Silicon Valley Musings

In a conversation with Guy Kawasaki about Small is the New Big, Seth Godin compares the role of storytelling and customer dialogue in marketing.

A great example of story telling and customer dialogue is Tesla Motors’s blog entry by Elon Musk, eBay co-founder, CEO of SpaceX, and chairman of Tesla Motors entitled The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me).

Musk starts, “…the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution.”

How can a small Silicon Valley based company possibly do this?

“Critical to making that happen is an electric car without compromises, which is why the Tesla Roadster is designed to beat a gasoline sports car like a Porsche or Ferrari in a head to head showdown. Then, over and above that fact, it has twice the energy efficiency of a Prius” explains Musk.

Skeptical? Look at the car. It can go 0 to 60 in four seconds and has a top speed of 130mph.

But affluent entrepreneurs zooming around the valley in exotic electric sports car won’t change the “mine-and-burn” economy. Musk continues:

“The strategy of Tesla is to enter at the high end of the market, where customers are prepared to pay a premium, and then drive down market as fast as possible to higher unit volume and lower prices with each successive model.

Without giving away too much, I can say that the second model will be a sporty four door family car at roughly half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable. In keeping with a fast growing technology company, all free cash flow is plowed back into R&D to drive down the costs and bring the follow on products to market as fast as possible. When someone buys the Tesla Roadster sports car, they are actually helping pay for development of the low cost family car.”

Instead of describing Tesla’s technical details, Musk instead clearly presents Tesla’s vision and provides a solid story on how to achieve the vision. It’s a story we can all hope comes true.