Special Guest: Fiona Taimana | Founder & CEO, Korawai
Fiona has bootstrapped her Māori enterprise using world-leading technology to calm anxious dogs. With 25+ years in corporate and consultancy, she brings a wealth of experience in strategic thinking, marketing, and customer experience.

Met Fiona, husband Mark, David Claridge of Akl Bus Chamber and Keren from Startup Aotearoa

• For market validation talk to customers
• A: Arohia trailblazer grant
• What is accelerator vs incubator
• A: Outset ventures fund deep tech
• NZTE useful resource esp. women in trade
• A: Trademark name but first approach Ngati Whatua Orakei. Trademarking will put it past Maori Council
• Interlectual Property Officer / IPO has uesful info
• Make sure secure website domain, FB, Insta, LinkedIn
• Create logo in Canva
• A: Research deep tech
• Check out webflow
• For CMS try pipedrive, hubspot too complex
• Where do customers hang out?
• Complete customer validation and product-market fit before customer profiles??? ‘ I am doing a resarch project’ – this research provides nuggets of what customers would love (surpise and delight)
• Check out user palooza for how to structure UX research interviews
• Compeitors: consider jobs to be done theory i.e. competitors are much wider than peers e.g. time, sleep, lunch
• What are customer segments / profiles?
  • Name / short bio / demographic info / attribution scales (WHAT?)
• WHAT IS PROBLEM I AM TRYING TO SOLVE
• Put customer problems through scenarios
• Remember to start with meeting basic need then swiftly surprise and delight
• Marketing funnel or: LOVE – CHOOSE – BUY
• 1. Attract: Schedule this at regular intervals throughout year. Consider seasonality etc. Could be EDM, social media ,netwrorking, value-adding content. Always on. Biz spends 30-50% of $ here.
• 2. INFORM = ‘tell me more. Describe offer to market
• 3. CONVERT: ‘I want more’. Flash sales etc. Avoid discounting in early days. Initial price is anchor. Research what customers are WILLING to pay and what competitors are chargig. Do a pledgeme to see how much people are willing to pay.
• 4. ENGAGE: Commujnity (from 1-4)
• What is a data clean room?