Family business in IT. The first six months of our startup life

Foreword

Did you miss? I, too! I am writing an article and understand how I missed this. You know, it seems to me that in the almost half a year that has passed since the launch of our service, the amount of information in my head has grown tenfold. You can not imagine what this pumping for the brain!
Feeling that six months ago I did not know anything at all. It seems that we all so carefully counted, thought out, relied on our previous experience. However, the development of a web studio business and the development of a startup is not at all the same. I'm sure it will take another six months, and again I will bite myself and nibble my husband, that everything had to be done differently.
So sit back. Today, you will learn about how the first half year of our startup has passed.

How will we look for customers?

The morning after my last article on Habré, I woke up from a text message informing me of the first payment. Frankly, the feeling is most pleasant. I'm ready to wake up at least every day!

But do not expect that there will be another success story that tells how in one night we became millionaires. On the contrary, just waiting for the mass of the tests, which still fall on our heads. And we have not yet become millionaires.
')
PR on Habré is great. We received good feedback, identified and fixed bugs, the existence of which was not even suspected. But most importantly, we won the first customers and realized that our service is in demand. It was necessary to move on and test other sources of customer acquisition.

Online prize draw

I wanted something large-scale, loud, able to tell about as many clients as possible about us. Therefore, we decided to hold ... a lottery! At one of the forum forums, lottery tickets were issued, and then they conducted an online broadcast, where they played 18 cool prizes.

Pros: positive PR, a lot of satisfied customers.
Cons: very expensive.

I admit, we have not finished a little. It was necessary to ensure the rally more publicity: to advertise themselves in blogs, thematic sites and social networks. This would significantly increase the number of attracted participants. But on the other hand, there would be much more expenses. Anyway, but we got less effect than we expected.

Partnerships

And here everything is much more productive. The scheme of work is quite simple and transparent. For clients of our partner, we offer a good discount, and the partner in turn gives a discount to our customers. This helps not only to increase the number of registrations, but also increases the loyalty of current customers. Who does not like to receive gifts?

But I want to note that finding partners is not so easy. I literally sent messages every day for a month and negotiated partnerships. Someone ignores you, someone does not understand and does not see benefits for himself. Someone seems to agree, but so slowly and reluctantly goes to a meeting, you have to push and force to move.

But despite all the difficulties, we were able to establish a partnership with several major services, and we worked very well.

Referral system

We noticed that we are recommended. Sometimes I come across articles that mention our service, and this is very nice. However, the startup needs more publicity to get out of the valley of death as quickly as possible.

Sasha insisted on launching a referral program. I doubted for a very long time and did not believe that this channel would work. And you know, it was not right.
Many bloggers who previously refused to ask me to mention our service in their reviews, having learned about the referral program, were happy to post a link to us.

The partner receives 30% of all payments of the users listed by him. These are very good conditions, stimulating to talk about us in the social. networks and blogs.

In addition, we came up with an interesting feature. Not only the partner benefits, but also the user cited by him. For registration on the referral link an additional bonus is charged. And this, of course, encourages users to register.

We encourage repeat sales and increase user loyalty

As you know, it is much more profitable to sell to regular customers than to attract new ones. Therefore, we do our best to increase user loyalty.

To do this, first, you need to make a good product. Because if a client is disappointed in a product, he will not buy it a second time (and especially if there are analogues).

Second, provide good service. I myself track all user posts, answer their questions and give tips on work. To be always in touch, I have SMS notification of new messages. Customers like that I always respond promptly. They really appreciate when it takes no more than a couple of hours to solve their problems. Good technical support sometimes compensates for the lack of any functionality.

And of course no one has canceled promotions and discounts. For example, on the New Year, we issued 100 promotional codes. However, customers did not know in advance what kind of bonus a particular promotional code gives. You pay for work in the service, apply the promotional code and payment ... doubles! Or tripled, or increased by 30%. All promotional codes were different. Great fun users. One of our clients has used 5 promo codes in a row and saved well.

In January, we decided that it was time to increase the cost of the average check, without overstating the cost of the service itself. Many customers paid 10 or 50 rubles. We wanted the minimum payment to be 300 rubles.
The problem was solved quite simply. If earlier on the payment page the client himself entered the amount for which he wants to replenish the balance, now we have made ready-made offers. You can immediately pay 300, 600 or 1500 rubles. And of course, left the opportunity to specify the amount manually.

Thus, we simply shortened the purchase path for a couple of clicks on the keyboard: no need to enter the amount, just select the one already offered. As a result, many customers who previously paid 50 rubles each began to pay 300.

Talk about bugs?

Half a year is not a long time, but we tried very hard to make as many mistakes as possible. Yes, yes, do not laugh, one intelligent man recently told me such an interesting thought:

If you have no experience, you need to work it out as quickly as possible. And nothing helps to gain experience, as making mistakes. And the more mistakes you make in a short period of time, the more experience you will receive and you will be able to avoid these mistakes in the future.

There were a lot of mistakes. Some of the stupidity and inability to calculate the consequences. And some just because of lack of experience. For this article, I chose the four most, in my opinion, serious.

Error number 1. Well, who needs these functions now?

You know, I read a lot, I am generally a fan of new knowledge. However, it seems that, before launching his project, it was necessary to read a completely different literature. Now, what book or article do not open, as if on purpose, one of the first tips for startups:

Focus on the core functionality. No need to implement a bunch of features. In the future, clients will prompt themselves what they are missing, and what they would like to improve.

It's true. Do not bother and do not invent. Ask customers! They are always happy to tell what they are missing.

The development of individual functions took weeks! And recently Sasha was doing analytics and it turned out that only one of our clients uses these functions - I. So sadly, that is beyond words. In this situation, the only thing that comforts me is that some of our competitors managed to copy these functions ...

Error number 2. Filter customer requests and make plans for improvements

The second error is closely related to the first. Yes, customers need to listen. But do not run headlong to fulfill all their wishes. Make a plan for improvements and do not spray.

I noticed that there are two main categories of users: creatives and modelers. Creatives simply overwhelm you with their ideas, requests and wishes. I myself use our service and belong to the category of creatives. This is great, new ideas are always needed. However, everything needs to be passed through the filter.

We had several cases when the user was very much asking for something to be implemented, because it’s just that it doesn’t allow him to fully switch to our service. We threw everything, fulfilled his request. And the client was either lost or did not use the chip introduced specifically for him.

If you are in doubt about the need to implement the functionality requested by the creative, just talk to this user. It often turns out that the function is not as important as it seemed.

In contrast to the creatives, the modest ask rarely, but in the case. Their ideas should be listened to more closely. But again, put the improvements in the plan. We now have a list of tasks scheduled for 2 months in advance and constantly updated.

Error number 3. Count everything at once

Before starting your project, spend a couple of days on setting up the analytics system. It is important for you to know:

• promo site attendance,
• website visitors conversion into registration,
• the percentage of users who stick (i.e like your service and they continue to use it. For us, sticky users are those who visited the service more than 5 times in the first week),
• The percentage of users who have made a payment
• The percentage of users making a second payment.

Somehow we did not pay much attention to the analyst. No, some indicators, of course, were taken into account. Yes, and from the database you can always unload certain statistics. However, we missed such an important point as the source of registered users.

Now I actively use utm and from tags to know for sure from which source more clients come. This allows you to select the most effective advertising channels and focus on them.

In addition, in the near future we plan to switch to using the new analytics system. Until now, they have used Intercom , there are many advantages in it, however, there are also serious disadvantages. Sales funnel is not built, customer sources are not counted. Therefore, much has to be considered manually.

While leaning towards Mixpanel , we still need to study the market. By the way, taking this opportunity, I want to recommend the blog examplesofanalytics.com blog. Its author, Anton, explained a lot to me in matters of analytics and helped me understand the basic concepts.

Error number 4. Do not inflate the state. Maximum load and work

In the web studio business, we have always sought to fully delegate tasks. The head should not be engaged in direct execution, it is important to correctly assign the task to the end specialist and monitor the progress of its implementation.

Therefore, after launching the project, we began to look for a front-end developer so that Sasha could concentrate as much as possible on the development of the service. We were rescued by the fact that finding a good specialist is not easy. In general, we did not have time to make this mistake. Understood in time, and knowledgeable people suggested that while a startup would not pay for itself, there would be no question of expanding the state.

Money for the salary would have to pull out of the webstudio. And its resources are far from endless. So now we all have everything in the team. And managers are no exception. Sasha frontendit and controls backend development. I develop partnerships, do advertising and technical support. And on weekends we are working on a development strategy. A little less sleep, a little more coffee - and everything will work out!

Last word

In general, we grow and develop. No strength, no time, just a bunch of tasks. In general, in recent months, I have the feeling that everyone around me is barely moving. The brain works in some kind of super accelerated mode, you manage to think and settle a million cases at the same time. No, no, this is not what you thought! No illegal drugs! I just love what I do and I want everything to work out. I would be grateful if in the comments share your thoughts and give advice on the development of our project! Until future articles!

PS read the sequel:
Family business in IT. How we put together a team