we're not doing a startup - wdc bristol
DESCRIPTION
Slides for this presentation given at Webdev Conf, BristolTRANSCRIPT
We’re not
“doing a startup”How to cut through the hype and build your side
project into a profitable business.
Rachel Andrew, WDC 2014
Friday, 10 October 14
grabaperch.com
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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.”
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This is a marathon, not a 5K.
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It’s not about the money
(until it is)
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Getting started
Choosing the perfect product to bootstrap as a
side-project.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/7276841268
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Walt Disney
“The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.”
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• for your own community
• that you can ship 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 ...
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A product for your own community
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drewm
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Amy Hoy
“Are you a Ruby developer? Then serve Ruby developers. Are you a UX designer? Serve UX designers.”
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The worst that could have happened with Perch? No-one would want it but we’d have a useful tool for our
business.
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With a track record in a community you will already have trust.
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A product you can ship quickly
http://freekvanarkel.nl
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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.”
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To launch with a small product, you need to find a problem that can be
solved with a small product.
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Perch v.1
• A simple content editor
• No way to add new pages
• No API
• Images could be uploaded - but not resized
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The Problem
Client requests that an already developed static site be made
editable via a CMS.
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The Solution
A simple CMS that turned static pages into editable pages by way of
dropping in a couple of PHP tags.
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A product that solves a problem that people will pay to have solved
https://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/
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If you can save a business time they will see the value in paying for your
product.
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Bootstrapped With Kids, Episode 31
“We think their workflow sucks, but they like it…”
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Our target market for Perch was designers and agencies. We aimed to save them time on smaller projects.
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Feedback from paying customers trumps feedback from free users.
Every time.
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A product that does not need a lot of users to be useful
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22746515@N02/
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“Social” or “community” products need a large user base to succeed.
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Choose a product that is as useful to customer #1 as customer #1000
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A product that has competition
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Perch competitors at launch
• WordPress
• ExpressionEngine
• CushyCMS
• PageLime
• Joomla
• Drupal
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What problem is your competition NOT solving? Build it.
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New concepts will require you to educate potential customers as to why they even need your product.
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Finding the time
How to make time for side-projects.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip/6111406
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Malcolm S. Forbes
“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.”
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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.”
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Get set up to be able to pick up and work on your side-project quickly -
whenever the time is available.
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Your product must be a first-class citizen alongside your other work.
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Set aside time and plan in advance what you will do with it
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Diana Scharf Hunt
“Goals are dreams with deadlines”
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There is power in setting a goal, writing it down, putting a date on it
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How to get started
• Choose your goal
• Define what it is you are going to create
• Put a date on it.
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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.”
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Be realistic about how much you can achieve. Feeling as if you are falling
behind can demotivate you.
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If there is not enough time ...
• Either revise your end date
• Or, remove elements of the project - pushing them into a post-launch phase.
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Be ruthless in cutting features that can be added post-launch
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The “missing” features at launch will seem far more important to you than
to your customers.
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Describe the product as it is now.
Sell the solution.
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• Start Small
• Get feedback from paying customers
• Improve and add to your product based on their needs balanced by your vision.
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Minimum Viable Infrastructures
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Own Your Own Data
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Launch and beyond
Managing a growing side-project alongside an
existing job or business.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall
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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.”
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• 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
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A successful side-project should be given more time as it represents a
higher % of your income.
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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?
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The slower growth curve of bootstrapped products gives you time to fix problems before they
become BIG problems.
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Never promise a specific timeframe to customers
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When your product is a side-project you have even more things that could
cause you to push back a feature.
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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.
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Use Cases not Feature Requests
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Find general solutions that will benefit many customers rather than
adding very specific features
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Understanding the problem means we can help the customer now and
optimize the solution later.
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Delight customers by solving their problems and letting them know
when you have done so
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Protect the Core Use Case
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Your product will benefit by being owned by someone who will say no.
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Make Frequent Small Releases
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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
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Don’t be led by a noisy minority
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Seek out the opinion of those customers you never hear from. The
happy majority are often silent.
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Marketing
How to tell people about your product, when you have no money to burn.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brent_nashville/5284764031/
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Seth Godin
“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”
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You have made something that genuinely solves a problem. Go tell
people about it!
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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.
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Your reach will give you your initial customers. Then what?
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Content Marketing
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Write blog posts and articles on the things your potential customer is
interested in, not about your product.
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Sponsorship
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Perch sponsoring the Unfinished Business podcast
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Paid Advertising
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If you cannot track it do not pay for it
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Target the “long tail” keywords
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Research smaller sites visited by your ideal customer, advertise on
those less expensive sites.
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People love Perch - http://grabaperch.com/people-love-perch
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Create your own definition of success
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Revenue that is not worth chasing for a 60 person business can be life-
changing for the solo founder.
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Is the grass greener on the product side?
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The work is always worth it.
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Thank you
Rachel Andrew
@rachelandrew
http://rachelandrew.co.uk/presentations/not-doing-a-startup
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