“Social Proof is Not Proof” Michael Wolfe www.about.me/michaelrwolfe @michaelrwolfe
Oct 17, 2014
“Social Proof is Not Proof”
Michael Wolfewww.about.me/michaelrwolfe
@michaelrwolfe
Now *this* is a tough crowd
I didn’t know you were such an EPIC FAIL
Do you win the conference by being the
biggest FAIL?
I hope your presentation isn’t a FAIL!
May 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt
Team
Our Investors & Board:
Our Experience:
COMPELLING TEAM• Three previous startups – all had big exits• Cohesive, strong team, B2B experience• Great board and advisors
Solving “the email problem”
The workplace still runs like this!
COMPELLING TEAM
BIG PROBLEM• Universal• Well-understood• Hitting a breaking point
Made the finals
Got press and awards
“The CEO Michael Wolfe is a proven winner along with his backers at Benchmark. This is a natural idea and opportunity with very long legs.”
- NextUp Research
COMPELLING TEAM
+ BIG PROBLEM
+ SOCIAL PROOF
== WIN?
Four months later . . .
Wut went wrong?
Let’s go back to summer 2010
• Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark• Was working on new company ideas• Intrigued by the collaboration market
• Co-founder/CEO at Vontu with Mike• Now is a Partner at Greylock• Was working on a photo-sharing company
Looked at the usual suspects
They gave up and built a homegrown system based on mailboxes and wiki pages
“Enterprise 2.0 from your inbox”
GOAL: build a collaboration solution that people will actually use
• Embrace email, don’t compete with it
• Zero friction to become a user
• Great UI, search, social features
• Viral and freemium
The Plan
• Raise some money
• Build small team
• Customer validation
• MVP, iterate, iterate
• Product/market fit
• Profit!
TEAM fail
VALIDATION fail
VALUE fail
PRODUCT fail
SOCIAL PROOF fail
TEAM
Awesome engineering team
Mike took on customer validation, sales, marketing, finance, product management,
financing, etc.
TEAM fail – no “hustler”
“HUSTLER” “HACKER”
TEAM lesson
If you fail, it will be because you don’t reach product/market fit and don’t get customers
So, someone on your team should be great at and work on only that
It is not a part time job
An engineering team is not a company
VALIDATION
Is email overload a problem?
Do you live out of your inbox?
You aren’t happy with the tools you’ve tried?
Would you try this?
Yup
Yup
Yup
Yup
VALIDATION fail
We validated the problem but not the solution
Overbuilt the MVP - we thought we needed clear differentiation. Should have got it out
sooner
“We talked to some customers” is not validation
VALIDATION lessons
You aren’t doing it enough
No, you aren’t
Stop it, you really aren’t
No, shut up
VALUE fail
“Enterprise 2.0 value proposition:– Get more done– Find information– Discover experts– Build reputation and
relationships– Be happy
The “soft” value prop
NO BUDGET. NO URGENCY.
NO ONE GETTING FIRED.
The VALUE degrees of difficulty
Loserville
“HARD “VALUE PROP
Get customers, grow revenue
Compliance, security, cost
savings
Productivity, collaboration,
employee satisfaction
“SOFT “VALUE PROP
Winners
Email Web Saas Cloud Social Mobile OLD TECH NEW TECH
VALUE lessons
We focused on adoptability, not value
Wasn’t new and different enough – not “10x” better than the alternatives
This is why the collaboration market is so hard
And why so many email startups fail
SMART MAILING LISTS• Easy to create and grow• Capture documents and
discussions• Find content, discover experts• Social and viral
PRODUCT fail
People “liked” our product, but we didn’t get “love”
OK to have haters as long as you have lovers
Needed critical mass of usage to provide value, but without value couldn’t attract critical mass
Early adopter market overlapped with Google’s install base
Then, to add insult to injury
SOCIAL PROOF fail
“I have an idea I want to run by you”
(Smart people involved. I guess they know what
they are doing)“Sounds great”
(People love my idea!)“Let me tell you about
my great idea!”
(Wow, Mike sounds really excited about this)“Sure, we’ll try it”
(Everyone loves it!). “This thing is happening!” “Can I invest?”
Things we did well
Pivoted decisively
Great support from board and investors
Team cohesion
Selected a new project (Pipewise) with a lower “degree of difficulty”
Don’t get distracted by who has SOCIAL PROOF and who doesn’t
Diverse TEAM, VALIDATE the idea, leverage larger waves to add VALUE
Follow your gut – you know the right thing to do
Go and do it.
Questions?
Knowledge has been dropped:
“Social Proof is Not Proof”
Michael Wolfewww.about.me/michaelrwolfe
@michaelrwolfe