business model supersizing.
Just got home from a strange day of extremes, where we 4th meeting pitched some high quality VC's (rare bunch downunder) and explained the types of problems clients have that we can solve and componentize. Mr Burley afterwards rightly pointed out that we all talk too much, and one day we'll learn to listen to the question and be able to answer within 140 characters.
The afternoon then flipped around where we spent a few hours training a client's staff on how the (same tools we'd pitched in the morning) would work for the client esp at a site admin level.
In doing the pitching and demoing the consumer and site admin experience, it was kewl to take a macro look at what we'd built in the last 12 months and see the breadth of it, and how it could be scaled. When you've worked on a website build for over 12 months, there is such exhaustion and desire to get the end product out, cross browser css bugs fixed'n'all!
The effect of pitching in the morning high end publisher vertical structured user generated tools as a feeder to an overall localised social media intelligence service, with an afternoon meeting putting it all into practice totally merged my outtakes from the day and consolidated my business model aspirations. So quite timely quoting Fred's tumblr quoting Umair's bubblecon edge theory : "If there’s one single lesson you apply at the edge, let it be this: business models happen.."
So true; 2 years ago I thought consumer advertising on a blog search engine would be my longer term (YR 3-5) business model in conjunction with short term (YR 1-3) "enterprise RSS services" : But customers started asking for online communities and then for vertical sub-indexes of the Aussie blogosphere.
Similarly, 6 months ago I thought a breadth of localised Web 2.0 enterprise solutions would be the key. So we took on projects not to do with online community or blogosphere indexing. This wasn't the wrong thing for us to do (especially at the time) and we've learnt a huge amount from these projects, and also came in contact with a large diversity of people that are now instrumental to our business. Not to mention scaling the revenue of the business and getting overall scale in the business which is so important, rather than be another one of those anemic web2 businesses who complain about not getting funding or keep costs as low as revenue.
At various times we almost took real venture money, but luckily there wasn't a deal fit at the time, and saved ourselves from potentially investing in the wrong infrastructure, priorities and products. Which could have led us to lose investor money, who would have then sacked us or shutdown the business and return the priority capital from the fire sale to their coffers.
But now I know what the business model is, as every meeting thats been done, every project completed, and the pain of every dollar that has gone out, while watching quarterly revenue double each of the last 3 quarters : what has emerged is the underlying business model.
We know the customer pain points. We know what projects we dont want to do. We know what traps we want to avoid. And we know what platform and products we want to build. Now all that's needed is the gas to be able to push the pedal down and test these assumptions. But that's the next meeting, "after Easter."
With investment the starting point needs to be it wont happen, and it will take (pick a number, then add alots more) 28 times longer than estimated, and that you wil spend 28% of your time on fundraising meetings, discussions, preparations and replies. One benefit though of this is the continual explaining of your business model to potential investors (and the daily solving of customer problems : eg training them on the system / going to another meeting thats been called), makes you question and refine your own perception of the problem being solved, solution being provided and overall business model. You keep refining till you get it right. Maybe even one day I will sleep and be content.
For us, it has definitely become clear what our business model is. We believe that if we take investor money we would build products that we can sell alot of, and profitably. The pitch then becomes as simple as ordering a McDonalds value meal. So maybe we can get it down to 140 characters. Super Size Me already....
The afternoon then flipped around where we spent a few hours training a client's staff on how the (same tools we'd pitched in the morning) would work for the client esp at a site admin level.
In doing the pitching and demoing the consumer and site admin experience, it was kewl to take a macro look at what we'd built in the last 12 months and see the breadth of it, and how it could be scaled. When you've worked on a website build for over 12 months, there is such exhaustion and desire to get the end product out, cross browser css bugs fixed'n'all!
The effect of pitching in the morning high end publisher vertical structured user generated tools as a feeder to an overall localised social media intelligence service, with an afternoon meeting putting it all into practice totally merged my outtakes from the day and consolidated my business model aspirations. So quite timely quoting Fred's tumblr quoting Umair's bubblecon edge theory : "If there’s one single lesson you apply at the edge, let it be this: business models happen.."
So true; 2 years ago I thought consumer advertising on a blog search engine would be my longer term (YR 3-5) business model in conjunction with short term (YR 1-3) "enterprise RSS services" : But customers started asking for online communities and then for vertical sub-indexes of the Aussie blogosphere.
Similarly, 6 months ago I thought a breadth of localised Web 2.0 enterprise solutions would be the key. So we took on projects not to do with online community or blogosphere indexing. This wasn't the wrong thing for us to do (especially at the time) and we've learnt a huge amount from these projects, and also came in contact with a large diversity of people that are now instrumental to our business. Not to mention scaling the revenue of the business and getting overall scale in the business which is so important, rather than be another one of those anemic web2 businesses who complain about not getting funding or keep costs as low as revenue.
At various times we almost took real venture money, but luckily there wasn't a deal fit at the time, and saved ourselves from potentially investing in the wrong infrastructure, priorities and products. Which could have led us to lose investor money, who would have then sacked us or shutdown the business and return the priority capital from the fire sale to their coffers.
But now I know what the business model is, as every meeting thats been done, every project completed, and the pain of every dollar that has gone out, while watching quarterly revenue double each of the last 3 quarters : what has emerged is the underlying business model.
We know the customer pain points. We know what projects we dont want to do. We know what traps we want to avoid. And we know what platform and products we want to build. Now all that's needed is the gas to be able to push the pedal down and test these assumptions. But that's the next meeting, "after Easter."
With investment the starting point needs to be it wont happen, and it will take (pick a number, then add alots more) 28 times longer than estimated, and that you wil spend 28% of your time on fundraising meetings, discussions, preparations and replies. One benefit though of this is the continual explaining of your business model to potential investors (and the daily solving of customer problems : eg training them on the system / going to another meeting thats been called), makes you question and refine your own perception of the problem being solved, solution being provided and overall business model. You keep refining till you get it right. Maybe even one day I will sleep and be content.
For us, it has definitely become clear what our business model is. We believe that if we take investor money we would build products that we can sell alot of, and profitably. The pitch then becomes as simple as ordering a McDonalds value meal. So maybe we can get it down to 140 characters. Super Size Me already....
posted by redbarren at 6:04 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Ben,
How did the Dees do on the weekend? Did they play?
haha
GO HAWKS!
Molly
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