3 key MVNO Success factors over 20+ years of doing MVNOs and every one launched still being in business…
So many people ask what is the best type of MVNO to back either as an investor, a brand or working with MNOs, and MVNEs and MVNEs to define their strategy: At the end of the day backing an MVNO is like backing any business and a lot comes down to the team, product and market, but even then even a good team with the right product in the right market can not be successful for many reasons we cannot go into in a #shorts however there are three critical sucecss factors I have seen all successful MVNOS have over 2 decades of launching MVNOs (and every one we have launched still being in business!) Loyalty – if your MVNO is driving loyalty for your main business it will work, an example here is Tesco Mobile; people who have tesco mobile spend more of the grocery spend with that supermarket. These are business that have launched everything from banks, to video services, to insurance and more of the loyalty tie-ins but nothing is like Mobile for loyalty. Stickiness – Virgin media reported in a recent conference paper that 50% of their Mobile Capex was amortised alone in longer Broadband lifecycles… MVNO or bust – if your core business is or was dying, e.g. calling cards, some mobile first services, mobile app services, without an MVNO then… that is what you need to do. We will see everything from dating sites to social networks at least trying this before falling from favour / to competition.
See the long form video of this short below:
Keep it Simple Short form video
There are two very simple reasons to keep it simple in Mobile, MVNO, IoT and even MVNE, MVNA, MVNx: 1) Simple sells; 2) your competitors think it won’t! (never underestimate how much your competitors will try and thwart what they see as a “competitive” service / tariff)… (or how they won’t see a simple tariff overtaking the market until its too late).
Why MVNOs, IoT Providers, and Other Mobile Startups Fail
Well a controllable variable reason that’s at the top of the list anyway
1 minute video – why ousourcing key mobile functions makes your buisiness quicker to move and cheaper to run
An IoT company or MVNO will never have full time staff for all the functions an MNO does, as they have up to tens of thousands of employees and still outsource a lot of key roles!
Mobile technology is generally hard… that is why most MNOs employ tens of thousands, thousands or even hundreds (smaller ones) of people and still have a lot of work outsourced. IoT and MVNO and MVNEs typically have small teams focussed on mostly selling and keeping their core service or core businesses new and existing customers happy. Employing a mobile team can be expensive, time consuming, and even then not get results as, let’s face it, when was the last time you needed to set up a SIM profile, IR21, learn and spot the latest fraud trends or process a batch of CDRs… these and many more are tasks that MNOs will have someone for, but it’s just not cost effective for an MVNO or IoT business to have around or even worry who they report to, or indeed that their skillset is becoming out of date as they are not working with lot’s of different businesses… In this series we will be exploring more of these areas and 1 min updates on key parts of the mobile ecosystem.. so grab a tea or coffee 😉
Second Weekly Webinar… one year later :)
For many reasons, including the very sad one at the end of the video, we have taken a whole year to get back to, or get back to close to a weekly webinar! We will get there, and are commited to getting there so be sure to like and subscribe to get the updates and follow the progress to more regular and to live events:
MVNOs need a hard launch date to be successful
Have a Hard Launch Date, as early as an MVP possible and Stick to it – MVNO Gold Rules
Keep it Simple – The seemingly hardest rule in Mobile to follow!
This is the most ignored rule of all and one of the biggest culprit of failed MVNOs, and by that I mean not the launched MVNOs that fail, but moreover the huge amount that never make it to launch due to over complication, which in turn creates delays and cost which moreover lead to uncertainty and uncontrolled risk in the eyes of many – the killer of all things new and venturous!