Should You Be Serving Startups?

Our firm serves design and marketing agencies, and a popular niche among them is to serve startups. Serving startups sounds so cool. I agree. Is it the best target market for an agency to serve? Let's dive into the mechanics of what a startup actually is so we can make good decisions about who we serve.

According to Steve Blank,

"a startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model."

So, a startup doesn't know yet what it is doing. That's not a slam, it's part of their definition. The fact that they are in search of their business model may be a perfect reason why you want to serve startups. They may be in need of help to find their repeatable and scalable model. Consider whether a design or marketing agency is the best advisor to help them find that repeatable business model. On the flip side, it's much easier to serve a company that knows their product, has been in existence for a while, and has already proven to be profitable.

An enterprise that already knows what it is doing is called a Company. Again, Steve Blank says,

"a company is a permanent organization designed to execute a repeatable and scalable business model."

When targeting certain customer groups, aiming to serve permanent organizations that have a proven track record of executing a business model sounds more profitable to me. But of course there could be attributes of an enterprise that is 'designed to search' for their profitable business model that could make them an attractive target customer. If they are searching, maybe they will pay a design or marketing agency to guide their search?

So you don't think I'm here to denigrate startups, I want to craft some comparisons between a Startup and a Company. I'll let you decide whom you want to serve.