We Built It, And They Didn't Come!

Talk at WebExpo Prague 2013.

1. @LukasFittl We Built It, And They Didn’t Come! WebExpo Prague ’13
2. About Myself Co-Founded 3 tech startups, worked with many others
3. Let me introduce you to: started October 2010
6. Actual Revenue: 0 EUR
8. First of all, lets talk about the Team
9. Lukas Michael Christian Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
10. Lukas Michael Christian Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
11. Lukas Ash Emiliano Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
12. Lukas Ash Emiliano Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
13. Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
14. Lukas Michael Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
15. Lukas Michael Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
16. Lukas Andreas Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
17. Lukas Andreas Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing
18. Lukas (2011) Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing Lukas (Today) Design & Development DevOps Sales & Marketing What did I learn?
19. Product Distribution Business
20. 1. The Art of Launching Your MVP 2. Radically Different Designs 3. The Ideation Switch Product
21. 1. The Art of Launching Your MVP 2. Radically Different Designs 3. The Ideation Switch Product
22. Launch = Make your Product available to (some) customers Not: Press Launch!
23. What we had at Efficient Cloud: Task Task Task Task Task Task TODO IN PROGRESS DONE
24. Release! Risk Time BUILD BUILD BUILD
25. In a group of Developers, its really dangerous to not set a deadline!
26. IDEAS PRODUCT DATA MEASURE BUILD LEARN Experiment
27. Risk Time Release! BUILD Release! BUILD Release! BUILD Release! BUILD
29. Charged Customers $200 / month from Day One
30. What we have at Spark59/USERcycle:
31. Build: Full Prototype Measure: “Successful” Launch Learn: (within months) Perfection: 3+ months
32. Build: Weekend Prototype Measure: Customers commit to buy Learn: (within days) Iteration: 2-3 weeks
33. Dictates how fast you can learn Experiment Scope Your Runway How long you can survive
34. 1. The Art of Launching Your MVP 2. Radically Different Designs 3. The Ideation Switch Product
35. Hosting Company, this helps you implement PaaS and still get a lot of customers onto one server. (But you need SSD drives.)
36. Sounds complicated? Yes! Bigger Problem: We didn’t (really) try something different.
38. => Landing Page Test But we just tested for testing’s sake, we didn’t believe in that product at all.
39. Version 1: Analytics for Marketers Version 2: Analytics for Startups Version 3: Analytics for SaaS Startups
40. Getting the Right Design vs. Getting the Design Right
41. 1. The Art of Launching Your MVP 2. Radically Different Designs 3. The Ideation Switch Product
42. Kind-of-Sales is not Customer Development
43. Are you ideating or are you executing?
44. IDEAS PRODUCT DATA MEASURE BUILD LEARN Experiment Executing =
45. Ideating = Customer Interviews Design Studio Usability Tests etc...
46. 1. Financial Planning & Metrics 2. Making Deals 3. Traction First, Fundraising Second Business
47. 1. Financial Planning & Metrics 2. Making Deals 3. Traction First, Fundraising Second Business
51. Main Assumption: Customers would buy a 5000+ EUR license & integrate our Product within weeks (not months)
52. Its ok to ignore your plan, but focus on these assumptions.
53. 1. Financial Planning & Metrics 2. Making Deals 3. Traction First, Fundraising Second Business
54. Don’t ever get too attached to one single investor (or customer).
55. 1. Financial Planning & Metrics 2. Making Deals 3. Traction First, Fundraising Second Business
56. Dave McClure anecdote from Soup.io times He loved the product & team, but the numbers never justified an investment.
57. [ Seedcamp Trip ] Accelerators give you a peer group, and access to a lot of people (if you’re ready).
59. 1. Personal Authenticity 2. Getting the Message right is Hard! 3. Adapting to the Market Distribution
60. 1. Personal Authenticity 2. Getting the Message right is Hard! 3. Adapting to the Market Distribution
61. In the beginning people believe in you first, the product second.
63. 1. Personal Authenticity 2. Getting the Message right is Hard! 3. Adapting to the Market Distribution
64. Credit: Kathy Sierra
65. Make Happy Customers, Not: Make Customers Happy
66. Messaging A Messaging B Customer A Customer B Your Product doesn’t need to change, Yet Your Messaging Can Change Everything
67. Messaging is a journey without an end, you will not reach perfection. (but ideally people will still buy)
68. 1. Personal Authenticity 2. Getting the Message right is Hard! 3. Adapting to the Market Distribution
69. Continuously ask yourself: Is this a good customer? -> can be targeted & sold to -> pays money -> actually buys what you are selling -> ideally you like them!
70. “We had a long discussion, on doing this project at all right now.” (2 months into the sales process)
71. Your biggest risk is Indifference. People just don’t care.
72. Your Team determines your Distribution methods Don’t do Enterprise Sales if you’re missing the know-how.
73. Mistake we’ve made: Choosing personal preference over strategic partnership.
74. Product Distribution Cashflow
75. @LukasFittl I’m always happy to help: lukas@fittl.com