Stop With The Start-Up Envy, Just Build A Customer-Focused Culture For Success

Stop With The Start-Up Envy, Just Build A Customer-Focused Culture For Success

In this guest piece, Five by Five’s Matt Lawton (pictured below) argues why big corporates don’t need table tennis and kombucha on tap to emulate the best part of start-up culture.

Matt Lawton

It seems the obsession with becoming ‘agile’ among Australian corporates is engrained in attempting to achieve the impossible: emulating hot start-up culture.

But we all know it takes more than a ‘lab’, pool table and free coconut water to realign culture, so corporates should stop messing around at the edges and focus on the more meaningful changes they can make to re-launch themselves.

Corporates can help create start-up cultures just by structuring their businesses in a way that puts them closer to the customer. In a recent Launch Marketing Council meeting, I heard about long established successful businesses that are doing four things:

  1. Elevating the status of customer service within the organisation.
  2. Physically sitting marketing department folks within the customer service team.
  3. Making customer service a marketing function with a reporting line into the CMO instead of the COO.
  4. Changing the focus of customer service teams to customer experience so they become innovators and not just reactors.

Whilst all of these things seem logical, it can be tough for established companies to get around to them.

I’d argue that a new product launch is a good time to consider making these changes, because you only get one chance to do it right. Offering a highly responsive and attentive service to positively impact customer experience before, during and after a launch is the best way to establish a culture that drives success.

One of the concepts that interested me most during our recent roundtable were comments made by Maria Loyez, formerly of Society One. Whilst many people have become obsessed with the notion of minimal viable product (MVP), Maria argued we need to be producing minimal loveable products (MLP).

The idea of investing in a deliberately unsustainable initial level of service to support a new product is counter-intuitive to most of us. But by delighting customers way beyond their expectations whilst encouraging them to change behaviour – either with a new product, service or platform – is all about securing disruptive levels of advocacy amongst your target audience.

Being loveable could be the best investment in marketing new products, and being loveable through an over-investment in customer service may be the best way to deliver a successful launch.

I’m not sure you need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ‘digital transformation’ projects that take years to implement to achieve that.

Often, we still don’t think about ‘brand’ beyond visual identity and marketing communications. The most powerful brands integrate their values into their day-to-day behaviours and interactions, employment policies and operations.

Often, it’s the founder of the business who has to get this right from the outset, but in the case of established brands, there are many case studies of charismatic leaders having a dramatic impact on culture at all levels. As Xinja’s Camilla Cooke put it to our group, ‘Brand is culture is brand’.

Strong businesses of any size need the input of their leaders to form a culture that reflects their brand and creates customer value. After all, the very definition of a brand states it is “a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes an organisation or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer ”.

So, next time someone tries to evoke the mysticism of start-up culture, remind them it’s just about adopting a customer view. And any business can learn to do that. Pass me a coconut water.




Please login with linkedin to comment

five by five Matt Lawton Start-Up start-up culture

Latest News

Amazon Prime Secures Rights To Next Cricket World Cup
  • Media

Amazon Prime Secures Rights To Next Cricket World Cup

In a massive shift in the broadcasting landscape, Amazon Prime has secured the Australian rights to the next cricket World Cup alongside a range of other tournaments run by the International Cricket Council (ICC) until 2027. The deal means that Australian Cricket fans can only access the tournaments if they have a paid subscription to […]

Limited Tickets Still Available For First Ever Industry Pantomime
  • Advertising

Limited Tickets Still Available For First Ever Industry Pantomime

With just over 24 hours to go until the world premiere of Addy Lala and the Mood Tea Thieves, limited tickets are still available for the pantomime, which will run for one night only at the Everest Theatre in Sydney’s Seymour Centre on December 5th. All in the industry are encouraged to come along to […]

Palin Communications joins GlobalCom PR Network
  • Marketing

Palin Communications joins GlobalCom PR Network

Specialist Australian health PR agency, Palin Communications, has joined GlobalCom PR Network with a view to delivering meaningful, consistent, impactful, global health campaigns across a range of countries and regions.

2045: A New Melbourne-Based Creative Agency Founded by Tim Evans and Nick Auditore
  • Marketing

2045: A New Melbourne-Based Creative Agency Founded by Tim Evans and Nick Auditore

2045, a Melbourne-based creative agency founded by Tim Evans and Nick Auditore has just launched. The agency takes its name from the year futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted organic and artificial intelligence would converge. Lead Image: 2045 Team Evans was formerly a Partner and Executive Strategy Director at DT (now AKQA), before co-founding B.B.E in 2015. […]

New Years Eve fireworks
  • Marketing

National Breast Cancer Foundation Announced as Charity Partner For NYE Sydney

The National Breast Cancer Foundation has been announced as the Charity Partner for Sydney New Year’s Eve. The Australian not-for-profit organisation is represented by the pink ribbon and raises money to fund world-class research towards its vision of zero deaths from breast cancer. Research that saves lives through a better understanding of how to prevent […]

Emporium Unveils Unique Christmas Campaign: “Every Tradition Starts Somewhere”
  • Campaigns

Emporium Unveils Unique Christmas Campaign: “Every Tradition Starts Somewhere”

This holiday season, Emporium Melbourne has announced its festive creative campaign that celebrates and encourages the Melbourne community to embrace their personal ‘untraditional traditions’ – the unique traditions that make Christmas truly special for them, and their family. The campaign’s tagline, “Every tradition starts somewhere”, reflects Emporium’s commitment to embracing, inspiring and applauding diverse traditions […]

Reddit Updates Conversation Placement Ads Formats
  • Technology

Reddit Updates Conversation Placement Ads Formats

Reddit has announced updates to its new ads placement with Carousel Ads and Product Ads. These new units, placed in the heart of Reddit discussions, provide an even more dynamic and compelling way for advertisers to scale to relevant audiences, deliver deeper value to users, and drive stronger, full-funnel performance among the hundreds of thousands […]

Full Throttle Into 2024: Drive.com.au Announces 12 New Products In 2024 Upfronts
  • Media

Full Throttle Into 2024: Drive.com.au Announces 12 New Products In 2024 Upfronts

Automotive Network Drive has announced its 2024 upfronts, its biggest in more than a decade, with a suite of more than 12 new products that underpin its vision to be the number one automotive network in Australia. Now in its 27th year and with a monthly audience of 2.45 million, Drive is leveraging its reputation […]

oOh!media Unveils 51 New Large Format Sites This Year
  • Advertising

oOh!media Unveils 51 New Large Format Sites This Year

oOh!media continues to rapidly expand its large format digital network, launching seven new sites at premium locations across major arterials in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The latest large format digitals include another premium site in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Mosman. Positioned at the gateway of the lower north shore on Military Road, the high-impact […]

Seven Uses Gen AI to Push Tech Boundaries With Ignite
  • Media

Seven Uses Gen AI to Push Tech Boundaries With Ignite

The Seven Network revealed the results of the second round of its flagship innovation initiative – Ignite – which saw seven employee-led generative AI concepts selected for prototype development. An inspiring three-week event, Ignite brings together internal cross-functional teams of engineers, data scientists, product managers and staff from across the business to collaborate and develop […]

Australian Agency Engaging.io Slam Dunks With Texas NBA Team
  • Marketing

Australian Agency Engaging.io Slam Dunks With Texas NBA Team

Australian tech consultancy Engaging.io has scored a major business win with the appointment by a leading Texas-based US National Basketball Association (NBA) team to revolutionise its marketing and communication strategies. The powerhouse NBA franchise turned to Sydney-headquartered Engaging to spearhead a major HubSpot implementation, driving greater efficiencies, personalisation and a more seamless experience for fans. […]

Dentsu QLD Partners With DeadlyScience & UnLtd To Drive STEM Programs With First Nations Youth
  • Media

Dentsu QLD Partners With DeadlyScience & UnLtd To Drive STEM Programs With First Nations Youth

Dentsu Queensland has formed a strategic partnership with DeadlyScience, an organisation that provides science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) resources to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander students across Australia. The partnership is in collaboration with UnLtd, which helps connect the media and marketing industries with charities helping children and young people at risk. This is […]

Revolution360 Parent Venetian Media Group Acquires Digital Native
  • Technology

Revolution360 Parent Venetian Media Group Acquires Digital Native

Victoria-based Venetian Media Group (VMG) has acquired web and digital strategy shop Digital Native. Lead image L-R: VMG CEO, Michael Fishwick; Digital Native big chief, Matt Gardan.  Digital Native specialises in digital strategy, branding, UX and web design it has deep experience in renewables, emerging technology and not-for-profit. Its web design process and collaborative approach […]

Murmur Group Launches High-Octane Campaign For Rare Spares Rockynats
  • Campaigns

Murmur Group Launches High-Octane Campaign For Rare Spares Rockynats

One of Australia’s biggest off-street car and motorbike festivals, Rare Spares Rockynats, is returning to Rockhampton for Easter 2024 and has kicked off its promotional calendar with a high-octane media campaign. The two-phase campaign, via award-winning marketing agency Murmur-Group, will launch across large format out-of-home and retail placements and will be supported by local radio, […]