Does TechCrunch matter to your customers?
That was one of the questions raised by Sean Johnson at BarCampMadison, where he gave a presentation titled "How To Burn Your Business Into The Ground – Lessons in Entrepreneurship"
I was reminded of this when I saw that TechCrunch just got a CEO. (Many people are asking “Why does a blog needs a CEO?”)
Sean’s point was that, as cool as TechCrunch is, at the end of the day, do your customers in the real world really care, or even know about TechCrunch? For most of us, we build things that are used by average people, not the select few digerati that are hip to the Web 2.0 lingo. There are tons of successful companies that have never been, and will probably never be profiled on TechCrunch, yet they do great work and make their customers happy. And that’s where the focus should be. Happy customers. Slashdot, Digg, TechCrunch, they all serve as these spotlights to shine on the latest online-thing that will give you brighter whites and cure what ails you, but it’s just a small percentage of a small percentage of people who pay attention to these things.
At the end of the day, do your customers, the ones paying the bills, really care if your company was profiled by some nerd news site?
3 replies on “Does TechCrunch Matter?”
The answer depends on whether your customers are actual customers or investment bankers. If the latter, TechCrunch matters. Otherwise not in the least.
Good point Rogers… TechCrunch can definitely help spread your company name around, and build some buzz, but I think too many start-ups rely on such things rather than focusing on making the customers happy. (Assuming customers are actual customers, not investors.)
The Techcrunch phenomenon is endemic of a larger problem (which we also talked about) which is the purpose of the company in the first place. A lot of the guys looking to get on Techcrunch don’t actually have a business – they have a cool technology that they’re hoping to leverage into a massive payday via VC money, acquisition, etc.
Not there’s anything wrong with it, but I don’t think it’s business. I think it’s gambling with technology. And the notion is so prevalent that I feel like a lot of brilliant tech folks talk themselves out of a great business (one that makes their customers happy and makes them feel fulfilled) because it’s not a “big enough idea” – not Techcrunch worthy.
I love Techcrunch – read it religiously. But why not take the cool ideas out there and bring it to very Web 1.0 people? You’ll blow them away, and they’ll pay for it :)