Christina Wallace on Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

The Parlor Room is an official podcast of Harvard Business School Online.

The thing about it at the beginning, it's not just limited budgets, but you also have limited bandwidth. That constraint of resources really forces creativity and understanding, you know, how do I get as close to the customer as possible? There's lots of really great opportunities to see what customers will do rather than asking for perfection and these great resources to invest in Your brand, your product, your channels, your everything, only to find out nobody wants it.

Welcome to The Parlor Room, where business concepts come to life. I'm Chris Linnane, creative director at Harvard Business School Online. Today, we have a fascinating discussion at the intersection of marketing and entrepreneurship. I'm excited to be joined by HBS Professor Christina Wallace. As an accomplished scholar, startup advisor, and founder herself, Professor Wallace truly wears many hats. One of those hats is teaching an outstanding course on entrepreneurial marketing with HBS Online. On this episode, Professor Wallace will share insights from her research and will discuss why an entrepreneurial mindset is so important in marketing today. I hope you enjoy this episode. Let's jump right in. So what do you mean by entrepreneurial marketing, and how does that differ from traditional marketing?

Yeah, so entrepreneurial marketing, I mean, at its core, it's the same idea, right? It's understanding the customer. It's acquiring the customers and keeping them excited and attached to the brand, the company, the product. But the key difference in entrepreneurial marketing is you have limited or sometimes no resources. You're starting out at the very beginning of either a new product introduction or a new venture altogether. You don't have brand equity. You don't have an existing customer base. You probably don't have a ton of money that you can play with. And so you have to discover what problem you're solving, who your customer is, what are the right messages and mediums to reach them. All of that you have to develop from scratch. Whereas in traditional marketing, you often have the channels, the messages, the brand, the customer base. And really, it's just about selling more of to more customers like the ones you already have.

Is there a line between entrepreneurial marketing and the big people?

I mean, in some ways, it's like if you already have a customer base, and you already have revenue, and you just need to do more of what you're doing, then you're more in kind of a traditional setting. I see the difference really around pre- and post-product-market fit.

OK.

Pre-product-market fit, you don't yet understand truly the problem, the customer, the business model, the solution. Those are all kind of the pieces of the venture molecule that you are trying to solve for. And you are experimenting, and discovering, and going through this process. Once you answer those questions, once you feel like you have addressed the actual problem with a solution that the market wants, in a business model that is sustainable, has profitable economics, then it's a matter of growth. It's a matter of pouring gas on that fire. Then it becomes much closer to traditional marketing.

OK, and you may have answered this a little bit just now, but are there key principles to entrepreneurial marketing? Every time I say that, I'm going to have to—

Yeah, good luck spelling it too. I would say at the core of entrepreneurial marketing is a focus on discovery and experimentation. rather than on execution and efficiency, which is what you're going to see in more traditional marketing.

Mm-hmm.

So coming to any opportunity saying, I don't actually know what the answer is yet, and my job here is to look for the evidence, to look for the validation that this customer and that need and my product or solution all work together in a way that is paving the path for a real business. So it is curiosity-driven more so than sales-driven.

Got it, makes sense. So you touched on this a little bit, but, you know, entrepreneurial adventures, not much money there. Yeah.

Limited budgets.

So what are some things that people can do to overcome these challenges, this limited budget challenge?

Yeah, the thing about it at the beginning, it's not just limited budgets, which is true, where you don't have a ton of money to spend, but you also have limited bandwidth. have the team that a larger company would have. You don't have all the skills and the resources. So you have to ruthlessly prioritize where you're going to allocate resources and be really critical on which questions do we have to answer first and in what order. And I think in some ways, that lack of resources is an incredible unlock for some of these teams because it forces creativity. That constraint of resources really forces creativity. and understanding, how do I get as close to the customer as possible? How do I talk with them rather than just to them? How can I get them to co-create with me? So it can be everything from doing ethnography and ride-alongs, where you're just literally coexisting with your customer as they go about their day, and you're observing rather than asking what they want or sending out a survey to thousands of people. Just go hang out with a customer for the day. You're going to learn so much by seeing what they do rather than asking them what they do that in many ways, they wouldn't even be able to reflect on or self-report some of the insights that you have the opportunity to observe. So you start there. And then even with limited resources, you can do really fast, cheap experiments like smoke tests. You put up a landing page. You direct a little bit of paid traffic to it. You see what people click on. You give them the opportunity to add to your basket, to go to the moment of checkout before the link breaks. You see if anyone was willing to, right? You can learn all of that before you write a line of code or make the first prototype. So there's lots of really great opportunities to get super close to behavior and get to see what customers will do rather than asking for perfection and these great resources to invest in Your brand, your product, your channels, your everything, only to find out nobody wants it.

It's never a good outcome. It's not.

No one wants it.

So are there examples? Is there an example? You don't have to do multiple, but an example of someone who's done that well, where they did the smoke tests, low entry there, and it really kind of took off for them?

Yeah. I love the story of Airbnb when they were first getting started. So they had started out in Colorado, in Denver, trying to get folks comfortable with the idea of sleeping on a string couch, right? Or staying in a stranger's apartment. It's a little bit of a stretch when you think about it at the beginning. And they initially had some success in Denver, then they had more success in San Francisco. They wanted to enter the New York market, and New York is a little bit different culturally than San Francisco. Staying in a stranger's apartment is a lot bigger of a leap, and they were struggling. They had hosts that had posted photos that weren't all that appealing and listings that kind of looked a little sketchy, and no one was willing to rent. So instead of going out and either abandoning New York or pouring a ton of money into ads, they thought, what is at the core of this, this gap between saying that there's interest in the solution but not actually going and renting? And they realized that the listings looked really sketchy.

Yeah.

And so rather than try to pour a ton of people to the top of the funnel, to get them to see the landing page and then not want to actually check out, they rented a professional camera, literally the founders, and went door to door in the original listings and took beautiful photographs, styled and staged these apartments, wrote up the listings to make them more attractive sounding, and set the bar for what a really great Airbnb listing looked like. And that converted a whole bunch of people who are interested into actually becoming paid customers. which then created this really wonderfully self-reinforcing flywheel. But I look at that example as such a great one that if they had had a ton of money, they might have said, okay, let's do a whole bunch of social media ads. Let's do, I don't know, a big campaign. We can go buy some out-of-home advertising all across Manhattan, when the real problem was you get into the funnel, but no one wants to check out 'cause the product wasn't that attractive.

So all it took was a camera rental and their time And they're able to prove something.

And it's a classic example at the beginning of doing things that don't scale, right? No one was going to expect them to photograph every single listing for the history of their company. But doing it at the beginning not only gave them some really key learnings about the customer, and about the product, and the experience, but it set the bar for what a listing looked like. So all of the next round of people who joined the platform had this template. Of, oh, that's what is expected of me when I go to list mine. So it creates this incredible learning opportunity and doesn't have to be scalable.

Yeah, that's a great example of something there. Now, I've got an example of doing the wrong thing. And I'd like you to tell me if you can think of what I should have done. So right at the end of college, decided I'd been lifeguarding forever. And I thought, this summer, I'm going to do something different. So I started a painting company with my friend.

Like painting people's houses?

Yes, yes. With my friend Andy and my friend Simon.

Okay.

And we called it Straw Hat Painters. That's the first mistake.

What brand image were you trying to evoke?

Well, we were competing against College Pro, which felt intimidating.

Okay.

And then College Hunks, which we weren't. So we wanted to be accurate and we wanted to stand out. So I put an ad up in a pizza shop.

Okay.

We got 3 jobs.

Mm-hmm.

One of them, the guy intentionally, when we're almost done with the painting, drove his pickup truck over Simon's skateboard and snapped it. And then gave us a dirty look. We never went back. We never made any money. Oh, man.

Wait, he didn't even pay you?

We never, we were afraid to go back. He intimidated us.

Okay.

Second one was a 3-story house in Newton, Massachusetts.

Okay.

We painted the first 2 floors and then Andy's brother did the 3rd floor and he fell. He fell and ambulances were involved and everything. He's okay. He's okay.

Did you have like insurance?

No, I don't. No, no, no.

Okay. So there's a lot of issues I'm hearing with this entrepreneurial—

We never went back. We never got paid.

Venture. Okay.

Third one.

You didn't get paid for that one either?

No, no. Third one, a guy threatened Andy he was going to stick him in the eye with a pencil.

It sounds like you have a customer selection problem.

So then I thought, what if I put the flyer in a church?

OK. OK.

Maybe I would have gotten nicer people.

It's possible. I mean, that is a perfect example of customer selection, right? By choosing the place that you are advertising in and You know, you could have the same message, but you go to different, literally different places, you might get a different audience. It also might be part of your positioning. Straw Hat Painters, I'm not sure what you're trying to evoke, but I don't think that I'm signing up for 3 teens to show up and paint my house.

We thought like Huckleberry Finn was like endearing, that kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm not sure you read the full book.

Probably not. I don't remember. Does it go south?

No, it's just— it's not exactly the vibe that I might want to give off if I'm trying to build a lucrative business in Newton, Massachusetts. Yeah. So there's a little bit around positioning, a little bit around messaging, a little bit about the medium that you chose, all of which leads me to believe you had a customer selection problem. I think a lot of people in their careers believe that they should have this linear, obvious path, that they studied something in college and then they pick the right job right out of college, and then they keep building on that and getting promoted along the way, and at some point, success. And then they get really frustrated or scared or thrown for a loop when that's not how life works. And then you layer on these levels of disruption that seem to be showing up every couple of weeks these days rather than once in a generation. And it can feel really scary. And I love this as a way of thinking about the same questions that we think about in entrepreneurial marketing of, what is the job to be done? What is the need to be solved? And how might I, in my career, find the opportunity to meet those needs or solve those problems, whether or not that solution fits neatly into the career trajectory that I've been writing along the way.

Mm-hmm.

I, myself, I call myself a human Venn diagram. I'm incredibly, I guess, random. If you look at my resume, it doesn't make any sense. I think it makes a ton of sense, because it's all at the intersection of business, technology, and the arts. And so finding those opportunities to say, rather than, you know, I'm making a pivot, or I'm really frustrated, I feel like I'm at a dead end, or I got laid off, now what do I do? Instead of feeling like the road has ended and now I'm stuck, it's looking for the opportunities to say, well, what other problems am I uniquely positioned to solve? And what might those job titles be, or what industries might need someone like me? So there's an example I've used actually in the course, that I also use in a book I just wrote, The Portfolio Life, around this notion of jobs to be done. So it's probably been a while since you've moved, but imagine you've moved into a new house, and you need to go and hang something really heavy on the wall. OK, you go in there, and you're like, oh, crap, it's drywall. It's not a stud. I can't just put a nail in this thing. It's going to fall out. So what do you do?

Hardware store.

Hardware store, you gotta put an anchor in the wall, right?

Sure, yeah.

Like, it involves actually doing a little bit of work here. Do you own a whole set of power tools?

I do, yeah.

You do now, as a grownup?

Yeah, I do now, yeah, as a grownup. Before that, I did not.

Yeah, there's a point where I think we all realize, oh, I should probably invest in some of these things. And before that, we're kind of playing fast and loose with like hoping the walls are gonna outlast our lease. But there's a point where you're like, oh crap, I need a drill. I need some actual tools to do this thing. So you go down to the hardware store, store, and in this moment, you're not actually buying a drill. You're buying a hole in the wall that you can put an anchor in to hang the mirror. So when the hardware guy is trying to sell you on this drill over that drill, and he's going off on this power rating and that battery life, you're kind of like, dude, I don't care. I just need a hole in the wall.

Yeah.

And I love this example because this idea that, like, you are actually pretty agnostic. You could buy the drill, but you would also be happy to rent the drill, or honestly, if there was a straw hat drill guy with a little poster right there that you could hire to come and drill the hole in the wall, right?

You don't have to pay them in the end either.

That could work too. So understanding what is the actual job being done and what is the full flexibility of solutions that I could consider to get there, actually really opens up your options as you're thinking about, how might I go about this? And it's the same way when you are thinking of a job pivot or a dead end and you're feeling stuck. Instead of saying, I've done this job, I've worked in that industry, this has been my title, that has been my job description, getting really flexible and open-minded about, OK, what are all the jobs that I could do? The problems that I could solve, the skills that I bring to the table, and who's looking for someone like me? And approaching it that way instead of scrolling LinkedIn for the already posted job that you can say that you've done every step of.

Yeah, that's a great way to look at it. Now, if you're trying to figure out what it is that you can do, what are some things people can do to say, I mean, obviously everybody's different, every scenario is different, but are there frameworks or ways that people can kind of introduce this themselves that makes sense that they can apply?

Yeah, there's 2 approaches to this, one that's very inside out and one that's more outside in. The inside out version is to grab your notebook or your stack of Post-it notes and clear out some space, physical and mental space, to really reflect on, all of the things that you have done, that you loved, that you are skilled at, and sort of excavating all of those skills, especially skills that you might not have used recently. I love this notion of going back to like, what were you obsessed with in high school? What's the section of the newspaper you read first, or the corner of the TikTok algorithm has taken you to? Like, what are these things that are meaningful to you, even if it's not part of how you currently monetize your time? And you just scratch them all down and to start bucketing them by theme and understanding. This is where my Venn diagram actually came from. I did this exercise myself, and I was like, okay, well, there's all of these things over here in computer science and math and technology, and there are these things in theater and music that I love, and there are these things in kind of my MBA and the entrepreneurship world. But then there are places where they overlap, like. when I worked at the Metropolitan Opera, was that business or was that art? And I'm like, well, it's both. And they're like, okay, when I built a startup for girls in computer science, was that technology or was that business? And you're like, again, both. So you start seeing how a number of the choices that you've made over your life actually have fit pretty strategically into some sort of a framework for who you are and why you do the things you do.

Hmm.

You might just not have noticed that. So that's more of an inside-out approach. The outside-in approach, equally fun, you go out and have coffee with the people who know you and love you. I did this actually, my first startup was an abject failure. And in that moment, felt really lost about who I was, what I had to offer. Like, I tried the inside-out model, I ended up with a very empty notebook. And so instead, it's about going and having coffee with folks, In this moment, I was broke because my startup was dead, and so I made them also pay for the coffee. That's optional. But I asked them all the same 3 questions. When have you seen me happiest? That's often a moment where you're really in your element. And sometimes, especially overachievers, really focus on the things that they're not good at instead of recognizing the things that they excel at. So when have you seen me happiest? What do you come to me for? Like, what's that moment where you think, you know, I should see what Christina thinks about this? And where do I stand out against my peers? What's something that I don't even recognize might be a superpower because it just kind of comes naturally, but everyone else really values that I am excellent at? Getting that data and not listening to any one particular person's feedback, but starting to sense where you're seeing themes across a dozen or so conversations can actually highlight things where you're like, you know what? I should just lean into this. This is a superpower. This is an exceptional thing that is not commonly found in the world. And I should really look for opportunities where I can excel at that rather than trying to, I don't know, force myself to be well-rounded in all of these other areas that I don't love.

If you had to just summarize one or two takeaways about the idea What would they be? Well, if we were closing out a chapter of a book.

For one, I'd say, I think there's a lot more power in being well lopsided than well-rounded. So understanding where you spike, where you peak against the market, against your peers, is really powerful. And at a certain point, stop worrying about the stuff you're bad at, and really lean into what unlocks the best of you.

Well lopsided. I've never heard that before. I'm going to start using that now. There you go. All right, so now we're going to jump into some listener questions.

Excellent.

This first one is from Enrique. What advice do you have for students interested in entrepreneurship? Pretty straightforward.

Classic question. I mean, I think if you're interested in it, that's already the first sign, right? You've checked the box that, like, building something from scratch, something that does not yet exist, is exciting to you. Great first signal. Now you have to assess what you need to be successful in building a venture. So if you are first starting out, you don't have a ton of experience. Maybe you've never managed people. You've never hired anyone. you don't necessarily know how to do some of the legal and financial pieces to get a business up and running, it might be useful to go get some experience, whether that's working for someone else's startup so that you see what that looks like on the earliest stages of a venture, or working for a bigger company where you might have more resources and a chance to see what this looks like at scale. But that's one opportunity to kind of get the experience and to build a network, to sort of having those relationships that you can lean on, whether that's to hire or to have advisors later on. can be really helpful. The opposite advice also could work. It really depends on your mindset and how you approach this. So instead of going and getting a real job, you could just go and get started. Learn by doing and have that vulnerability to ask for help, to be able to say, I've got an idea, I don't entirely know where to start, and go look for the startup community around you, find other founders maybe that are a couple years ahead of you on the journey, Look for investors, look for advisors who can help guide you through this, and be really open about what you do know and what you don't know and learn fast.

This one is from Sylvan. As an entrepreneur without traditional marketing experience, what should I do first in my entrepreneurial marketing journey?

I'd say to Sylvan to go and get as close to the customer as possible. So whether that means taking a marketing role that allows them to interact with customers constantly, or looking at a product opportunity, or a community role, something that gets you comfortable talking with people. I think there's sometimes a discomfort with that, especially among slightly younger folks who've gotten really— especially among younger folks who have grown up in this age of technology where you sort of keep people at arm's length. This notion of talking to people, intercepting them in a grocery store, Riding along with them and seeing how they spend their day can be really scary at first. And so getting comfortable with that is going to be one of your top skills because the customer is going to tell you what they want, what they need, even if they don't have the words for it. You're going to discover it by being close to them. And so if you're trying to keep them at arm's length, you're never going to get those best nuggets.

Wow, that makes me nervous because I get very anxious Talking to people about stuff. Is there a cheat? Is there a workaround?

No. Everyone thinks, I'll just send the survey, and I'm like, pick up the phone. Talk to them.

This one is from Kel. What is the difference between entrepreneurial marketing and guerrilla marketing?

Ooh, I like this question. So guerrilla marketing is traditionally defined as something that is in-person, experiential, usually a surprise, or probably a little disruptive. You can think flash mobs or, more of an activation that maybe didn't get permission before they decided to do it. And it usually uses that element of surprise to create a ton of viral word of mouth, really kind of a memorable moment. It sometimes can be entrepreneurial in that it's often low budget and has to be really creative, very kind of ephemeral. It's not like a longstanding, you know, store in store that you stand up. So it can be entrepreneurial, but it is really focused on that that element of surprise, that element of disruption, and using that to kind of create a moment. Entrepreneurial marketing, that's a tactic, but it's a much larger kind of discipline than just one tactic. So it is still focused on discovery and limited resources and maybe taking advantage of these moments to create a word-of-mouth experience, but it has to be much more of a conversation with customers rather than surprising customers and hope that they'll spread the word about you.

If you'd like to learn more about Professor Wallace or her course on entrepreneurial marketing, please visit theparloroompodcast.com. You can also follow HBS Online on Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and X. My name is Chris Linnane. Thank you for listening. If you're enjoying The Parlor Room, please share the show with your friends and subscribe, rate, and review it wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.