Download - twago @ Maastricht week of entrepreneurship

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


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%


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%


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

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1


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 „[email protected]“

• 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


This is an interesting question...

Revenues

No revenues

or


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


Create a unique company culture Your team must love to work for you


Have fun


Friday lunch all together


vs.

Who wins the fight?

Advertising


Create landing pages for your customer

750 Landing pages


Measure Think

Analyze


Analyze, analyze, analyze: Measure – think – change!

Key drivers

Traffic and customer behaviour

Conversion tests (A/B)


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%*


Scaling


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

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31

Posted Projects / Month 1

2

3

4

5


Stay flexible and ...

... adapt to customer needs and learnings


We changed major topics

To... From...

Outsourcing Offshoring

Combined Marketplace and Memberships

Marketplace only

Focus on core countries All countries immediately


International rollout


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


Don‘t be too much afraid of the US coming to Europe...

... but be careful with you going to the US...


Expect the unexpected


Fight for your dream


We change the world of working!

Contact: [email protected]


Thanks and feel free to follow us...

.com - work different

www.facebook.com/twago.com

www.twitter.com/twago_inside

or email me: [email protected]

Download - twago @ Maastricht week of entrepreneurship

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