twago @ maastricht week of entrepreneurship
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07. Juli 2009 © 2009 twago 0 www.twago.de
twago – Teamwork Across Global Offices
Workshop: Things we learned @twago Gunnar Berning, Founder and CEO of twago.com
Maastricht, May 25th, 2012
© 2012 twago 1 twago.com
All Startups have the same goal in mind
Make the most out of your
existing budget
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How we started...
• Understand your customers: Master thesis
• Be fast with a good version
• Learn from your customer as early as possible: Observe and ask
• Trial and error
• Start with SEO yesterday
• Create reference cases (e.g. big brands)
• Communication / PR: Easy wins with data mining, adapting to news
• Build your network immediately
• Focus:
• Become #1 in a niche, then expand
• Remember your key levers: optimizing your SEM-CTR from 0.75% to 1,5% lower your customer acquisition cost by 50%
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Building the product – We eat our own food
Product specification:
Spec. Homepage-Design:
Coding:
Translations:
Branding/Name:
Design of Webseite:
Design of Company Logo:
(Internally)
Germany
Russia
Switzerland
USA
Canada
Philipines
twago made use of outsourcing and offshoring:
twago successfully showed the „proof of concept“ – Huge chance for all startups
Which experts to choose depends on
your requirements
expertise
Savings roughly 60%
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The top 9 rules for Offshoring success
Be honest: Are you an Offshoring-Person?
Choose experts wisely
Basic understanding of different cultures
Increase communication: +50%
Make use of time zones
Use simple project management tools
Neutral code checks to get best quality
Secrets to stay secret: Use NDAs
Don‘t expect wonders 9
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5
4
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1
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Raising Capital – Welcome to lemming country
• The right target group – VCs, Angels, Family offices, Strategic investors
• How much? Not 1.0 Mio.!
• If you have one, you have many
• Expect stupid VCs
• Contact them en-block – everybody at the same time, not sequentially
• Don‘t use „businessplan@earlybird.com“
• The market is setting your price, not the VC valuation method
• Create and show your BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement)
• You can be peer to everybody
• Everything takes longer, expect 6-9 months
• Don’t over optimize the percentages
• It’s over when it’s over
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This is an interesting question...
Revenues
No revenues
or
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Teambuilding Hire only team members which make you better, not bigger
• Hire only team members which make you better rather than bigger
• Use the methods of headhunters: LinkedIN and Xing
• Create entrepreneurs – make them responsible
• Enable them to take decisions!
• Keep your risk under control: Use interns and trainees
• Min. duration = 6 months
• Really good people = high salaries, compensate with equity,
• Make a cut if it doesn’t work
• Invest your time: Coaching, coaching, coaching
• Celebrate!
Start Now
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Create a unique company culture Your team must love to work for you
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Have fun
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Friday lunch all together
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vs.
Who wins the fight?
Advertising
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Create landing pages for your customer
750 Landing pages
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Measure Think
Analyze
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Analyze, analyze, analyze: Measure – think – change!
Key drivers
Traffic and customer behaviour
Conversion tests (A/B)
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Few words: Focus „Clean“ Build trust:
Verisign Logo, Phone number, green bulltes
Reduce exit-options
Improvements New Design Old Design
Quelle: twago
Landing Page Test optimized conversion rates and reduces user acquisition costs significantly
Landing Page A/B Test
3%* 20%*
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Scaling
© 2012 twago 19 twago.com
Scaling is a mind game
• Manual work kills scale
• Invest in automation and processes (I know, I know)
• Working with templates (SEM landigpages, etc.)
• If you wonna go global, have the option to quickly add different languages
• Avoid local adaptions
and ...
Never lean back
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Posted Projects / Month 1
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Stay flexible and ...
... adapt to customer needs and learnings
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We changed major topics
To... From...
Outsourcing Offshoring
Combined Marketplace and Memberships
Marketplace only
Focus on core countries All countries immediately
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International rollout
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We are live in 6 countries, more to come this year
• Solve your problems first, then roll out internationally otherwise you make your problem even bigger
• It‘s more than having a new language (legal, tax, accounting, etc.)
• Go for the quick win countries first
• All teams are based in Berlin, as much as possible centralized
• Native speaker only
• Local phone numbers
• Introduce a face of the country
• Adapt as few as necessary to keep synergies
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Don‘t be too much afraid of the US coming to Europe...
... but be careful with you going to the US...
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Expect the unexpected
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Expect the unexpected
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Fight for your dream
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We change the world of working!
Contact: Gunnar.Berning@twago.com
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Thanks and feel free to follow us...
.com - work different
www.facebook.com/twago.com
www.twitter.com/twago_inside
or email me: Gunnar.Berning@twago.com
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