So we’ve been at this thing for awhile and as we near opening it up we’ve been increasing the outside exposure and feedback. Here are the steps we’ve taken.
- Alpha: Very very small group of people. Focus: Basic concept and initial usability feedback.
- Closed Beta: Friends and family. Focus: Usability and design.
- Beta with Invitations: Extended friends and family. Focus: Design, fit and finish, performance.
Taking it slow helped us both manage the feedback changes and mentally prepare for increased feedback criticality (when you pour your heart and life into something for 8 months you become a little protective of it…)Â After quite a bit of great and useful feedback from our early users, we felt pretty good about talking to someone with absolutely no stake or relationship with us.
Lo and behold our friend CW was able to hook us up with a great opportunity to participate in a Sequoia Coaching Session through Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. We had the opportunity to meet with a Sequoia partner for 30 minutes to discuss the business and get advice. 30 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but we were pretty nervous seeing as this was our first meeting with someone with any standing in the industry. On the positive side, since we aren’t shopping for funding we kept telling ourselves to just keep that mentality: "nothing to lose, right?". The coaching session happened on a Friday in Palo Alto, CA so we arrived Thursday afternoon to prep.Â
Here are the things we prepped:
- 1-page Company Info Sheet (location: Sunnyvale Kinkos at midnight)
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Answers to Potential Questions (location: Cupertino library in afternoon)
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Basic Summary (location: In-n-out parking lot in Sunnyvale at Friday 1am)
- What’s our company’s goal in the marketplace?
- Who are our customers?
- What are their problems and how do we solve them?
Surprisingly, during the meeting both us didn’t seem as nervous as we though we would be. Good sign, I think. Maybe it’s because we had prepped almost every question possible…
Overall, the session went very well (in our opinion). He seemed positive on the idea and the 30 minutes flew by. We were able to give our spiel, answer and ask quite a few questions, and hear some good advice from the partner.Â
A sampling of the high level points:
- Get as close to the customer’s revenue as possible
- Focus on ease of use. He used YouTube as example. Their ease of upload and browsing helped accelerate adoption.
- Focus initial growth on a niche. Niches are easier to nurture and control.
Sure, it was a lot of work for 30 minutes, but it was totally worth it. Not only did it force us to make sure we had all these answers solid enough to give to someone else, but we also got some valuable outside feedback and more confidence to keep moving forward.
On that note, our goal is to open up the site within the next few days.  Stay tuned!Â
- Justin
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Yup, that was definitely a great, worthwhile experience. Even more memorable are some of the unmentioned highlights (lowlights?) of the session:
- the odd characters that gather around Kinko’s at midnight
- how we got lost on our way to session, parking at 3 different buildings before we found the right one.
- how the original partner we were to speak with was out on a “emergency boardroom call”
- how the perfect 5-minute pitch we perfected at 2am the previous night was cut off before we even started
- how the gorgeous company data sheet we prepared was left on the meeting room table, presumably for the next session’s perusal
- how we forgot a camera to take a customary “we conquered WSGR/Sequoia” photo by their buildings – who knows when we’ll be back?
Man, what fun times.
Congrats guys on being so close to launch! You guys have been through so much and I know this launch is going to be a great one!
[...] p.s. If you’re curious about the other thing that’s kept us busy lately, you can read about it on our business blog. [...]