On August 19th, 2011, at the Bootstrappers Breakfast in San Francisco (8 am , Sandbox Suites,567 Sutter St, SF), Tristan Kromer will discuss:
Using personas to accelerate and improve the Customer Development process
Deploying information radiators to facilitate company learning
Tristan Kromer has spent 16 years in marketing, product development, business development, IT security, music, real estate, and now web startups. He’s lived in the U.S., Vietnam, Germany, Taiwan, and Switzerland, and has a BA in philosophy and an MBA in international management and marketing — neither of which prepared him to work in a real startup. He blogs at http://GrasshopperHerder.com
Francis Adanza moderated the July 15th breakfast in San Francisco and offered this write-up.
We had a great conversation and a full house for the SandBox Suites’s location for Bootstrappers Breakfast. It was a mix of entrepreneurs; social gaming, mobile apps, B2B solutions, and video platforms. We had several thought provoking conversations on the topics of finding early employees/co-founders, marketing to small businesses, and how to partner with big corporations.
Steve Mock, our featured guest speaker, shared a few tips on how to get someone else to pay for your marketing and how to develop a win-win value proposition to make that happen. He gave three examples from three different companies on how he structured deals with Fortune500 partners to fund his companies marketing efforts. Below is the core of his three examples.
1) Major media companies. We had a great product that we wanted them to resell. Every major media company agreed it was a great idea, but seemed to lack the impetus to actual do a deal with us. Something was missing. We finally made a deal (loss leader) to one company to get things going. Once one was on board, the others fell like dominos. It took getting that first deal to ‘bless’ us to get the others motivated. Nobody wanted to be the first, so we offered the ‘first’ a deal they couldn’t refuse to get going.
2) Enterprise networking company. Starting with the “customer in common” in mind, we reached out to customers of all the major players in the networking space. Once we had customer validation, we reached out to the big networking companies to see if our solution would help reduce their sales cycles. All agreed that the solution was beneficial to their customers, but it only helped reduce the sales cycle for a few of the players. Those are the firms that we ended up partnering with. We actually partnered with the sales team in the field, got their buy in, and got them to take the mutual solution into their own internal product and marketing groups. We made the sales team our internal champion.
3) Enterprise software company. We wanted a giant Israeli company to resell our product. After showcasing our technology, we asked for product feedback and they would not provide us with any information. They were a very opaque organization. We could not gauge their thought process. We got their major customers to ask for the mutual solution. Still nothing. As a last ditch effort, we managed to meet the CEO for five minutes and pitch the idea. He loved it and made it happen. In this case, getting to the top of the organization is what got the deal done.
Starting out as a software development company in 2001, Code 42 Software is the creator of CrashPlan and CrashPlan PRO, the award-winning onsite, offsite and cloud backup solution for consumers and businesses.
Today we continue to deliver high-performance, easy-to-use hardware and software solutions that protect the world’s data.
This will be a great meeting.
Date: July 28th, 2011
Time: 7:30 -9 am
Venue: Wilde Roast Cafe 65 Main St SE, Minneapolis, MN
Just a reminder that Tech Week starts Saturday. Just a reminder that we’ve increased the RSVP limit to 80 for next week. The breakfast tends fill up quickly the week before, so make sure to RSVP if you plan on attending. In addition to the large Breakfast we have planned for Wednesday, the 27th, there are several events lined up that should be must attends for bootstrappers:
Sunday 24th Lean Startup Circle with Hiten Shah http://www.chicagoleanstartup.com/events/18471361/
Monday 25th Tech In Motion: http://www.meetup.com/TechinMotion/events/22974561/
Wednesday 27th Bootstrappers Breakfast: http://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-Chicago/events/17498971/ SPARK Chicago Final Round: http://sparkkeynote-eorg.eventbrite.com/ Refresh Chicago with Corey Haines: http://www.meetup.com/Refresh-Chicago/events/15970788/
It’s going to be a great week for the Chicago technology scene in general as well as the startup scene in particular.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Mock (@steve_mock), Executive or Co-Founder of five venture backed companies. I thought the Bootstrappers Breakfast community might benefit from Steve’s lessons learned. In addition to this Q&A blog post, Steve will be joining the round table discussion as a featured guest speaker on Friday, July 15 at the San Francisco Bootstrappers Breakfast, held at Sandbox Suites. Come join us and ask Steve your own questions.
Date/Time: July 15th, 2011, 8-9:30 am Venue:Sandbox Suites, 567 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA
Q: Can you share a little bit about the start ups you’ve worked for? Maybe touch on the industry each company was in, the problem each company was solving, and whether or not it returned for the investors?
A: Two of the companies were in enterprise software (IP routing software and network control solutions) and the others were in consumer web and services (mobile email, children’s adventure games, online math games). Two were sold at a profit; one is profitable and growing; one failed fabulously; and the other is TBD.
Q: What are your thoughts about having co-founders compared to going at it alone? If so, how do you find the right person?
A: If someone measured the data, I bet most successful start ups have more than one founder. You want to have people with complimentary skill sets. If you are a sales person, grabbing your buddy who is also in sales may not be the best person. Get someone who can bring a different skill set and perspective to the table. The founding team will do most of the work and have to make the tough decisions, especially early on. Ask yourself with each person you consider whether you want to be locked in a room with them if you have to make the most gut wrenching decision in your life, because that is exactly what will happen.
Q: In terms of getting started, how do you reduce the investors’ perception of risk?
A: Instead of phrasing it as reducing risk, I like to think of it as eliminating reasons for investors not to move forward with your deal. In particular, I think you should make as much progress on the non-capital intensive items as you can before you try to raise outside capital. Get all the little stuff out to the way and make the financing the only thing standing between you and moving forward. Build a non-production prototype. Know the competitive landscape like the back of your hand.
Another type of progress:if your business relies on a distribution channel, talk to people in that channel and get their feedback on your idea. Maybe even make a key person like an advisor. Talking with them isn’t capital intensive, so do it. Don’t be in an investor meeting pitching a business that relies on a distribution channel you haven’t spoken to. It gives the investor an easy out not to move forward: “Why don’t you go talk to them and come back…”
Do everything you can do before you meet the investor, so they only missing piece is the capital required to get your business to the next stage.
Q: Of your company that “failed fabulously,” did the team do a postmortem? If so, do you mind sharing what you believed were the reasons why the team did not hit their growth expectations
A: I learned an interesting lesson about partnering on this one. We started as a B2C model. The product sold for $19.95. Our customer acquisition cost ended up between $100-150. It was completely upside down. We involved many SEO, PR, SEM, and social media marketing experts, but couldn’t get the math to work. We then pivoted into a B2B model, in which we managed to do deals with over ten major media and e-commerce companies to distribute our product, thereby completely eliminating our customer acquisition costs.
It looked really good at that point. The problem is Fortune500 companies move really slow.
So, we spent another year or so waiting for the Fortune500 companies to integrate the product into their respective offerings. When they ultimately came back and said the offering didn’t work for them, I was like, wow, I just spent a year of my life waiting for that feedback. Owning your own customer base is much better than being dependent on someone else to get there.
Q: If you could’ve done things differently, what would they be?
A: I think raising much more money would’ve helped. We could’ve done a lot more awareness building for the product category which would have helped both the B2C and B2B models. The timing was really bad. I was actually able to close my financing for that company in December, 2008, right in middle of the financial crisis. I barely raised the money I did. Raising more wasn’t an option for that business at that point in time.
Q: What are the things that worked?
A: The product iteration process was quite good. We spoke to our trial users intensively, got their feedback, baked it into the product and iterated a lot at the beginning. We really built something that people enjoyed and saw value.
Q: What are you up to now?
A: I’m looking for a great team with a great idea, in which I can jump on board and add value. I’m also consulting for two start ups on their fundraising and go-to-market strategy.
Bootstrappers Breakfasts® group welcomes special guest – Deborah Shea who will share her “Billboards in the Desert” website tips.
The roundtable discussion will cover why you have a business website
Increase your prospects list
Convert more prospects into leads and customers
And brand your business to drive the goals created above as a total process
Date: July 26th, 2011
Time: 7:30 -9 am
Venue: Heavenly Cafe 3116 Oak Road Walnut Creek, CA
As Hellbent’s CEO and President, Deb Shea provides oversight to all campaign development and execution, exploring with her team the confluence of creative design, strategy, function, and technology. She founded Hellbent Marketing in 2003 after many years in art and creative director roles within design studios and Silicon Valley tech companies that served a global market. In these positions Deb led teams that spanned Europe, India and Asia, inspiring collaboration among multiple language and cultural groups and creating new graphical standards for online design. This deep experience in brand strategy and outbound marketing materials for sales, web, trade, video and print production is the foundation of Hellbent Marketing. After five years of steady growth, a stream of happy, repeat clients and more than 130 awards for excellence in marketing and creative design, Hellbent added extensive online and SEO expertise services in 2008.
She is the Immediate Past President of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) in Silicon Valley and on the Board of Directors for the Peninsula Symphony and the Redwood City Education Foundation. Chosen by the Silicon Valley Business Times as a “2010 100 Top Women of Influence,” Deb was also named a 2010 Top Woman Entrepreneur by Women Entrepreneur Magazine. In 2010, Hellbent Marketing received multiple American Graphic Design honors from the prestigious Graphic Design USA magazine and the 2009 Business of the Year Award from NAWBO-SV.
