Tag Archives: distlr

Reflections on startup life: Week 47

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Another week and another major new client.  Here's hoping I can say the same again next week too!

After a slow burn, we've hit a few runs with clients recently which is very re-assuring.  So much so we have some "key" clients we'll start advertising on our home page now.

Last week I said one goal with Distlr was to "Review Distlr with the people who used it (Survey most likely)".  Those rash few words lead to a lot of angst.  I sent multiple messages to registered users from the Distlr account which ended up in Twitter suspending it for spam, this put Distlr on hold until it was finally resolved later in the week.

We spent a bit of time on the Distlr pitch, testing it with a few advisors and rounding it out – it's getting there and most importantly we know exactly which gaps we need to close.  I think the only way to get better at pitching is to keep pitching, and coming into this the third time around we are progressing it so much faster and more smoothly too.

On the Tribalytic front, there was a new release over the weekend which adds export capability and an API into the tool, which will help people to help themselves a lot better.  What's worthy of note about this is that it represents the first time we've actually split a feature set by account – this is only available for the team account or higher. There are lots of reasons why, but ultimately it's part of the ongoing recognition and learning about where the value is and where the users are taking us.

Daylight savings and the three hour time difference is a shame – it is that little bit harder for Alex and I to work together.  I'm considering looking at something different this week – perhaps not starting quite as early as I typically do and instead do some exercise in the morning when it's nice and cool.

There's so much to do which is really exciting, loving the challenges and what's laid out in front of us.

Highlights

  • New release of Tribalytic
  • New client signed
  • Distlr pitch completed

Lessons Learned

  • Don't survey people from your Twitter account.

Goal this week – Engineering

  • Streaming and multi-channel support for Distlr – allow people to register their own channels.

Goal this week – Customers

  • Build a sales focussed Distlr deck (we only have an investment focussed one)
  • Set up meetings around Distlr and test the idea with Brands and Broadcasters (interested – let me know tim.bull@binaryplex.com)
  • Keep working the pipeline and trying to acquire customers for Tribalytic.

Reflections on start-up life: Week 46

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Deep breath.

What a week.  Every now and again I have a week like this one just gone where I think, wow, that's some kind of turning point.
  • We launched Distlr
  • We signed World Vision Australia as a client for Tribalytic for 12 months.
  • We had another major client in our pipeline come back and confirm they want to sign up this week.
We are getting a better (more realistic) handle now on our pipeline – most importantly we are beginning to understand how long it takes to close a deal.  Despite being "Software as a Service" offering, Tribalytic is clearly an enterprise sales problem.

I remember saying to someone early on that pre-revenue is like skiing downhill, you're flying and having fun.  Then when you make your first sale, it suddenly quantifies just HOW far down the hill you've come.  We are clawing our way back up that hill and are very close to cresting it now.

On to Distlr (previously known as Project X)!  We set ourself a goal to try and promote and launch Distlr with the AFL Grand Final replay.  It was a huge effort, but we got there.  Shipping product is about the hardest thing you can do.  We could of sat back, polished it more, been more cautious or any number of things, but we'd just be wasting time.  There was enough product to learn some lessons and we have.

What did the Distlr launch teach us?
  1. There's some interest out there.  With what was really quite a poor PR campaign (mostly because we left it until 2 hours before which was when we were sure we'd actually have a product!), we managed to get 70 registered users and some 300+ observers.  24 hours later, people were still using it to watch the #aflgf.
  2. People who do use it get much more engaged with an event.
  3. There are still several features we are missing to really nail the client experience we want.
  4. It didn't teach us this, but Internet Explorer sucks (cross browser support for Firefox / Chrome designed in, picked up Safari (and iPhone / iPad without even testing on it) then Alex spent several hours debugging IE specific issues).
We had a very early business development meeting for Distlr – yes, there is a potential business model behind it, but I'll keep that under my hat for the moment.  Suffice to say it went well and we have a follow up meeting already which is great.

On the lighter side, now we have a little bit of cash in the bank, we have to decide how to spend it.  It's not that much yet, but here's a few things we could do with it.

Alex and I have already had a brief discussion about a new monitor and chair for him, something he's hesitant to spend money on.  From my perspective if we can get him a better development environment (a fast desktop PC with a decent monitor so he can test offline and a chair to keep him comfortable) that ~$2,000 is a significant investment in our core production capacity.  If he's even 15% more effective, that's an extra months programming a year! Yup, I'm a slave driver :-)

With Daylight Savings started now, Alex and I are now three hours apart instead of two, so that's something else that's changing – at least it's still not too bad.

Highlights

  • The adrenaline rush of the deadline and getting Distlr out the door.
  • Signing World Vision
  • Another customer confirming they want to buy
  • Distlr business development meetings.
  • Meeting Doris after a months absence – I really enjoy these sessions with her.  Having someone know your business but sit outside it is really useful.

Lessons Learned

  • Need to get our Credit Card payments sorted out.  We had to get our startup friends Event Arc to help us out as we couldn't process the money from World Vision at the speed they wanted to pay.
  • New shiny things are really distracting. But sometimes it's worth it – I feel that we took a risk on the Distlr idea, but it also really re-invigorated us, gave us new ideas, taught us some new things and has shown another way forward which was interesting.

Goal this week – Engineering

  • Push the latest release of Tribalytic
  • Refactor Distlr

Goal this week – Customers
  • Sign new client
  • Shake up the pipeline
  • Review Distlr with people who used it (Survey most likely).

Reflections on startup life: Week 45

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The rest of the holiday cruised by very nicely.  I took one day "off" to work (love the iPhone and tethering for keeping me online wherever I go).  Aside from that, plenty of theme parks and generally a good time.

Still, I was itching to get home.  It's great to be back in the office and at the PC with something more intellectual to do than psyching myself up for the next thrill ride with a fearless 10 year old.

We got back Saturday and on Sunday morning, I headed off early to Trampoline (http://trampolineday.com).  It's a fantastic un-conference where the content is directed / created by the attendees.  I did a session on Internet Privacy called "Stalking Lara" where I demonstrated how much I could find out about Lara from her online presence.  I had a lot of fun and it seemed well received.

From a start-up perspective, there were lots of reflections from my time off.  Top of mind thought are:
  1. Our new project still has a lot of potential, BUT is it a "hole" that Twitter might fill. Or is it a Killer App.  I think it's a Killer App, but then I'm an eternal optimist or I wouldn't be in a startup at all!
  2. Are we "crossing the chasm" with Tribalytic at the moment? If so, what are the activities we need to do differently.
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There are new challenges this week – a quote to prepare for an interesting side project which we are keen to do (money in the bank now is a good thing at the moment).  It's ideal because it's a) aligned to our skills and what we are about b) relatively short (couple of weeks) so we don't get side tracked too much.

The big decision today is around the repeat of the AFL Grand Final – it's an ideal chance to trial our new project.  IF we decide to go for it, then we have a great opportunity to reach out and get it in front of a really strong local audience.  The timing of the Grand Final was just a little tight, but with it being repeated a week later, there's a great opportunity – thank goodness for the draw.

Finally, a thank you to everyone I caught up with at Trampoline and in particular to those of you who mentioned this blog.  It's always great to hear from people reading it.  It prompted me to go back and look at the stats – perhaps strangely to you reading this, I still largely think of this as a relatively private conversation between Alex and I.  Last weeks post had over 3,000 reads.

At this rate we might make more money embedding Ad Words into my blog about the startup than the startup itself! (kidding – I hope).

Highlights

  • Playing with and thinking about the new project – shiny new ideas are attractive.
  • Trampoline – shiny new ideas are attractive.

Lessons Learnt

  • A reflection on this blog in a way.  Keeping at something gets it out there.  The same is true for Tribalytic.  One impact of the holiday is a drop off in the sign up rate.  We stopped pushing the Tribalytic blog and we've stopped getting organic sign ups.  Might be back to blogging this week a bit.
  • Holidays are good.  I read with interest yesterday Dave McClure's latest on Why NOT to do a startup.  I fail already because I DO love my wife more than my startup, hence we had a holiday! That said, I'd challenge Dave (who's way more experienced than me about start-ups) and say I learnt a long time ago (and Alex agrees with this) that anything worth doing is a marathon, not a sprint.  Nothing wrong with recharging the batteries.  I doubt there's many several-years-in-the-making-overnight-successes out there who would begrudge anyone some days off once a year.
Goals this week

  • TBA!

Reflections on Start-Up life: Week 44

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It was a short week, I worked Monday and Tuesday then from Wednesday I've been off on leave. It's been a great holiday so far. Much needed, yet I can't shake the feeling I'm “cheating” on myself – this is time to be putting in, not taking off.

Still, the start-up world never stops, it just slows down. I can't confess to fully stepping away from the laptop (or the iPhone and email!).

I've been keeping up with my reading and researching. Two big pieces of news happened last week. Brizzly.com, a web based Twitter client announced a deal to sell to AOL. Then on Wednesday the big news was that Twitter launched the “New Twitter” website. So guess what our big idea (Project X) is – yeah, a Twitter client.

You can't beat that for timing! We think we'll play with a radical new Twitter client idea on Monday, and on Wednesday Twitter launch a radical new Twitter client. Does it change the plan, not really – the idea we have is sufficiently niche and differentiated that the new Twitter client and what we have in mind don't compete. It does however potentially change the investment landscape. As we read “you won't find an investor now willing to touch anything with the words 140 or Twitter in the pitch”.

Still, even post the New Twitter announcement, Alex has continued to talk and pitch with Angels and the Angel Community and the interest is still there. What's clear is that there is a major proof point for this idea which is “will people switch to use our client in the niche we are after”. If yes, we have a winner. If no, it may as well die now.

So Alex continues with the prototype, and I continue lining up some meetings while on leave for when I get back to see how this can play out.

Perhaps the highlight of the holiday (from a work perspective) so far was a phone call I received on Thursday. I was sitting enjoying lunch at Wet 'N Wild when I noticed a missed call. Turns out that our press release had made it's way to the desk of the right person inside The Australian and they wanted to write about us for an article published today here http://bit.ly/9o8jRS

I rang them back and did an on the spot “interview” covering the key points of Tribalytic while surrounded by the sounds of screaming kids having fun. It was great! What's pleasing now is that our press release has yielded some decent online coverage and some good contacts for the next time now – we have contacts with the right people who cover our type of product and marketplace.

The right contacts are critical – if you want a “big bang” then you need to let people know well ahead of time and co-ordinate. Not knowing who to talk to makes this hard and you end up with a “spray and pray”. My advice though, it's worth it. If you don't know who to tell, tell everyone and hope, it's better than doing nothing. I doubt we will do such a broad and general press release of this sort however again now we have some contacts.

I had an opportunity to apply for a contract before we left. It was an interesting decision process. On the one hand, we could make some good money that would help us out for several months. On the other, it would put everything on hold for 3 – 6 months. It was a tough call, but we (Alex and I) decided to stick with our start-up guns – you have to be in the game to play the game. We are not ready to step back yet.

Perhaps the interesting part of the this process is the regard we have for each other. I think that sometimes we try and second guess each other too much – it's a natural human instinct, we are both “nice guys” and we don't want to see either of us get burnt in this start-up process. Yet it's not always what's best for BinaryPlex. We need to be a lot more ruthless about asking “What's best for the business” not “What's best for Tim or Alex”.

That doesn't mean we have to be horrible to each other at all – quite the opposite in fact (that would be bad for business). But when we worry about each other too much, we break down an important balance. If I'm making my decision in part based on what's best for me, then I rely on Alex providing a perspective purely on what's best for BinaryPlex. This makes sure we have a balanced decision process and I can sound off my own personal objectives against his reasoned view on what's right for the company.  

We have another shorter term opportunity which is better aligned for which we also need to make a hard decision on very shortly. The positive here is that there is work (consulting / contracting) around, the challenge – when do we have to take it. And will it be there when we need it if we don't?

Our SEO efforts of several weeks ago are paying off, although we are ranking too high in some areas perhaps unintentionally. I had a very strange meeting with someone who had rung us up and against my better judgement I went to meet him, not sure what he was wanting. Turns out he thought we were experts in something because he found our site, while we thought he wanted to buy Tribalytic. After 15 minutes we had this “aha” moment where we realised neither of us was who we thought. We politely ended the meeting in record time and left.

For me the rest of the week is keeping things bubbling over while also enjoying my break. Lots of interesting things to keep working on and thinking about. For now, Australia zoo and Bindy the Jungle girl beckon.

Highlights

  • Holidays and lots of time with the family
  • Interview with The Australian

Lessons Learnt

  • Calypso Bay at Wet and Wild not best place to do an interview
  • What you write in your press release and what the journalist runs prove to be two different things.  The press release so far seems to be more a teaser to get an interview rather than something that's used as written (I'm sure that happens, but so far they've been what's baited the hook, not the outcome).
  • Even on holidays you can't stop. Not that I really wanted to.

Goal this week

  • Few more theme parks
  • Start lining up meetings for next week so I can hit the road running when I get back.