happyfeet

Merry Christmas to all. :)

Absolutely. Most often I catch myself do private browsing in Chrome and 'feel' safer with Firefox. May be my fears are unfounded and yet I do it often.

Excellent points. Interesting to note that most startup businesses that go through traditional investor route exit via acquisitions or getting acquired to get returns for investors (or IPO).

I had this conversation with an angel investor with our team, when we said we are interested in staying in business for a long time and build our user base & let them speak for us. The investor said you need to take a call whether you want a 'lifestyle' business or you want to take the other route to build scale fast. Haven't heard from him yet. :) We were not convinced that we should throw lot of advertisement money, get lot of eyeballs, convert 1 or 2% into sales & just grow.

So, the question is: what kind of commitment can we give to our customers to assure them that a B2B business here is to stay & serve them. The purpose is to "exist" not to get acquired.

Would love to hear examples & stories of businesses that have managed to do the balancing act.

Thanks. Yes, that was a very interesting passage in the book.

When asked to write about something the tendency is to think: "oh, everything about that topic has already been written." Or "There is nothing original or new to write about".

Instead focussing on the smallest of objects & start with it, brings along a flood of original thoughts to write about.

Very interesting perspective indeed.

One gives constructive feedback only if they really care and do not mind spending some time explaining why you think there are flaws that need to be corrected.

Several of the managers in companies have the habit of saying "well done" to top performers with top rating during performance review & have nothing constructive to say. Does that mean they have nothing to improve in current position & they should just vacate the place so their direct report can take his/her place?

As Mark says in the article, it is the difficult path. To take a stance, have a point of view & explain why it is so. The easier option is to say "great work" & just run away. I am learning this more often in areas that are new to me - say in appreciating designs & colors that I am not so good at in web design & so on.

That would be like hiring designers based on whether they know photoshop or coreldraw.

Powerful words. Just the brutal truth in those phrases. Thanks for sharing. I should watch that movie.

As most people say, you can launch a half-feature not a half-assed one. If you think you have the minimum features necessary to make your app 'useful' for your initial customers you should just launch.

I do not see a blog link on your webpage. If not, start doing it soon. Start talking about your app, use cases, problems and how you are solving them. Anything that you think is relevant for your broader audience.

And iterate based on feedback from your initial customer base. Don't worry right now about scaling. If you have that many hits on your app that is a good problem to have. The worst is indifference.

Good luck with you app and I am sure you'll do well.

Good point. My thought is that, the $5 budget apps are actually paid for by the person using it whereas the big budget items (say $2000 software) are paid for (or negotiated) by the indirect purchasing departments. The end users don't actually pay it themselves which could also be part of the psychology as to why they aren't so 'demanding' so to say.

First of all Congratulations on launching your first version. Looks neat.

The development partner, need not necessarily be a "partner". You should give yourself considerable time to get to know someone before you take them in as partners. My suggestion would be to identify someone who can develop it for you even for a pay. And as you build the rapport & find yourself trusting that person more, you could engage as partners later.

The big positive in your case is that you already have a version out.

Your constraint seems to be finding time. Is it possible for you to pay & get the work done? It may be much easier to find specialists for specific features (say, mobile) than finding a partner straight away.

Go to conferences whenever time permits & interact with folks. Give yourself at least 3 months to find someone you would trust. Till such time consider hiring freelancers for specific work.

Just my views based on what I have experienced & read.

I really liked the advice by Mark Suster => http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder...

And this essay from pg => http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html

Good luck with your venture.

You are right. This is true for businesses with substantial number of customers.

It is a significant difference for those starting up with small customer base (10 or 20) to pay from $23 earlier to $53.

It is surprising to see this coming from Spreedly, especially in the context of their previous discussion on the same topic in HN (when Chargify increased price).

When you price a subscription product, one should factor in long term sustainability at that price, for a long time.

Any price increase due to additional features / facilities you provide - say 24*7 on-call support, must not be burdened on your existing users.

Provide a way for existing users to "opt" for those at a higher price, but leave them at the current price as they stand.

True. They have proposed to "grandfather" the current plans only upto 90 days so customers to migrate elsewhere, if they opt to.

Great post.

When I quit my job in big services firm, I went for advice before moving out & also to say goodbye to one of the vice-presidents (who had run his own start-up which was eventually acquired by this big services company).

His specific message to me was: make sure you have enough money to last 3 years and make sure all your partners will also be able to stick together for 3 yrs. Because anywhere between 2 to 3 yrs is the inflection point when people are forced to quit due to whatever circumstances. If you guys can successfully see through 3 yrs I am sure you'll all figure out ways to make money with your business.

He advised me to start looking at alternate channels to generate revenue right from day one: network & find training / consulting opportunities even while you are building the product. Even one or two weeks of such work in 2 to 3 months will go a long way in sustaining the business was his advice.

This is exactly why I(we) have the highest respect for you Matt.

We expect nothing less than such respect & openness to congratulate competition from you.

My first thought as I read above comment was "you would ignore it" and then I see your one word response. :)

Super cool.

I had been thinking if I really need to buy a domain now for my kid (or conserve cash now as I bootstrap my startup).

You just inspired me to buy a domain for my 2 yr old so I can do similar things when he is old enough. Done!

Thank you! :)

Thanks for your clarification, comparing with existing products. Makes it much easier to understand now. :)

Gems! I just went through this & felt compelled to thank - dropped a note to author.

Very nice presentation with plenty of pictures & amazingly good words of wisdom all through.

One thing that stood out for me is this: "just because your competitors have raised more $$ doesn't mean they will win. (we've watched 10 competitors raise oodles of dough and then shutter or pivot)". (paraphrased it).

As I read somewhere, trying to get funded by itself is a great exercise to validate your idea. Seeking external validation via funding is a great way to force you to come up with a viable business model and innovate. I think it is a win-win situation, in my perspective.

In this case, the very process of applying forces you to really think about your business model viability and that is a good sign.

I met this guy personally and I can say it is just straight from his heart. Amazing guy with so much passion to make a difference in this totally chaotic sector.

His narration of real experience in Indian farming sector and how the prices are determined is quite amazing.

Nice. The part I like the most is that I liked playing around with your app to know what it can do.

It does require changes to make it more intuitive and will be looking forward to see how it evolves. Good luck.

Totally agree with you. Using a helpdesk system does have a positive impact - I no longer need to track every mail, tweet & facebook conversation listening to customers & potential customers.

Which helpdesk systems did you evaluate & did you find them very different? I have been evaluating Zendesk, Freshdesk & more recently Assistly.

For a starter Assistly pricing is very attractive to me. But other than that do you find marked difference in terms of the support process for those that you evaluated?

I was trying to put myself in their situation to imagine what I would be doing answering those questions.

PG & Harj's pace is superb trying to utilize every minute.

I think the startups stand to gain much by being more open to criticism and looking for take-aways to improve their positioning, product etc., from their feedback.

I used to feel the same way, earlier when I was in a cushy job, waiting to get into my own startup. And I used to search for ways to avoid procrastination, wasting time etc.,

Then I just decided to quit! And got into my own startup. Boy!!! Now I am not finding time to do anything that does not help my goal of building a company ground up. I can see through my own eyes that it is just lack of a passionate goal and a worthy cause that has just tricked my mind into surfing & wasting time on internet.

So, my suggestion for you would be to take up a goal worthy of you. If you want to continue in the same job revisit your goal and one that is extremely challenging as if you are running your own company and not working for another one. Good luck!