We're Not Doing a Startup
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Transcript of We're Not Doing a Startup
We’re not
“doing a startup”How to cut through the hype and build your side
project into a profitable business.
Rachel Andrew, #revolutionconf 2014
Friday, 26 September 14
grabaperch.com
Friday, 26 September 14
G.K. Chesterton
“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”
Friday, 26 September 14
This is a marathon, not a 5K.
Friday, 26 September 14
Friday, 26 September 14
It’s not about the money
(until it is)
Friday, 26 September 14
Getting started
Choosing the perfect product to bootstrap as a
side-project.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/7276841268
Friday, 26 September 14
Walt Disney
“The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.”
Friday, 26 September 14
• for an audience you are already part of
• that can get to a shippable version 1 quickly
• that solves a problem people will pay to have solved
• that does not need a lot of traction to be useful
• that has existing competition
A product ...
Friday, 26 September 14
A product for an audience you are already part of.
Friday, 26 September 14
Solve problems for your own community.
Friday, 26 September 14
Amy Hoy
“Are you a Ruby developer? Then serve Ruby developers. Are you a UX designer? Serve UX designers.”
Friday, 26 September 14
The worst that could have happened with Perch? No-one would want it but we’d have a useful tool for our
business.
Friday, 26 September 14
With a track record in a community you will already have trust.
Friday, 26 September 14
A product that can get to a shippable version 1 quickly.
Friday, 26 September 14
John Radoff
“The goal of a startup is to find the sweet-spot where minimum product and viable product meet – get people to fall in love with you.”
Friday, 26 September 14
To launch with a small product, you need to find a problem that can be
solved with a small product.
Friday, 26 September 14
Perch v.1
• A simple content editor
• No way to add new pages
• No API
• Images could be uploaded - but not resized
Friday, 26 September 14
The Problem
Client requests that an already developed static site be made
editable via a CMS.
Friday, 26 September 14
The Solution
A simple CMS that turned static pages into editable pages by way of
dropping in a couple of PHP tags.
Friday, 26 September 14
A product that solves a problem that people are happy to pay to
have solved.
Friday, 26 September 14
Money is the only validation
Friday, 26 September 14
A product that does not need a lot of traction to be useful.
Friday, 26 September 14
“Social” or “community” products need a large user base to succeed.
Friday, 26 September 14
Choose a product that is as useful to customer #1 as customer #1000
Friday, 26 September 14
A product that has existing competition.
Friday, 26 September 14
Perch competitors at launch
• WordPress
• ExpressionEngine
• CushyCMS
• PageLime
• Joomla
• Drupal
Friday, 26 September 14
What problem is your competition NOT solving? Build it.
Friday, 26 September 14
New concepts will require you to educate potential customers as to why they even need your product.
Friday, 26 September 14
Finding the time
How to make time for side-projects.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip/6111406
Friday, 26 September 14
Malcolm S. Forbes
“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.”
Friday, 26 September 14
Sir John Lubbock
“In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.”
Friday, 26 September 14
Get set up to be able to pick up and work on your side-project quickly -
whenever the time is available.
Friday, 26 September 14
Your product must be a first-class citizen alongside your other work.
Friday, 26 September 14
Set aside time and plan in advance what you will do with it
Friday, 26 September 14
Diana Scharf Hunt
“Goals are dreams with deadlines”
Friday, 26 September 14
There is power in setting a goal, writing it down, putting a date on it
Friday, 26 September 14
How to get started
• Choose your goal
• Define what it is you are going to create
• Put a date on it.
Friday, 26 September 14
Brian Casel http://casjam.com/the-cascading-to-do-list-or-how-to-get-big-things-done/
“In a nutshell, the idea is to start with the end-goal in mind, then divide it into smaller and smaller increments. Plan all of the actions in detail beforehand, then get to work.”
Friday, 26 September 14
Be realistic about how much you can achieve. Feeling as if you are falling
behind can demotivate you.
Friday, 26 September 14
If there is not enough time ...
• Either revise your end date
• Or, remove elements of the project - pushing them into a post-launch phase.
Friday, 26 September 14
Be ruthless in cutting features that can be added post-launch
Friday, 26 September 14
The “missing” features at launch will seem far more important to you than
to your customers.
Friday, 26 September 14
Describe the product as it is now.
Sell the solution.
Friday, 26 September 14
• Start Small
• Get feedback from paying customers
• Improve and add to your product based on their needs balanced by your vision.
Friday, 26 September 14
Minimum Viable Infrastructures
Friday, 26 September 14
Own Your Own Data
Friday, 26 September 14
Launch and beyond
Managing a growing side-project alongside an
existing job or business.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall
Friday, 26 September 14
Winston Churchill
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Friday, 26 September 14
• We launched Perch at the end of May 2009
• At launch we were still 100% booked out on client projects
• Income from Perch was initially reinvested into Perch
• January 2013 we made the decision to stop taking on new client work
Our timeline
Friday, 26 September 14
A successful side-project should be given more time as it represents a
higher % of your income.
Friday, 26 September 14
Not making a profit?
• Are you pricing too cheaply?
• Are you reliant on expensive services?
• Are you attracting customers who need a lot of support?
Friday, 26 September 14
The slower growth curve of bootstrapped products gives you time to fix problems before they
become BIG problems.
Friday, 26 September 14
Never promise a specific timeframe to customers
Friday, 26 September 14
When your product is a side-project you have even more things that could
cause you to push back a feature.
Friday, 26 September 14
We don’t publish a roadmap
• It allows us to be flexible and react to customer needs and changing trends in web design.
• It means that customers are not relying on the launch of feature X in order to complete a project.
• It means that we can hold back a feature until we are absolutely sure it won’t cause anyone a problem.
Friday, 26 September 14
Use Cases not Feature Requests
Friday, 26 September 14
Find general solutions that will benefit many customers rather than
adding very specific features
Friday, 26 September 14
Understanding the problem means we can help the customer now and
optimize the solution later.
Friday, 26 September 14
Delight customers by solving their problems and letting them know
when you have done so
Friday, 26 September 14
Protect the Core Use Case
Friday, 26 September 14
Your product will benefit by being owned by someone who will say no.
Friday, 26 September 14
Make Frequent Small Releases
Friday, 26 September 14
Small releases
• Fewer changes = fewer things to go wrong
• Easier to isolate the issue if a problem does occur
• Get features to customers more quickly
• For our customers, less of a dramatic change that they need to communicate to their clients
Friday, 26 September 14
Don’t be led by a noisy minority
Friday, 26 September 14
Seek out the opinion of those customers you never hear from. The
happy majority are often silent.
Friday, 26 September 14
Marketing
How to tell people about your product, when you have no money to burn.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brent_nashville/5284764031/
Friday, 26 September 14
Seth Godin
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”
Friday, 26 September 14
You have made something that genuinely solves a problem. Go tell
people about it!
Friday, 26 September 14
Pre-launch of Perch
• A month before we put up a landing page and email signup form
• About 500 people signed up
• We emailed the list on launch and those people represented enough sales on launch day to pay back all pre-launch costs.
Friday, 26 September 14
Your reach will give you your initial customers. Then what?
Friday, 26 September 14
Content Marketing
Friday, 26 September 14
Write blog posts and articles on the things your potential customer is
interested in, not about your product.
Friday, 26 September 14
Sponsorship
Friday, 26 September 14
Perch sponsoring the Unfinished Business podcast
Friday, 26 September 14
Paid Advertising
Friday, 26 September 14
If you cannot track it do not pay for it
Friday, 26 September 14
Target the “long tail” keywords
Friday, 26 September 14
Research smaller sites visited by your ideal customer, advertise on
those less expensive sites.
Friday, 26 September 14
People love Perch - http://grabaperch.com/people-love-perch
Friday, 26 September 14
Create your own definition of success
Friday, 26 September 14
Revenue that is not worth chasing for a 60 person business can be life-
changing for the solo founder.
Friday, 26 September 14
Is the grass greener on the product side?
Friday, 26 September 14
The work is always worth it.
Friday, 26 September 14
Thank you
Rachel Andrew
@rachelandrew
http://rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/not-doing-a-startup
Friday, 26 September 14