How to turn a website into a startup
For more than three years I was a co-owner of a regional web studio, engaged in SEO and communication with customers. In August 2013, I started learning PHP, JS and layout, reworking one site created by our studio about two years ago. As a result, now I have sold my share in the studio in order to deal exclusively with this site. What has changed and why the project, frozen two years ago, suddenly became more important to me a good business?
While I will not talk about which project in question - this is not the last post about it.
The project is designed for certain government agencies and is free. Immediately after launch, they began to use many institutions in the region. And here we made a mistake - we turned to the local authorities with a proposal to refine the product to their requirements and the subsequent mass implementation. The proposal was greeted with enthusiasm and we spent a lot of time talking to officials. As a result, we did not receive any help, and at this time the competitor site was launched. He was worse than ours, but he had informational support from the authorities. Our enthusiasm has noticeably decreased and we have temporarily frozen the site due to limited labor resources. We regularly exhibited at various regional competitions of startups, but there was no point in this.
Conclusion 1: Do not count on support. If the project “shoots” only with the availability of help from someone (the state, the investor, the media) - this is a bad project.
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Despite the fact that we immediately attracted several dozen users, their number has not increased further. None of them talked about the project to their colleagues!
Conclusion 2: each user must be led by the hand. Expecting viral spread is extremely reckless.
When we had the resources to further develop the project, we hired a good programmer. And began a series of failed deadlines, unfinished functionality and writing technical tasks for each feature. I realized that it was easier to code it than to describe the requirements in detail. As a result, I did, in two months rewriting the site.
Conclusion 3: do everything in a startup yourself, until it reaches a serious level. It saves time and money.
Rewriting the site, I understood why the hired programmer broke deadlines. He did everything well. He spent several weeks on one admin panel (which was used only by me). Although I can quite work directly in the database. The architecture was laid down future opportunities that have not been implemented. I myself rewrote its code in two months, simplifying and shortening everything as much as possible. When, two months later, I started to suffer from crutches in the code, I just rewrote it again, already in 3 weeks and again decently shortened. And I know for sure that if it will again be necessary to increase the functionality of the percent by 30, I will again rewrite everything in two weeks, at the same time refactoring.
Conclusion 4: implement only what is now very necessary. Otherwise, more than half of the functionality will be redundant.
Do not make blunders - not a panacea. Some more actions are needed, without which even a project that has avoided mistakes can fail.
Tip 1: if you want to be a large project - just think like a large project.
I estimated the number of potential users and sent a mailing of several tens of percent of their number. Month I parsil data and sent letters, sent letters and parsil data. All this time I called the site the largest. In the end, I got about half a thousand loyal users, only a few thousand. And now the site is really the largest.
Tip 2: be the largest in one niche though.
I identified the most loyal users and the number of the first dozen and focused on one segment. As a result, my site became the largest in this segment and there was a constant stream of new users. Now I am starting to “pile up” the remaining segments, and this is much simpler, because the site has already shown itself well in the next niche.
Tip 3: write a business plan for a serious investor.
When I wrote a business plan, I realized that the potential profit of the project is small. For an investor to become interested in a project, it had to be much higher. But after all, I myself am a serious investor in the project. I had to interest myself. I increased the number in the income column by an order of magnitude and began to think about how to make these figures real. In a few days the solution was found and it greatly changed the direction of the site development. Now it is not just about increasing the number of users for the sake of increasing the number of users, but about focused work in specific, most profitable areas. Now I know exactly where and how much money I should receive. By the way, the first contract will be signed the other day.
I hardly wrote anything new. But in order to understand these things, it took me two years of walking on a rake. In the beginning, I had the idea of ​​a promising site, and at the end - a startup with a clear development plan, for which you can abandon a working business. I hope this material will help someone to shorten this path.
While I will not talk about which project in question - this is not the last post about it.
Error history
The project is designed for certain government agencies and is free. Immediately after launch, they began to use many institutions in the region. And here we made a mistake - we turned to the local authorities with a proposal to refine the product to their requirements and the subsequent mass implementation. The proposal was greeted with enthusiasm and we spent a lot of time talking to officials. As a result, we did not receive any help, and at this time the competitor site was launched. He was worse than ours, but he had informational support from the authorities. Our enthusiasm has noticeably decreased and we have temporarily frozen the site due to limited labor resources. We regularly exhibited at various regional competitions of startups, but there was no point in this.
Conclusion 1: Do not count on support. If the project “shoots” only with the availability of help from someone (the state, the investor, the media) - this is a bad project.
')
Despite the fact that we immediately attracted several dozen users, their number has not increased further. None of them talked about the project to their colleagues!
Conclusion 2: each user must be led by the hand. Expecting viral spread is extremely reckless.
When we had the resources to further develop the project, we hired a good programmer. And began a series of failed deadlines, unfinished functionality and writing technical tasks for each feature. I realized that it was easier to code it than to describe the requirements in detail. As a result, I did, in two months rewriting the site.
Conclusion 3: do everything in a startup yourself, until it reaches a serious level. It saves time and money.
Rewriting the site, I understood why the hired programmer broke deadlines. He did everything well. He spent several weeks on one admin panel (which was used only by me). Although I can quite work directly in the database. The architecture was laid down future opportunities that have not been implemented. I myself rewrote its code in two months, simplifying and shortening everything as much as possible. When, two months later, I started to suffer from crutches in the code, I just rewrote it again, already in 3 weeks and again decently shortened. And I know for sure that if it will again be necessary to increase the functionality of the percent by 30, I will again rewrite everything in two weeks, at the same time refactoring.
Conclusion 4: implement only what is now very necessary. Otherwise, more than half of the functionality will be redundant.
Do not make blunders - not a panacea. Some more actions are needed, without which even a project that has avoided mistakes can fail.
Tips
Tip 1: if you want to be a large project - just think like a large project.
I estimated the number of potential users and sent a mailing of several tens of percent of their number. Month I parsil data and sent letters, sent letters and parsil data. All this time I called the site the largest. In the end, I got about half a thousand loyal users, only a few thousand. And now the site is really the largest.
Tip 2: be the largest in one niche though.
I identified the most loyal users and the number of the first dozen and focused on one segment. As a result, my site became the largest in this segment and there was a constant stream of new users. Now I am starting to “pile up” the remaining segments, and this is much simpler, because the site has already shown itself well in the next niche.
Tip 3: write a business plan for a serious investor.
When I wrote a business plan, I realized that the potential profit of the project is small. For an investor to become interested in a project, it had to be much higher. But after all, I myself am a serious investor in the project. I had to interest myself. I increased the number in the income column by an order of magnitude and began to think about how to make these figures real. In a few days the solution was found and it greatly changed the direction of the site development. Now it is not just about increasing the number of users for the sake of increasing the number of users, but about focused work in specific, most profitable areas. Now I know exactly where and how much money I should receive. By the way, the first contract will be signed the other day.
I hardly wrote anything new. But in order to understand these things, it took me two years of walking on a rake. In the beginning, I had the idea of ​​a promising site, and at the end - a startup with a clear development plan, for which you can abandon a working business. I hope this material will help someone to shorten this path.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/211634/
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