Biz Lessons from TranS1

It’s a good day for the folks at TransS1.  The company has pulled off a successful IPO, with the stock price surging more than 60%.

What’s even more impressive is that the company is in a sector that’s out-of-favor:  healthcare.

So what makes TranS1 different?

Well, the company certainly has strong technology (medical devices to help with back surgery).  And the management team is strong.

But it’s also crucial that the company has been focused on getting market adoption for its innovations.

And one useful strategy is training.  This is how TranS1 explains it (from the prospectus):

“We devote significant resources to training and educating surgeons on the specialized skills involved in the proper use of our instruments and implants. We believe that the most effective way to introduce and build market demand for our products is by training spine surgeons in the use of our products. We accomplish our training objectives primarily through cadaver and surrogate models and live case observations with surgeons experienced in our TranS1 approach. After this training, surgeons are generally able to perform unsupervised surgeries using our TranS1 approach. We supplement our training with online didactic tutorials. As of June 30, 2007, we had trained approximately 500 U.S. spine surgeons and 54 surgeons outside of the U.S. in the use of our products. Of the surgeons trained on our TranS1 approach, approximately 190 have performed a procedure in the 12 months ended June 30, 2007 using our TranS1 approach. We believe we have the necessary capacity to train a sufficient number of surgeons to meet our current goals.”

Also, to check out other IPOs, click here.

Ron Paul, Web 2.0 startup guru

Ron Paul, who is a Texas Congressman, has been dismissed as a fringe candidate.  But according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, he has about 2% of the vote. 

Basically, Paul is leveraging the amazing power of the Net.  In fact, he is experiencing a “network effect”; that is, the more exposure he gets, the more money he raises.  In all, he’s snagged about $5 million. 

However, Paul’s team realizes that a Web strategy is more than just posting on blogs, engaging on social networks and so on.  Rather, it’s also about presenting an engaging message.  If not, it’s just more noise.

Just as political candidates can get stale and overeager to please, the same goes for startups (just look at all the me-too ventures).

So, to check out Paul’s site, go here.

The Art of Viral Marketing

As seen with break-out companies like YouTube, viral marketing can be incredibly powerful.  Basically, your customers/users are taking the time to share your products.  What could be better?

In fact, one of my favorite viral campaigns was the business card giveaway from VistaPrint (Nasdaq: VPRT). 

To get some background on it, I interviewed Trynka Shineman, who is the senior vice president of North American marketing at VistaPrint:
 
“VistaPrint’s free business cards are so successful for several reasons.  First, the small business market was so vastly underserved by local printers who charge hundreds of dollars for business cards, that there was a tremendous need. VistaPrint was able to make a big splash in the market by not only providing the best value in the market – but by actually giving away the business cards. For a market that had been so vastly underserved, ‘free’ was a bold statement that drove adoption and trial. 

“Second, the business card offer is targeted specifically to attract the small office home office customer, VistaPrint’s target audience. Not only are business cards something universally needed by this audience (and typically one of the first products they buy when starting a business), but also they are an expression of the business’ brand identity which can be leveraged to cross-sell matching business identity and marketing products.

“Finally, the line on the back of all the free business cards states, ‘Business cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.com!’ With 250 impressions of that line in every free business card order, it was and is still a fantastic viral marketing tool for the business.

“In fact, our free business cards were so successful, we now offer other free products including one free t-shirt, one free pen, 100 free postcards, 25 free brochures, etc.  By giving away our products people get to see for themselves the high-quality products they can receive from VistaPrint with no risk.”