I had an experience last week that reminded me about the power of discovery.

Last week, we listed our house for sale.

We spent two months mentally and functionally preparing for it. 

We spent many hours with paperwork, writing up what we liked about the house, signed contracts, etc. 

We spent many hours moving countless pieces of furniture so that the house could be beautifully staged. 

But in actual truth, we spent nine years until this moment - since the day we moved into. Over the years, we improved the house - a new roof, beautiful landscaping, a new dishwasher, renovated hardwood floors, so that we could enjoy it and the next buyers would pay a solid price.

9 years of building, improving, maintaining, all came to a head the listing weekend. 

We were “launching” our product. 

The realtor set us up with an app where we can see notifications of when other realtors booked a showing at our house. 

Then, the realtor put our listing live on the NMLS, and it went live on Zillow, Realtor.com, etc. 

All of a sudden, something crazy happened. 

Our phones started blowing up - notifications of realtors booking showings started coming in.

In that span of a few days, our home was discovered automatically and showings were booked automatically, independent of our own time and effort.

We didn't have to find the potential buyers.

They discovered us.

We didn't have to ensure that these buyers were qualified. 

Presumably, you don't book a showing on a house unless the buyers are serious, and have the funds or are already pre-approved.

We didn't have to convince them that our house was worth checking out.

Through the pictures, the listing description, and the house specs and details, the buyers had everything they needed to make that decision independently.

We didn't have to give them the means to check it out (i.e. a realtor)

They already had one in place.

The steps to put together a transaction were largely in place, independent of our time and effort. 

Independent of our own effort, we are sitting back and watching notifications come in of showings being booked. 

✅ All because we had the right product, in the right context to be discovered, by the right audience. ✅

As these notifications streamed in over the several days, my mind harkened to another experience years ago where the exact same thing happened - when my wife and I decided to list our house, this same house, on AirBnB years ago. 

We spent days and weeks getting the house prepared to list on AirBnB. We took just the right pictures at the right angle. I know that I’m biased, but it looked sharp. That very same day that we listed it on AirBnB, we had a notification come in that our house had been booked that same evening. 

Over the next few days, many more AirBnB notifications came in booking dates in the future. 

Again, all of this, independent of our own time and effort. 

These two experiences reminded me about the power of discovery. The power is showing up in a context where people are looking. 

It also reminded me something very subtle when talking with an investing and startups:

I always ask about startup’s go to market strategy, or distribution strategy. 

But I do not recall once ever asking anyone about their discovery strategy. 

What I further mean is this - asking about a startups’ go to market, distribution strategy  tends to infer a startup going outbound to the market.

But what rarely gets discussed is how the startup is setting itself up to have potential customers come inbound to the startup - how the startup is going to be autonomously discovered, independent of the time and effort of the startup itself.

Let’s revisit the experience with selling my house but swap out one key variable. 

Suppose my wife and I spent 9 years of our lives on living, building, improving, and maintaining our house. Then instead of listing in the MLS, or on Zillow or Realtor.com, we instead put out a “House For Sale → ” sign on the end of our street. 

Now, the discovery is only happening with those who drive or walk by that street corner - a far, far smaller pool of an audience of potential buyers. 

This would be ludicrous. 

Yet, I would argue that many startups have a discovery strategy that is equivalent to putting out a “Product For Sale” sign on the end of their proverbial street. 

Acting on The Power of Discovery

To set your startup up to be spontaneously discovered, ask yourself the questions, “Where is attention being aggregated?”

and

“Where are people searching for this?”

That’s low-hanging fruit to tell you where you need to be. Here are some examples:

Discovery Platforms

All social media platforms are discovery platforms. They aggregate attention and their algorithms are primed for spontaneous discovery.  

I will tell you that a number of the startups that Tundra Angels has invested in were discovered on LinkedIn, or the founders discovered Tundra Angels, and reached out. The power of discovery is real.

In addition to social media platforms, where are the platforms that are aggregating attention in your industry or problem use case? 

Search Contexts

Yes, it could be online methods such as Search Engine Optimization, but it could be more subtle offline contexts such as networks or groups, where members are asking each other about what they are using for such and such problem use case.

Closing Thoughts 

Keep in mind that attention is finite. It is an exhaustible resource. There are only so many humans on different platforms. 

Therefore, a startup is not generating net-new attention to be discovered. It is often borrowing existing attention from existing sources to be discovered. 

Most of all, in addition to your go-to-market and distribution strategy, do not neglect your discovery strategy. Set your startup up so that buyers spontaneously or predictably discover you. 

After the experience of listing our house, capturing the attention of a slew of showings and offers, I know that my mind has certainly been reawakened to the power of discovery.

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