Free Advice to Today's Tech Start-Ups

As I head to the Mobile World Congress tradeshow this week, I have a free word of advice for the few small companies I know heading there: viability is as important as productability. That is, these days your marketing program needs not only promote your product, but promote how you are going to stay in business.

The WSJ headlined the problem with tech start-ups these days:

The deepening recession is speeding up the shakeout in Silicon Valley, forcing droves of start-ups to shut down or sell themselves at fire-sale prices.

No matter how good your product is, the big guys are not going to invest time, people or resources if they think you are going to be out of business tomorrow. And if you think the big guys are going to keep you bailed out, think again. Nokia's stated strategy is to push costs down to their supply chain, Samsung's aquisitions in the last decade can be counted on one hand, and Mot itself is probably going out of business.

You need a plan that shows how you will independently stay afloat as you work with the big guys to get your product into production and into the supply chain. Without this your product will be nothing but a curiosity.