Break Down Those Barriers
My company, Overtime Media Inc., is in every way a young and growing company. So every time I mention any level of success we may have, realize it’s a small victory. But hey, all those small victories eventually add up, right?
There’s no question that our growth this year, compared to last year is remarkable. January 1st, 2009 was our first day selling our product, HomeField, to college coaches. We went after NCAA Men’s Lacrosse, since it’s the market we know the most. In our first Spring we managed to gain about 10% market penetration. Which isn’t bad, by any means. This year, the season is about a month and a half away, and we already have 43% of NCAA Men’s Lacrosse using HomeField!
We’ve made a lot of changes, most of which I’ll spare the details of in the interest of brevity. However, I think our biggest change has been our focus on breaking down barriers to entry. Coaches film their games in many different ways, using many different camera’s, and many different editing software. Some use Mac’s, some use PC’s. There really isn’t a uniform process that coaches subscribe to when it comes to handling their game film. Except one, they all (for the most part) burn DVD’s. We’ve known coaches can upload from DVD’s since the beginning of HomeField, however, we’ve been hesitant to recommend it to coaches. Once we did, the tide turned significantly.
Why? I think it’s because it’s something all coaches can understand. Not every coach is a computer whiz, but they are definitely comfortable enough to put a DVD into their computer. Once the upload is complete, the DVD is on HomeField and can be traded to anyone in the country, instantly! It’s the same process the coaches have always used, only they can save tons of time, and lots of money (As opposed to using FedEx).
So, if you want to see some growth in your business, take sometime to think about what your barriers to entry are. How much is your product going to require me to change what I’m already doing? If it’s gonna make me do something I’m not comfortable with, you’re gonna have a hard time getting me to use it.
