Positioning strategy and competitive differentiation | Arielle Jackson (First Round Capital, Square, Google)

Arielle picked up product marketing on the job at Google, where she helped grow Gmail in its early days. Then at Square, she was one of the first marketers who led the launch of new hardware products and distributed them to more than 30k retailers. Arielle's worked with hundreds of early stage companies — including Patreon, Loom, Front, Bowery, Eero, and Maven — on their foundational messaging as the Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital and through her own consulting practice. 

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We talk about:

• Developing a positioning strategy before building 
• Problem discovery and audience understanding 
• Focusing on the primary audience and making sacrifices on who not to target 
• What has worked and not worked  

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Where to find Arielle 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariellerjackson/

X: https://twitter.com/hiiamArielle

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We reference: 

Positioning is Vital to your Startup Strategy: https://review.firstround.com/Positioning-Your-Startup-is-Vital-Heres-How-to-Do-It-Right

Arielle's Brand Strategy Course on Maven: https://maven.com/arielle/startupbrandstrategy

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Where to find Patrick

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcmoran/

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(2:49) Positioning strategy is just another name for your product strategy

(5:29) Developing the positioning exercise before writing a line of code 

(8:44) Sacrificing who you're not building for and being extremely focused on that  

(13:30) Focusing 100% on the audience at first and uncovering competing alternatives

(18:47) Naming trends and focusing less on timeless names, tones, and brand look and feel 

(26:56) Pick one key benefit and double down. Using the bar test   

(30:42) When word of mouth is generated and how messaging is a pre-requisite 

(32:39) Positioning time horizons for start-ups and later stage companies 

(36:34) Approaching a second product 

(39:22) Some of the big positioning failures over time 

(43:03) When positioning worked

(44:34) Where to find Arielle!