Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Mistakes*
Search
Ian Landsman
April 26, 2014
Business
2
750
Mistakes*
A look back at some of UserScape's more noteworthy mistakes and some lessons learned.
Ian Landsman
April 26, 2014
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Ian Landsman
See All by Ian Landsman
Open Source & Your Business
ianlandsman
4
1.1k
How to Slay the Customer Support Beast
ianlandsman
3
2k
Other Decks in Business
See All in Business
LaiBlitz/corporateinformation
laiblitz
0
25k
ソニックガーデン経営組織論(2025/10版)
kuranuki
0
210
REGALI Company Deck(JP)
regali_official
1
140
【会社紹介資料】25年7月度
creativeinfinity
0
510
Infcurion Company Deck
infcurion
2
33k
なぞる事例コンテンツ制作サービス_NAZORU_CASE
nazoru
PRO
0
270
フルカイテン株式会社 採用資料
fullkaiten
0
75k
No.1ビジネスを創り出す カテゴリー戦略の実践ガイド
shunsukemori
0
160
Sales Marker Culture Book(English)
salesmarker
PRO
2
6.6k
opt recruit
digitalholdings
0
51k
朝日新聞社 ITエンジニア キャリア採用 紹介資料
asahi_cto
0
650
straya/company deck
takuyaaaaa325
0
110
Featured
See All Featured
Rebuilding a faster, lazier Slack
samanthasiow
84
9.2k
Visualization
eitanlees
148
16k
Raft: Consensus for Rubyists
vanstee
139
7.1k
Responsive Adventures: Dirty Tricks From The Dark Corners of Front-End
smashingmag
252
21k
A Modern Web Designer's Workflow
chriscoyier
697
190k
Into the Great Unknown - MozCon
thekraken
40
2.1k
The Cult of Friendly URLs
andyhume
79
6.6k
A Tale of Four Properties
chriscoyier
160
23k
Designing for Performance
lara
610
69k
How STYLIGHT went responsive
nonsquared
100
5.8k
Building a Scalable Design System with Sketch
lauravandoore
462
33k
CoffeeScript is Beautiful & I Never Want to Write Plain JavaScript Again
sstephenson
162
15k
Transcript
Mistakes* * and silver linings
ian landsman
http://bootstrapped.fm http://discuss.bootstrapped.fm
UserScape
Support Tools
None
• product mistakes • business mistakes • Personal issues
* Never do two different talks eight days apart
Product mistakes
* ᓣܴ Α͏ͦ͜ ยินดีต้อนรับ
support utf8!
$x00,000 lost ☹
$x0,000 to fix ☹
Market Focus ☺
code within our means ☺
* Saas vs On-premise
None
userscape zendesk Profits to date: low millions losses to date:
-$64,000,000
never be a billion dollar business ☹
less consistent revenues ☹
☹
Profitability! ☺
code within our means ☺
lets us be niche ☺
Should you Saas?
Business mistakes
* I ❤️ Profits
None
Revenue 2005 2006 2007 2008 $488K $264K $123K $15K
* 2008 - 2012 The lost years
don’t miss the big transition
you’ll work too hard ☹
growth will slow ☹
product stagnation ☹
happy it didn’t sink the ship ☺
* we didn’t hire early enough
Full time vs freelancers
you’ll work too hard ☹
growth will slow ☹
* I forgot to raise prices
$x00,000 lost ☹
You’re not charging enough @patio11
* the right order matters
None
None
lost time ☹
$x0,000 lost ☹
perseverance ☺
* risk aversion
“You can't lose what you don't put in the middle.
! But you can't win much either.”
None
None
None
none of these are “profitable” ☹
Snappy • reclaim small teams • diversification • Saas experience
☺
☺ Laravel • give back to open source • hiring
advantage • fun!
☺ podcast • forces reflection • personal branding • fun
+ Guerrilla marketing
make yourself uncomfortable
* we forgot to do marketing
product + support
? ☹
! ? ☺
None
Personal issues
* doubt in myself
None
None
None
perseverance
engage your community ☺
* the horrors of Working on the internet
sitting all day ☹
alone ☹
your poor eyes ☹
I’m home so I see my family more ☹
* overworking
None
physical problems ☹
family problems ☹
• make time for exercise • limit weekend work •
summer hours ☺
* working in product
the customers never stop ☹
saas is even worse! ☹
stress ☹
make sure product is for you
None
None
None
Thanks!
Ian Landsman ianlandsman.com/talks @ianlandsman