How to Win podcast with Peep Laja

Rebuilding the ICP - with Wonder's Guy Cohen

Oct 23, 2023

Guy Cohen, CEO of Wonder, talks about the challenges of narrowing the target market and rebuilding the business. They discuss their innovative marketing approach, scaling issues, and the debate surrounding friction, pricing, and quality. The podcast also delves into the risks and benefits of AI, the voice of the customer, and the importance of making committed choices.

23:59

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Episode guests

Guy Cohen

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Intellectual honesty and acknowledging when you are wrong is crucial for business success.

Finding the right customer segment and narrowing focus maximizes success and alignment with product and value proposition.

Deep dives

Importance of Intellectual Honesty and Making Tough Decisions

In this podcast episode, Guy Cohen from Wonder shares his experience of realizing that their initial target market wasn't the right fit and how they had to make difficult decisions to pivot their business. The key takeaway is the importance of intellectual honesty and acknowledging when you are wrong. Once you accept the need for change, it is crucial to make the necessary adjustments and not fool yourself into continuing with an ineffective strategy.

Introduction

4min

Building a Service with No Competition and Convincing Customers to Take a Risk

4min

Scaling and Transitioning: Challenges and Hard Decisions

10min

Identifying Problems, Adapting to Change, and Transforming the Product

3min

Building Strategic Growth and Advice for B2B SAS Founders

4min

This week on How To Win: Guy Cohen, CEO of Wonder an on-demand secondary research platform. They built the company to 8M in revenue, realized their ICP was wrong, tore it down and rebuilt again. That's what we break down in this episode.

Key Points:
00:02:29 Failed many times, learned hard lessons, narrowed target.
00:04:28 Innovative marketing approach convinces lighthouse customers.
00:09:12 Canaries told us we were wrong, now what?
00:11:02 SMB business scaled pre-COVID but had issues.
00:14:54 Friction, pricing, and quality debated; race against time.
00:18:27 AI: Extinction risk or growth accelerator?
00:22:37 Voice to customer, sales, mistakes, choosing, committing.
00:23:40 Closing thoughts.

Mentioned:
Guy Cohen's LinkedIn
Wonder

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