When The Fish Are Not Biting
I was reading an article written by Ron Brooks about saltwater fishing. “I know times when the fish were visible, lots of them, and they would not so much as nibble at even a live bait presented to them. What reason is there for a fish not to bite?,” he wrote.
Weird but after reading the article, I started thinking about the first few months we were just starting our custom dress shirt venture. Our website was up and running. We have highly skilled tailors stitching the best custom fit dress shirts for our customers. And I was blogging like mad, telling people about us, writing articles about co-creation and about problems with startups. Fan, my co-founder, was working just as hard, even staying up until two or three in the morning.
We were having the roughest times. And just like Ron Brooks’ saltwater fishing experience, it felt, at that moment, like our live bait was just not working.
This was what tested our patience as a startup. We learn to understand our customers. We learn to spend money where it counts. We learn to market ourselves more effectively.
We know where the big fishes are, we just have to figure out how to get them to bite.
Danny Wong is the co-founder of a custom dress shirt startup that specializes in fitted dress shirts, button-down dress shirts and casual dress shirts. He is also an SEO expert and guest blogger, who loves anything about co-creation.