Your Own Definition of Success

A talk for Milton Keynes Geek Night.

My book The Profitable Side Project Handbook expands on many of the themes in this presentation.

Transcript

1. Your own definition of success Choosing a profitable side project idea Rachel Andrew, MKGN #10 Thursday, 18 September 14
2. I’m Rachel Andrew • Web developer: Perl → Classic ASP →Java → PHP • Writer of books, articles and angry blog posts • Likes cats, running, obscure CSS, Linux, cheese • Founder of edgeofmyseat.com in 2001 • Talk to me on Twitter @rachelandrew • Read my stuff at http://rachelandrew.co.uk Thursday, 18 September 14
3. grabaperch.com Thursday, 18 September 14
4. The Bootstrapped Startup Thursday, 18 September 14
5. Bootstrapped businesses have to make money to support the ongoing development of the business. Thursday, 18 September 14
6. Being Bootstrapped means ... • No investors • In it for the long-term • No exit plan • Making a thing and charging money for it • Decisions made between the business owners and the customers Thursday, 18 September 14
7. This is just business. Thursday, 18 September 14
8. discuss.bootstrapped.fm Thursday, 18 September 14
9. bootstrappers.io Thursday, 18 September 14
10. buybootstrapped.org Thursday, 18 September 14
11. 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.” Thursday, 18 September 14
12. Funded Startups • Need a “big idea” • Focus on high growth • Need to get “traction” quickly • Have an eye on the exit - if the founders don’t, the investors will • Success is another funding round or a profitable exit in all but a very few cases. Thursday, 18 September 14
13. What would success look like for your product? Thursday, 18 September 14
14. Success? • Your side project funds itself - isn’t a drain on the rest of your life/business finances • Your side project makes enough to be able to have one day a week dedicated to it • Your side project drives customers to your main business Thursday, 18 September 14
15. Niche business ideas - of no interest to funded business. Perfect for the bootstrapper. Thursday, 18 September 14
16. A product for your own community. Thursday, 18 September 14
17. Solve your problems or the problems of the groups that you are part of. Thursday, 18 September 14
18. Amy Hoy “Are you a Ruby developer? Then serve Ruby developers. Are you a UX designer? Serve UX designers.” Thursday, 18 September 14
19. We were web developers working for design agencies. We launched a product for web design agencies. Thursday, 18 September 14
20. Looking to your own community means less time spent on market research and “validation”. Thursday, 18 September 14
21. With a track record in a community you will already have trust. Thursday, 18 September 14
22. A Product you can ship quickly Thursday, 18 September 14
23. 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.” Thursday, 18 September 14
24. To launch with a small product, you need to find a problem that can be solved with a small product. Thursday, 18 September 14
25. Jason Fried, 37signals “The longer it takes to develop, the less likely it is to launch.” Thursday, 18 September 14
26. Perch v.1 • A simple content editor • No way to add new pages • No API • Images could be uploaded - but not resized Thursday, 18 September 14
27. Launch small. Solve a problem. Sell what the product does now. Thursday, 18 September 14
28. A Product that solves a problem people will pay to have solved. Thursday, 18 September 14
29. Who will pay for this? Why will they pay for this? Thursday, 18 September 14
30. If you can save a business time they will see the value in paying for your product. Thursday, 18 September 14
31. Bootstrapped With Kids, Episode 31 “We think their workflow sucks, but they like it…” Thursday, 18 September 14
32. Our target market for Perch was designers and agencies. We aimed to save them time on smaller projects. Thursday, 18 September 14
33. Feedback from paying customers trumps feedback from free users. Every time. Thursday, 18 September 14
34. A Product that does not need a lot of users to become useful. Thursday, 18 September 14
35. “Social” or “community” products need a large user base to succeed. Thursday, 18 September 14
36. Choose a product that is as useful to customer #1 as customer #1000 Thursday, 18 September 14
37. Perch ... • Scratched our own itch • Self-hosted and useful to each individual customer • Requires very little infrastructure • Would have been useful to our business even if no-one else had bought it Thursday, 18 September 14
38. A Product with competition. Thursday, 18 September 14
39. Perch competitors at launch • WordPress • ExpressionEngine • CushyCMS • PageLime • Joomla • Drupal Thursday, 18 September 14
40. What problem is your competition NOT solving? Build the solution. Thursday, 18 September 14
41. Revenue that would be small change to a 60 person business could be life- changing to a solo founder. Thursday, 18 September 14
42. Joel Spolsky “Listen to your customers not your competitors.” Thursday, 18 September 14
43. Regis McKenna "The more alike two products are, the more important their differences become." Thursday, 18 September 14
44. Concentrating on the needs of your ideal customer gives you focus. Thursday, 18 September 14
45. Focus on how your product can help your customers solve problems. Thursday, 18 September 14
46. Go build things. Thursday, 18 September 14
47. Thank you Rachel Andrew @rachelandrew http://rachelandrew.co.uk Photo credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/drewm http://freekvanarkel.nl https://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/22746515@N02/ Thursday, 18 September 14