The term "guerrilla" was used in English as early as 1809 to refer to the fighters (e.g., "The town was taken by the guerrillas"), and also (as in Spanish) to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages, guerrilla still denotes the specific style of warfare. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, and scope between the guerrilla army and the formal, professional army of the state - Source Wikipedia

Being a founder of a fledgling startup feels like a roller coaster ride at times. The early days where you power through the day using gut and gumption transitions to a period of partial anxiety as you hope your product or service finds takers in the real world - a true validation of your idea.

The last few years have seen an explosion of tech-related consumer services and products resulting in a "primed" user population that is now comfortable using tech-related services and isn't wary of transacting online. So if your fledgling startup intends to operate in that space there is a good chance you are doing so to capitalize on what you think is a market opportunity hidden within pre-existing behavior, rather than attempting to significantly change that user behavior. If however, your business operates in virgin (blue ocean) territory then a lot of the need to be "different" is moot as is the need to employ guerilla tactics.

Now, if the above assumption is correct - when you try to get your business in front of your potential customers there is a good chance you already have competition. With a seemingly insurmountable list of barriers (Article: Understanding the fence around your customers) in front of you, what other options might you have as a small start-up to get to your potential customers?

Traditional means of reaching potential customers using both offline and online methods are rather well documented and if you have a large enough war chest, going after that group isn't going to be all that challenging (assuming of course you have a solid value proposition).

However, as a fledgling start-up, you have to stretch every dime you have which means carpet-bombing every go-to-market channel (or even a select few) might be slightly out of reach at this stage of your company.

This is where adopting guerilla tactics provide options. I strongly believe that the one benefit of being a fledgling company is that it forces you to get creative and figure out the most efficient path to start acquiring customers even if it's not the most obvious one.

So the dilemma is this, do you play the game the same way the larger players are or do you change the game itself to suit your limitations? One benefit of being frugal is the ability to force yourself down paths that the richer incumbents might not feel the need to take.

So what should you be doing?

  1. Clear USP - If you are providing a service that is similar in some fashion to the incumbents you have to find a clear differentiator. With any new startup, you should be looking at clear ways to differentiate from what exists in the market.
  2. Communicate value - While most industries are large enough for multiple players to occupy the same space the challenge is more about being heard through all the noise. Why would they buy from you if the incumbent sells the same thing in the market, and has an established brand presence? This has to come out clearly across all your communication channels.
  3. Make a list - Of all the incumbents, understand what their go-to-market strategy is, talk to their customers to understand what resonated with them and which channels they felt were most relevant to them.
  4. Defined paths to market - Distill the list of channels through the activity above and see which ones are common across the incumbents (Offline - Flyers, Hoardings, Print Media, etc: Online - FB, Google Ads, Instagram, etc)
  5. Make an "Anti-List" - Assume for a minute that you do not have access to the paths above, how else could you reach your customers? (get as out of the box as you can with this exercise). It's important to note here that if you do not understand your target group this activity will not work. Invest in defining (and evolving) the personas for your product or service.
  6. Test it out - Run small market pilots to test out the efficacy of these channels to see whether they are making a difference. Benchmark success against established channels to see which gives you a better ROI.

The results might surprise you - speaking from personal experience - forcing your mind to actively avoid looking at what the standard go-to-market approach for this space is you open yourself up to new possibilities that might give you that edge to compete on the battlefield.

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