Introduction
I am here today to talk about the future of Vibe. When the vib sale starts, I will have no idea what it’s worth.
And that is the biggest challenge at this point: we don’t know what’s going to happen when we go live with our product.
We don’t know when, where and how people will react to our feature set. We don’t know if they will buy in or not. We don’t know if they will pay for a VIP experience, or if they will use it only as an additional function, or even if they will buy a whole product instead of just a component in the bundle.
When does the sale start? When does anyone actually get revenue? I built my own business, and I learnt that you need revenue before you can think about anything else!
At every stage of your journey you want to be sure that your users are getting value from your product as soon as possible so that you can continue with development and marketing activities on top of things until then.
How to Get Vibs
If you’re like me, you lost your way when it came to the question of “when does the vib sale start”.
I’ve been working at a startup for almost a year and half now, so I have some experience, but let’s be frank; I didn’t really understand what the VIB would be until a week ago.
The VIB was originally conceived as a new way to motivate users to contribute, but it has since become a way of monetizing their contributions. In fact, there is no difference in the two. The changes are solely based on how they are used and how we measure success: have you made enough money? If yes, it will be time for another VIB. If not, then maybe time for a different one.
It is possible that this could change over time if we get traction (or if others do), so we should always keep these in mind and adjust our approach accordingly.
If any of this sounds familiar to you, then check out my post How to Get Vibs by using an API and your own server: https://blog.squarespace.com/how-to-get-vibs-using-a-api-and-your-own-server/
How to Use Vibs
What is the difference between a vib and a sale?
When you are doing a sales event, it really is just a way to get people to buy your product or service. It isn’t representative of the value proposition of your product. Buying products or services isn’t just about getting something that “feels right”; it is about getting something that offers true value.
It would be hard to imagine how it could be otherwise. If you were selling something that hasn’t been adequately demonstrated, like an early buggy version of something that turns out to have real value later on down the road, then you aren’t getting any traction. Nothing good can come from buying products or services that aren’t worth it in the first place, even if you are doing so in order to fulfill an investment need on behalf of a customer.
Conclusion
The term “vibe sale” is something I have coined to describe the time when a product’s value proposition is being built.
It’s not that the product needs to be launched then (though it does), but rather that it should be a good enough build-up to demonstrate how strong the value is, how well its actual value proposition matches what people want to buy, and how well its features complement its market fit.
This process is called “valuation” and it is really what makes a healthy startup go from great idea to great product. If you are selling a product with a good value and potential for growth without any features yet, then there are clearly some things you can do before launching. But if you are selling something with features and no strong value proposition, you need to start the valuation process now.
The first step in this process is getting an idea of what your users actually want and need, so that you can create marketing plans around that knowledge:
• Identify your target audience (people who use your product or service)
• Choose one or more of their pain points (the things they care about)
• Establish one or more of your key selling points (the things you do for them)
• Decide on two or three use cases for your product/service/feature(s), then map out usage scenarios where each use case could occur (for example, just as someone searches in Google for “how to…” they may enter an email address into an app). For each use case, choose one specific action that people take on your platform; perhaps it will be adding photos or comments to a blog post, or searching for an image online in Facebook. It doesn’t matter which use case you choose; pick one – maybe even two – with very little overlap between them. Repeat this exercise until you have roughly 100 uses cases mapped out based on their top priorities; they should be prioritized by importance over time as they become available.
Next we need to write marketing plans:
• Create two different ad campaigns: one targeting people who search for your product/service/feature(s) on Google (e.g., “How To Book A Hotel On Airbnb”), another targeted at people who click through from Google searches (e.g., booking a hotel on Airbnb). The goal here is to highlight different opportunities for specific