B testing, and
especially in the world we'removing into with the rise of AI
(07:08):
speed is everything past earlydays of when I was starting to
do, you know, growth marketingor growth hacking, depending on
what you like to call it. Let'ssay 15 years ago, you could
simply run an experiment, andthat experiment could would last
for certain periods of time. Youcould get away with some of the
(07:30):
experiments, even running themfor months. But with the rise of
AI, what we're seeing is thatexperiments only work for very,
very short periods of time. Andwhat I see with a lot of the
marketing teams is that, youknow, they're not accustomed to
driving fast and quickly runningand failing fast, so that you
(07:51):
can very quickly learn to seewhat ultimately what ultimately
works.
So a great example of somethingthat I experienced it when I was
running one of my startups,which was a streaming service,
and I believed I got everythingright. I was just convinced that
(08:11):
there was nothing wrong with theproduct, but I wasn't getting
any traction, nothing,literally, no one was signing
up, and I just couldn'tunderstand. So what I started to
do is just run one experimentafter another. First obviously,
I went out and spoke to people,because that's the first thing
you should do most of the time,especially when you're in
(08:34):
startup mode, either a startupor you work for corporate, maybe
running a division or launchinga new product, you have no data.
But if you read all of the booksout there, they all tell you,
Oh, let's look at the data.Well, guess what? You don't have
any data. So what you need to dois you need to go and speak to
people and find the soft data toreally understand, you know,
(08:56):
what's going on. How do I createa product that people will be
willing to buy, and I did that,and then it sort of confirmed
that there was nothing wrongwith the product. And then
months into that process, Istill wasn't getting any
traction, and the startup wassort of moving to a point where
(09:17):
it started to fail, because, youknow, you're running out of
money, you're running out oftime. So I kept running
experiments, believing that themethodology that I use simply
works. You just need to keeprunning, running, running. And
then one day, I essentially wasclose to giving up, and I
decided to take on anotherproject because I had run out of
(09:38):
money. But on the side, I keptrunning experiments, and what I
did is I put a play button onthe homepage, allowing people to
watch television for fiveminutes without signing up. And
that simple trick got me 11,000euros overnight. It took me 11
(09:59):
months. To uncover that, I hadnow proven that indeed, the
product wasn't wrong. Theproduct was always right, but
the way we were marketing waswrong, and it is always one of
the two. It's either there's noproduct market fit or you're
selling it in the wrong way.Your marketing is wrong. And in
a way that was very frustrating,because this very simple thing,
almost as simple as a paperclipnow gave me all the growth in
(10:23):
one way. It was too late for me,because I had to go into that
other project. The revenuewasn't enough to sustain the
business, but it did allow me tosort of keep the business
afloat. And I was working thisother project, and then I
returned, after like a half ayear or so, back full time onto
the startup once I wasgenerating enough recurring,
(10:44):
recurring revenue there, andyeah, that's sort of, you know,
what I strongly believe in. Youjust need to keep running those
experiments.
Of course. The third option isthat your timing is completely
off, which is another thing thatI've experienced several times.
I've run many startups, most ofthem failed over time. I'm proud
(11:09):
to say that I never had to raisemoney for any of those startups.
I was sort of in the last 30years of my career. Thank you. I
always managed to, you know,make enough money to sort of
sustain, but many of them neverbecame the big winner. They were
just doing enough, and then atsome point, there was an end of
life, because either the marketwas fooled or or just turned out
(11:35):
that there was no point incontinuing to run that company.
An example is VPN product that Idid in 2003 that's when the
first idea started. VPN was abusiness to business product,
and we decided to consumerizeVPN because our only competitor
(11:55):
at the time was called hide myass, and the technology was
very, very complicated. Andafter sort of what happens after
911 where a lot of governmentsstarted to invade everyone's
privacy, we decided that, youknow, it is also important for
(12:15):
individuals to retain a level ofprivacy, you know, within the
boundaries of the law,obviously. So we spent a lot of
time in developing thattechnology, creating a product
that was very, very easy to useand that was secure and safe.
And we were very, verysuccessful in the first year and
a half. We even managed to getin Google on the second place,
(12:38):
right after Cisco, which is theinventor of VPN, but by the time
we had about 40,000 customers,that was it. That was just, we
just couldn't grow anymore. AndI then decided to abandon that
project. Over time, someone elsecontinued it for several more
years, and of course, now VPNmass market product, but over 20
(13:00):
years later, and it's the mostcommon product out there, and we
were just too early. So eventhough it was an exciting,
exciting adventure, it made usmoney. It was a profitable
business. Ultimately, at thetime, there was no point in sort
of continuing, trying to sort ofpush it, push it further.
Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutelygreat points. And you know,
(13:22):
thank you for sharing those,those experiences and the you
know, those past successes andchallenges, failures and so
forth. I think it's, I thinkit's an important part of the
overall process, right? I'mgoing to move us on. And you've
mentioned some of these already,but like, what are some of these
on the topic of designexperimentation and growth
(13:44):
growth marketing. What are someof these key pitfalls that
marketing teams need to avoid,and what should they be doing
instead?
The key pitfalls they need toavoid is to believe that they're
always right. I mean, that isthe first thing is, in essence,
(14:06):
that you should learn that mostof the time you will be wrong,
and that success lies in theability to admit that and to
move forward very, very quicklyby running a lot of those
experiments, and by designingthose experiments very quickly
(14:26):
and having the ability to turnthem into minimum viable
products. And the pitfalls thatmost people fall into is that
they think you'll just read abook, and then you can just do
it. It's simple, right? Oh, it'sjust like marketing. It's the
(14:47):
same way how I learn how to doadvertising, I can simply learn
how to do, you know, growthmarketing. But the reality is,
it's then it is a thing or atrick so that understanding and
the realization that you justneed to start thinking
differently, start thinking outof the box, be creative, because
(15:10):
a lot of those hacks come fromplaces that you simply will not
expect.
I guess Airbnb is a typicalexample. You know, as far as I
remember the story correctly.Two guys set up Airbnb. It was
literally an air bed insomeone's house. They were
running the business. They hadabout 10,000 you know,
(15:30):
customers, and they could havesaid, Oh, you know, we're doing
great. Our marketing is doingwell. We're making money. But
ultimately, they were notsatisfied, so they decided to
continue, and then what happensis, this is before the big thing
that most people have heard of,which is correct, Greg's list.
That's when they reallyexploded. But before that,
(15:51):
something else happened, andthat was when one of the
founders said, Well, how do weexpand our capacity, and how do
we get more people interested inour products? And it was around
the organization of trade showswhen there was always a shortage
(16:12):
of capacity in hotels, and theydecided to try that out. And if
I remember correctly, they grewsort of from 10,000 people to
200,000 people in just a coupleof months. And that was actually
their real growth hack, the realspurt, whereas reckless took
them to millions. And that's thething that everyone knows. But
(16:34):
it was that mindset, thatunderstanding of not being
satisfied with what you'redoing, and the ability to pivot,
because it was a complete pivot.It was no longer just an air
bet. Now you were renting out abed in someone's house, and that
was sort of the foundation whatthen became Airbnb. And I think
most marketing teams have neverbeen exposed to that way of
(16:59):
thinking. You know, they've beentaught the simple stuff on, how
do you do advertising, how doyou look at data, you know, how
do I build a website? How do Iorganize a trade show, etc. But
it's these things where you takean idea, where you're almost
stepping into the entrepreneur'sshoes by looking at, how can I
(17:23):
make the business grow throughextraordinary ways of
marketing?
Absolutely, absolutely. You knowwhat? That's a phrase that I
also heard at a business meetingon Friday where I was talking to
the branch manager of a bank.And one of the things that she
said, why, how she helped thebranch to grow, is because she
(17:45):
came out of a business. She wasa family business, and she was
running her own business, so shecame with an entrepreneur's
mindset. And I do think thatthere is that is really, like,
significant, especially ifyou're talking about and I don't
want to, like, use these, like,overused buzzwords, let's say,
(18:06):
but like, you know, if you'reentering this world of, like,
the scrappy entrepreneurs oreven the scrappy marketing
teams, right, you can'tnecessarily go in there with the
corporate mindset. No offense toanybody that's in corporate but
if you're stretched for, as youcan rightfully attest to
Vincent, if you're stretched fortime, bandwidth, resources and
(18:29):
budget, you've got to, you'vegot to think more like a
guerrilla fighter versus aconventional army, right?
You need to test as early aspossible whether or not the
ideas or your hypothesis,hypothesis that you have are
actually true, and especiallywhen you're an entrepreneur or
(18:49):
in a product team. And I have anexample for there was a famous
UK bank that had an idea wherethey wanted to test if friends
and family would be willing tobecome guarantors for young
people that would want to buy ahouse in London. And you know,
(19:11):
banks are very, very big, sloworganizations, and typically, if
not alone, figuring out how thislegally works will cost them
millions right to develop thewhole full product. So how do
you do something? How do youcreate this experiment where you
can prove whether or not there'sany viability in even thinking
(19:32):
of offering such a product? Andwhat they came up with is
essentially to build a landingpage where they would simply ask
people to sign up for theservice. They ran a 500 pound
budget against it, so the totalcost of the whole experiment was
maybe 1500 pounds, and nowthey've managed to validate it,
which saved them literallyhundreds of 1000s of pounds and
(19:52):
the risk that that product mighthave failed. And I think that is
exactly the entrepreneurialmindset that a market. Marketer
needs to develop and understand,Okay, I'm not just responsible
for selling this product, butI'm also responsible for
understanding, you know, who doI sell it to? How do I sell it?
What should the product looklike? How can the product evolve
(20:14):
so that there's a good productmarket fit?
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.You brought some of these up
already, but let's dig into itdeeper and unpack it. I should
say, like, so based on yourexperience, like, how do you how
can B2B marketers get tractionas early as possible? So how can
they build experiments? What arethose key steps that they need
(20:36):
to take?
The first thing this is, so Isort of use a methodology and
which is very, very structured.And I use that because if I
don't, I get lost in ideas.Because it is very easy to come
up with 100 ideas. A lot ofpeople you know, can do that. So
what we do is I sit down, eitherwith a team, or I might take a
(20:59):
certain periods of time, whereall I do is just collect as
possible. Then for every idea, Iwrite down, what is the idea?
What do I believe this idea willgive me? So what is the outcome?
How do I prove, potentially, asa hypothesis, that what I
(21:20):
believe is true? And then I sortof make those notes, then I
store them in cards. And you cando that in any kind of project
management tool, whether it'snotion or cell or bunch. Just
create those cards.
Then what I do is I rank andrank them so, and I ask the team
to do that, or the people I workwith, for example, if I was
(21:43):
doing consultancy for clients,we would have a specific,
specific group of the clients dodoing the same thing, and then
all we would do is see, Okay,which of those ideas are
floating. And we would take thetop 10, again, it was very easy
to then generate, like, 100different ideas, and you take
the top 10, and then for each ofthose, you're now going to
(22:05):
discuss them and essentiallysay, Okay, if I need to turn
this idea into minimal butviable products, allowing me to
prove that I am right or wrong,what is the least amount of work
you can then do? And you know,so in my book, I publish a whole
(22:27):
list of MVPs (Minimum ViableProduct), but actually, with
ChatGPT, you could probably justtype, give me a list of all the
different type of MVPs andexplain how they work. So for
example, you have a Wizard ofOz. A Wizard of Oz is, is an
MVP, where everything happensbehind the scene. The product
really doesn't exist, but thecustomer thinks it exists. And
(22:47):
you do everything manually.That's just an example.
So what you then do is you thengoing to think about, okay, who
needs to do what? And then yourun a short sprint. You design
the sprint. Say, Okay, nextMonday, with the three of us,
we're just going to spend oneday on building that thing. And
(23:08):
I, most of the time usedistribution hacking, or in
other words, advertising, todrive some traffic to whatever
that experiment is to then proveof my whether or not my
hypothesis is correct. And fromthere onwards, you then, of
course, have some analytic tool,or, depending on how you how,
(23:31):
you then prove it, and then youstart to iterate and but I
promise you, most of thoseexperiments will fail, which is
great, but if you run 10 veryquickly, maybe in the course of
two weeks, if you have two orthree where you see the needle
moving a little bit, now youhave something to take the next
step. And a classical mistakethat I've seen is that people
(23:55):
always tend to make it toocomplicated. So what they do is,
rather than designing anexperiment that gets you one
answer, they try to get as manyanswers as possible. And that
doesn't work, because you know,if you have any exposure to
data, if you have multiple datapoints, then it's now up to your
(24:16):
interpretation, and then you'reselling it to yourself, because
you want the hypothesis to betrue. So it's very difficult to
then again, step back and say,Ah, you know, can I really be
honest with myself? So test onething at a time. Once you've
proven that one of those thingswork, you just design the next
one and the next one and nextone, and then within this very
short periods of time, you'llget to a point where, where it
(24:37):
starts to work or fail. Youcould prove that the product
simply is not viable. Which,which I've had many times, and
then even pivoted afterwards,given up on many products,
because simply, even though Ibelieved, you know, was going to
be amazing, yeah, it turns outto be wrong. So, yeah.
(25:00):
Absolutely, absolutely. Like,it's really a fine, a fine
balance between speed, but alsolike, like, the quick
experimentation, as you say, andyou know, as you were, as you
were discussing your process, itactually just made me think of
another question, which I'm sureyou faced countless times, and
(25:22):
you brought it up in thebeginning too. How do you get
this internal alignment? Youtalked about, like a team
getting together in the room,and I've been in one of those
teams right, where there were acouple, like, we used to call
them the stars of the show,because, you know, when they get
up on stage, they want thespotlight to be only on them.
Forget about what everybody elsesays. My idea, my baby is the
(25:44):
most beautiful baby in theworld. And how dare you insult
my baby, right?
Exactly.
But, but the reality, as yourightfully pointed out, which
I've also seen firsthand, thereality, is that the one that
shouts the loudest doesn'tnecessarily have the best idea,
right? It's sometimes thesepeople. It's sometimes these
(26:06):
people that don't say anything,that don't contribute to the
conversation, they actually havethe solution that perhaps the
market is looking for. Butunfortunately, their voice is
drowned out by these so called,I'm just gonna call them the
Divas in the room, right? Soback to the question, how do you
(26:28):
get that alignment? How do youget those ideas out of everybody
in a way that it's not justfair, but it's also like more,
more in line with what themarket is looking for. Let's put
The people around the table thattypically don't speak up, you
it that way.
know, some of them are the deepthinkers. They really think
(26:51):
about something, and they havereally great ideas, but they'll
then struggle to properly defendtheir idea and to explain it,
whereas the other person on thetable, who's good at selling
themselves, you know mightthey'll do everything to defend
their idea, and therefore theywill attack the other ideas. And
(27:15):
what you sort of see is byimplementing this rank and rate
model by definition, you'reexternalizing the decision
making, so you're agreeing witheveryone on the around the
table, that everyone writes downtheir idea on the paper, on a
(27:36):
piece of paper, and you definewhat that structure should then
look like, which means is no onehas to defend it. They just
write it on paper. You thengather those pieces of paper and
you add them to the tool. Thenyou ask everyone to rank and
raise which, by the way, couldbe done anonymous, which I've
done many times. And that wayyou just look at the one that
(27:58):
floats, and you just, if theteam look, we don't know who's
right, we can't afford for thisventure to fail, and therefore,
we're just going to focus on theideas that have the greatest
potential of propensity. Andthat's how I do it, and it's
always worked well for me.There's, of course, when I would
(28:19):
introduce this to new startupteams, very often it's the
entrepreneur that is the biggestproblem. You know that they're
the hardest to convince, becausethey typically have the
strongest opinion of all.
So you're talking about thefounder, right? The founder
Yeah. About the founder? Yes,yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah,
(28:40):
because they look, you know,there might be a great marketer
or great salesperson who havevery strong ideas, and they
might, you know, accept inputs,but it's typically the founder
that will then say, yeah, now ifyou know, it's my money, so I'm
going to just do it my way, andit's wrong, because you're now
(29:01):
letting your emotion again,getting In the way. And this
example that I gave you with theplay button that was sort of
happened while I was in theprocess of creating that
methodology that I use, which issort of based on me having read
1000 books where I reallystruggled that most of the
books, even though they'rewritten for startups, if you
(29:24):
really dive into it, they'reactually more for startup teams
and corporates, very often, theway they're described, that you
just can't apply them to normalstartups, because normal
startups work differently. Andwhat I then did is I sort of
took all of the models in there,and then figured out, what if
(29:44):
you combine them, crunch them,and then create this
methodology. And I was doingthat for myself, because I
really struggled, having done somany startups, and then I found,
okay, so now I have thismethodology. I just kept doing
it. Kept. Believing thatultimately, it would work with
the idea that sometimes you knowon this path and that other
(30:08):
people need to help you to sortof step out of your comfort zone
and sometimes think from theleft, from the other side,
because your growth might comefrom a different direction, and
which could even be true withinyour customer persona. You think
you have the persona, right. Butwhile you're digging and running
(30:29):
the experiments, it might be thepersona next door which is the
true, real customer, and youjust need to uncover that by
believing in that methodology. So...
Absolutely, absolutely. Youknow, we did one of those
exercises in Q2 with a clientthat had was very convinced of
their ICP (Ideal CustomerProfile). And then we went
(30:50):
through this exercise where wedid, um, we did a diagnosis on
the ICP to determine, like, isthis the right is this actually
the right ICP you should begoing after, right? So I'm 100%
with you on that one. Okay, myfriend, we come to the point
where we're talking aboutactionable tips, and it's really
just a recap of all the greatrecommendations you've given us
(31:12):
already. So just imagine thatthere's a SaaS (Software as a
Service) marketing team outthere, or somebody in B2B
marketing that's listening tothis conversation. They're like,
wow, that's exactly what I'mgoing through right now. So what
are the maybe three to fivethings you would say they can
take action on, like right now?
First of all, understanding youknow, coming to the realization
(31:36):
that whatever you know isprobably wrong. Which is, which
is the hardest thing to do. Thesecond thing is you should
really start working by usingideation and designing
experiments, create MVPs fail asfast as you can, because that's
the way you learn as quickly asyou can. And I sort of describe
(32:00):
that in my book that I justlaunched, because it, you know,
yes and into the same problem.Also, you know, trust your team.
Trust that other people havegreat ideas as well. And very
(32:22):
often, the great ideas come fromthe people that otherwise
wouldn't, wouldn't say anythingand be as creative as possible.
Try to prime yourself by just,you know, search online, what
are great growth, growth hacksor other marketing tips and
tricks, and then try to figureout, how can I apply those? How
(32:42):
can I use those as potentialexperiments? Because that way
you can just simply moveforward. But you know, if you're
stuck, get external help,because they're like people like
yourself, you know, who canreally help to sort of leapfrog
this, because otherwise, you'rejust stuck and trying to learn,
and while you're running out ofmoney, you have no time. Most
(33:05):
starters will last for sixmonths, and then they've run out
of money, prove that you'reright before you build anything.
And that is really, I think, themost important. And so the last
tip I want to give, don't juststart building any product,
because you will fail. It's notfor nothing that 95% of startups
(33:26):
fails within within the firstcouple of years. It's because,
you know, you believe thatpeople will flock and will love
whatever you're building. Butthe reality is just very, very
different, and it might be thesmallest thing that you get
wrong, but you know that'senough to fail, so...
(33:46):
Prove that you're right beforeyou build anything. I mean, if
there's anything that theaudience should be taking away
from this conversation, I thinkit's that sentence, right?
Absolutely, that's fantastic.Thanks again for sharing those
tips, and I hope the audience istaking as many notes as I am
during our conversation. Okay,two more questions before I let
(34:09):
you go, Vincent, so here comesthe bonus question. So you're,
this is the understatement ofthe year, but you're a bit of a
nomad, right? Like you'reoriginally from the Netherlands,
you've lived in Greece, and nowyou've relocated, I think the
last time we spoke, you were inFlorence, and now you've moved
somewhere else in northernItaly, right? So how has this
(34:31):
lifestyle impacted you,personally and professionally? I
mean, it's clearly changed yourview of the world, I'm sure.
Yes, so somehow I felt I wasalways stuck in the Netherlands
as an entrepreneur. BecauseAmericans have the not invented
(34:52):
syndrome, not invented heresyndrome, the Dutch people have
the invented hair syndrome,which means it's all your Dutch.
So therefore it can't be good.And I felt I was very often,
sort of, you know, locked up.And at the same time, the world
(35:18):
fairness, some of the moveswe've done were actually caused
because of the failures we'vehad, not that we run away or
anything, but it was sort of, Iwas trying to do something
locally. It didn't really work.And then it was time for
(35:38):
now live in a completelydifferent country, with a
different language, with adifferent culture, and that
really enriched my life. Istarted to look at things very,
very differently, especiallylearning that everyone has a
different view, whereas as ayoung person, I always had a
very strong opinion, and theworld had to be the way I saw
(35:59):
it. But nothing is further fromculture plays an incredibly
important role on how peopleperceive things, how to behave,
what kind of products they buy,how you should sell. Language
plays an incredible, incrediblyimportant role. So, yeah, I
guess I was, I can't say I waslucky because I created my own
(36:21):
luck. I created my owndecisions. I was lucky that my
lovely wife and son have alwayssupported me and that we've been
on this journey through sevencountries in the last 20 years.
Yeah, and we're in Italy at themoment. Indeed.
Wow. Seven countries. Yeah,yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah.
That's about the same number asin terms of my own experience.
(36:43):
Like, I live in Canada now, andthat's country number seven. So
there's more, there's more of usout there than you think, right?
Like, exactly. So it's verysimilar to my story. But, like,
how's your Italian? By the way.
It's getting there. I'm studyinghard at the moment, and, yeah,
(37:05):
we sort of arrived here inJanuary. Officially, my son is
studying at university, and he'sfinishing. But I guess, you
know, I speak some Spanish, soItalian is slightly easier.
It's, yeah, it is helpful. Irealized, like, I also speak a
certain level of Spanish, andthat helped me get by even in a
country like Portugal, where,Let's appreciate it's a complete
(37:27):
it's a different language, butthere are some similarities. So
they can understand what I'msaying, they'll just answer in
Portuguese, as long as you alsounderstand what they're saying,
more or less. Yeah, I mean, Itry to figure it out, and then
they, they'll, they'll speakslowly, and I'm like, okay,
okay, I got it. Obrigado, allright. Like, fantastic,
(37:48):
fantastic. Vincent. Thank you somuch for coming on the show and
for sharing your experience andyour expertise with the
listeners. So please, a quickintroduction to yourself and how
people out there can get intouch with you. And by the way,
I really love that we're colorcoordinated. And for those that
are listening to the audioversion of this, we're both
(38:09):
Yeah.
wearing, like denim colored outfits.
Well, thank you Christian. Thankyou very much for having me. It
was a real pleasure. Yeah, ofcourse. You know. My name is
Vincent Weberink. My email isvincent@webberink.com and if
anyone has any questions orpotentially is interested in the
(38:29):
book that I've just released,which is condensing 1000 books
and failures and success, thenof course, please, please get in
touch with me. Thank you again.
Fantastic, fantastic, and we'llbe sure to include a link to
your book in the show notes. Soonce again, Vincent, thank you
(38:50):
so much for your time. Takecare. Stay safe and talk to you
soon.
Looking forward, Christian,thank you very much. Take care.
Thank you. Bye for now.
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