Startup Life

Interviewed by Carl Benfield of Twentisphere.

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Written in India inspired during our software planning for 2017.
I’ve built 3 SaaS products.

They’re very different to build, but a few things remain the same. Doesn’t matter what technology you’re using or what stack you building it with. There’s some solid things to do that will mean you’re building the right product, as quickly as possible, so you can start getting revenue.

Doing things wrong is my best learning curve. It means second time round, I do things a little better and the third time, I establish a pattern – a process and a model to do things the correct way.

Here’s my model for creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
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Written in Madrid amongst a medley of parties, siestas and culture.

Somewhere 2,000km someone visits your website, they’re about to contact you and they stop. You lose your opportunity, you lose your customer, you have no idea who they are.

From the other side of the world a prospect is unhappy with your competitor. They search, they find your company but they’re only browsing. Two weeks later they’re ready, but they can’t find your company second time round. Lost opportunity again.

The more people who visit your website, the more opportunities you’re losing. Sound pessimistic? Absolutely. Does it shock you into how much extra business you could have if you could have found out who they were? Absolutely.

This was us over three years ago, sitting in an office trying to answer exactly these questions.
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Last week we detailed what this blog is all about and the big goal to reach $10 mil a year. I mentioned everything went horribly wrong in the early days (with previous companies). Let’s take a proper look…

This is a prelude to what this blog is all about. I really want you to know my background before I get into what went right and continue that story.

“We have 48 hours to get all our stock out, or it’s over.”

This was 22nd December 2011. It meant me and my business partner had until the early hours of Christmas day to empty a 6,000 sq. ft warehouse into a new one, fast. We had to move around 5,000 units of stock, office equipment, racking and storage in time to continue trading, or it was all over.
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Written in Copacabana Beach, Rio, Brazil while visiting Brazilian Marketing Team. 17th Nov. 3am.

What’s the difference between a real goal that has a number vs. getting your head down and just working as hard as you can? Something to think about.

Before getting into SaaS, my last companies went very wrong. I ran online retail. I traded kitchen taps, bathroom taps, swimming pools and sports clothing. Random? Yes, exactly my point. I was aimlessly trading products online without purpose, without goals and therefore without conviction. We blindly got to $8million a year in sales by marketing incredibly well, but not understanding the real essence of running a business. The businesses were incredibly profitable but failed in so many ways. I want to share this with you in my next blog post.
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