Hubstaff Lean Startup Talk
Post on 29-Jun-2015
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HubstaffWhat we’ve learned so far...
What is Hubstaff?
Tracks employee time
Takes random screenshots
Records activity levels
Gives management dashboard & reports
Some Stats
14 months
4300+ users
15k new screenshots uploaded daily
88+ days of hours tracked daily
20k projects created
100+ countries
BackgroundDave Nevogt
Marketing/Operations
IU Business, Grown multiple 1MM+ online businesses
Jared Brown
Development
Purdue CS, 10+ years professional experience, freelancer
Overview
3 Biggest early mistakes
4 Biggest early wins
We’re still getting started, lots of mistakes still to make :)
The Plan
Present our mistakes & wins quickly
Give 5 mins for discussion
The Goal: Present a real problem in our business and collectively learn how to solve it in a lean startup way.
Mistake #1 - Not Building Features
Quickly Retention
Over-engineering (robust)
Flexibility is king
Waste time on worthless features
Example - Multi-Organization Support
Problem: Users work for multiple companies.
Our solution: Users can belong to multiple organizations. Avoid multiple accounts.
Issues: Complex, confusing permissions. Long build-out. Confusing payment process.
Results: 200+ customers have multiple, paid organizations
How can we stop over-engineering?
What would you do?
Do we put the effort in upfront or later?
Mistake #2 - Not Dedicating Enough
Time / Focus
Hard to leave current jobs
Opportunity window closes
Dedicating 100% = Exponential results
Example - Dev & Support Rule the Biz
Problem: Dev & support efforts take up 80% of our scarce time.
Our solution: Find a dedicated support person and do what we can (work overtime).
How can we dedicate more time?
What are our options?
What would you do?
Mistake #3 - Not Charging Sooner
Didn’t feel it’s fully baked
Don’t know most valuable demographic early
Higher retention of early users
Attract a different class of users
Example - Desktop clients had bugs
Problem: Desktop clients had bugs and web UI lacked core features.
Our solution: Slap a beta label on it and not charge.
How early should we have started
charging?
What would you do?
Win #1 - 50% split equity & opposite
skillsKeeps everyone fully invested
Nothing else can easily replace it
Makes it easier to get all tasks done
Is this the best way?
Many ways to do it
Has anyone had a bad experience doing 50/50?
Do you shoulder the burden and hand out small equity amounts?
Win #2 - Use services, platforms and tools
Heroku, hosted Postgres, ActiveAdmin, Intercom, InstrumentalApp, New Relic, Bootstrap, Rails, Themes, GetAmbassador, ReferralSaaSquatch, Desk, etc.
What services do you use?
Win #3 - Early validation of concept
and marketing White-labeled existing product
Tested conversion rates with real marketing campaigns
Created new landing pages
Other than white-labeling what ideas do
you have that could get you to a paying product in 30 days.
Win #4 - Buying Traffic
Made user acquisition automatic
Validate whether the market wants this very early
Validate whether marketing is affordable and scalable
Zero-in on keywords and roll that into SEO
What other traffic generations methods are really good and that we should be
doing?
Thank you!
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