1. We’re not
“doing a startup”
How to cut through the hype and build your side
project into a profitable business.
Rachel Andrew, WDC 2014
Friday, 10 October 14
3. G.K. Chesterton
“I owe my success to having listened
respectfully to the very best advice,
and then going away and doing the
exact opposite.”
Friday, 10 October 14
4. This is a marathon, not a 5K.
Friday, 10 October 14
8. Walt Disney
“The way to get started is to quit
talking and start doing.”
Friday, 10 October 14
9. • for your own community
• that you can ship quickly
• that solves a problem people will pay to have
solved
• that does not need a lot of traction to be useful
• that has existing competition
A product ...
Friday, 10 October 14
10. A product for your own community
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drewm
Friday, 10 October 14
11. Amy Hoy
“Are you a Ruby developer? Then
serve Ruby developers. Are you a UX
designer? Serve UX designers.”
Friday, 10 October 14
12. The worst that could have happened
with Perch? No-one would want it
but we’d have a useful tool for our
business.
Friday, 10 October 14
13. With a track record in a community
you will already have trust.
Friday, 10 October 14
14. A product you can ship quickly
http://freekvanarkel.nl
Friday, 10 October 14
15. John Radoff
“The goal of a startup is to find the
sweet-spot where minimum product
and viable product meet – get people
to fall in love with you.”
Friday, 10 October 14
16. To launch with a small product, you
need to find a problem that can be
solved with a small product.
Friday, 10 October 14
17. Perch v.1
• A simple content editor
• No way to add new pages
• No API
• Images could be uploaded - but not resized
Friday, 10 October 14
18. The Problem
Client requests that an already
developed static site be made
editable via a CMS.
Friday, 10 October 14
19. The Solution
A simple CMS that turned static
pages into editable pages by way of
dropping in a couple of PHP tags.
Friday, 10 October 14
20. A product that solves a problem that
people will pay to have solved
https://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/
Friday, 10 October 14
21. If you can save a business time they
will see the value in paying for your
product.
Friday, 10 October 14
22. Bootstrapped With Kids, Episode 31
“We think their workflow sucks, but
they like it…”
Friday, 10 October 14
23. Our target market for Perch was
designers and agencies. We aimed to
save them time on smaller projects.
Friday, 10 October 14
24. Feedback from paying customers
trumps feedback from free users.
Every time.
Friday, 10 October 14
25. A product that does not need a lot of
users to be useful
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22746515@N02/
Friday, 10 October 14
30. What problem is your competition
NOT solving? Build it.
Friday, 10 October 14
31. New concepts will require you to
educate potential customers as to
why they even need your product.
Friday, 10 October 14
32. Finding the
time
How to make time for
side-projects.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip/6111406
Friday, 10 October 14
33. Malcolm S. Forbes
“One worthwhile task carried to a
successful conclusion is worth half-a-
hundred half-finished tasks.”
Friday, 10 October 14
34. Sir John Lubbock
“In truth, people can generally make
time for what they choose to do; it is
not really the time but the will that is
lacking.”
Friday, 10 October 14
35. Get set up to be able to pick up and
work on your side-project quickly -
whenever the time is available.
Friday, 10 October 14
36. Your product must be a first-class
citizen alongside your other work.
Friday, 10 October 14
37. Set aside time and plan in advance
what you will do with it
Friday, 10 October 14
42. Be realistic about how much you can
achieve. Feeling as if you are falling
behind can demotivate you.
Friday, 10 October 14
43. If there is not enough time ...
• Either revise your end date
• Or, remove elements of the project - pushing
them into a post-launch phase.
Friday, 10 October 14
44. Be ruthless in cutting features that
can be added post-launch
Friday, 10 October 14
45. The “missing” features at launch will
seem far more important to you than
to your customers.
Friday, 10 October 14
47. • Start Small
• Get feedback from paying customers
• Improve and add to your product based on
their needs balanced by your vision.
Friday, 10 October 14
50. Launch and
beyond
Managing a growing side-
project alongside an
existing job or business.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall
Friday, 10 October 14
51. Winston Churchill
“Now this is not the end. It is not even
the beginning of the end. But it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Friday, 10 October 14
52. • We launched Perch at the end of May 2009
• At launch we were still 100% booked out on
client projects
• Income from Perch was initially reinvested into
Perch
• January 2013 we made the decision to stop
taking on new client work
Our timeline
Friday, 10 October 14
53. A successful side-project should be
given more time as it represents a
higher % of your income.
Friday, 10 October 14
54. Not making a profit?
• Are you pricing too cheaply?
• Are you reliant on expensive services?
• Are you attracting customers who need a lot of
support?
Friday, 10 October 14
55. The slower growth curve of
bootstrapped products gives you
time to fix problems before they
become BIG problems.
Friday, 10 October 14
56. Never promise a specific timeframe
to customers
Friday, 10 October 14
57. When your product is a side-project
you have even more things that could
cause you to push back a feature.
Friday, 10 October 14
58. We don’t publish a roadmap
• It allows us to be flexible and react to customer
needs and changing trends in web design.
• It means that customers are not relying on the
launch of feature X in order to complete a
project.
• It means that we can hold back a feature until
we are absolutely sure it won’t cause anyone a
problem.
Friday, 10 October 14
59. Use Cases not Feature Requests
Friday, 10 October 14
60. Find general solutions that will
benefit many customers rather than
adding very specific features
Friday, 10 October 14
61. Understanding the problem means
we can help the customer now and
optimize the solution later.
Friday, 10 October 14
62. Delight customers by solving their
problems and letting them know
when you have done so
Friday, 10 October 14
66. Small releases
• Fewer changes = fewer things to go wrong
• Easier to isolate the issue if a problem does
occur
• Get features to customers more quickly
• For our customers, less of a dramatic change
that they need to communicate to their clients
Friday, 10 October 14
67. Don’t be led by a noisy minority
Friday, 10 October 14
68. Seek out the opinion of those
customers you never hear from. The
happy majority are often silent.
Friday, 10 October 14
69. Marketing
How to tell people about
your product, when you
have no money to burn.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brent_nashville/5284764031/
Friday, 10 October 14
70. Seth Godin
“Marketing is no longer about the
stuff that you make, but about the
stories you tell.”
Friday, 10 October 14
71. You have made something that
genuinely solves a problem. Go tell
people about it!
Friday, 10 October 14
72. Pre-launch of Perch
• A month before we put up a landing page and
email signup form
• About 500 people signed up
• We emailed the list on launch and those people
represented enough sales on launch day to pay
back all pre-launch costs.
Friday, 10 October 14
73. Your reach will give you your initial
customers. Then what?
Friday, 10 October 14