In this session, three entrepreneurs talk about how to create a viable web business with focus on some of their mistakes and failures. The entrepreneurs are Albert Lai of Bubbleshare, Michael McDerment of FreshBooks and Malgosia Green of Nuvvo.com.
- Michael: Picking a name is really important. We had to rename our company to something that was more memorable.
- Malgosia: Make sure you look at your sales cycle. When we started, we were building a product for the enterprise market and we didn't look at our sales cycle. It was way too long and we eventually left the market and started Nuvvo.
- Albert: Ship quickly, and ship often. Throw your ideas out there and get feedback. Don't build desktop apps if you don't have to.
- Albert: Be flexible to abandon old stuff. We rewrote our software 3 times and changed platforms a few times.
- Albert: For development, we never plan for more than a week. We take our users' feedback and decide what we are going to do this week alone. This allows us to remain agile.
- Don't worry about shipping a full product with all the features. Just make sure the features you do ship out are very good.
- How did you do your initial marketing?
- Talk to key influencers to get your word out. Use them to take a short cut and to keep your costs low - "zero dollar marketing".
- Blogs are great for initial marketing but once you have your audience more defined, you might need to take traditional forms of advertising.
- How do you run your support?
- Michael: We handle people's money so we provide a higher level of support. But it is a low upfront investment.
- Malgosia: We promise to respond to emails within a day and we have a forum. We prefer to stay away from the phone because it becomes very distracting."
- Albert: We try to create a viral support system. Enable users to help other users. Think of the MySpace ecosystem - users learn how to do certain things like embed code into their webpage by learning from other users.
- Sometimes it is better to offer less instead of bombarding the user with a whole lot of features that they don't care. Focus on less and you can deliver more value.
- What conversion rate can you expect if you offer a free and premium service?
- Michael: It depends from application to application. People who are looking into FreshBooks already have a similar product but are looking for something better.
- Malgosia: If your application is for leisure, people are less likely to upgrade.
- Think of creating a funnel. The users you get now may change your conversion rate in the future.
- Raising money and finding good recruits is currently the most time consuming task.
- Web design: "Every hour you spend not thinking ahead, you spend 4-5 hours reworking it."
- Do something simple first. Build a base and then start developing incrementally.
- Ask for help. It's more important to know what you don't know.
mesh06 mesh conference FreshBooks bubbleshare Nuvvo