My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
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My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
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Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#2> This brings up a very unusual business model for aspiring entrepreneurs. Work in a domain that is technologically challenged until you understand it profoundly. Then start a business that advances that domain by empowering its actors.
I wonder... is collaborating with someone who 'profoundly' understands the domain a way to short-circuit this process?
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#3> This brings up a very unusual business model for aspiring entrepreneurs. Work in a domain that is technologically challenged until you understand it profoundly. Then start a business that advances that domain by empowering its actors. I wonder... is collaborating with someone who 'profoundly' understands the domain a way to short-circuit this process?
Why not? Nobody knows everything, and if this collaborator is a part of your founding team, that's a recipe for success.
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#4at what point will you be able to focus solely on the software, assuming that's what you want to do?
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#5> This brings up a very unusual business model for aspiring entrepreneurs. Work in a domain that is technologically challenged until you understand it profoundly. Then start a business that advances that domain by empowering its actors. I wonder... is collaborating with someone who 'profoundly' understands the domain a way to short-circuit this process?
It's definitely how most people do things today. The way I did it, like everything else, has its pros and cons.
Some of the pros:
1. My buddies in the dealership domain are my customers. They call me up and ask me for a feature directly.
From my experience, this yields better quality features than talking to the domain expert that's probably trying to translate his conversation with the customer.
2. There's the advantage of you being in a domain where most people are your friends then your potential users. A lot of psychological walls are broken this way (what is he trying to sell me?). We trust each other by our reputation in the industry and this tends to extend to they quality of software they expect from us. Them knowing that we're developing it ourselves helps a lot.
Imagine cold walking into a business like a salesman would and offering your product. Now imagine walking into the business where you know the owner very well and you intend of having coffee with him first, then telling him about how you might be able to help him out. Big difference.
There are more, but these come to mind now.
So it's not only quality of software, but also how much easier it is to get your first paid user base that will enable you to create a good product that would hopefully scale beyond your paid-users-as-friends.
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#6There was a great story about a guy that did a similar thing for the fast food industry. Anyone got the link?
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#7at what point will you be able to focus solely on the software, assuming that's what you want to do?
In the last few months, my focus has been 90% on the software.
What I did with the dealership is Im more or less, followed the advice in E-Myth (http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-Abou...) and created position contracts for all our employees (7 of them now.) This has cut my involvement in the dealership tremendously. Now, I only put out fires, make sure management is going smoothly and handle some of the accounting.
At the head of the dealership is my brother, whom I trust. He makes sure that all manuals are updated and are followed. I make sure his position contract is followed.
This way of doing things will be much harder if you don't have a partner that you can trust to handle his part. Specially when things start growing.
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#8Did these other sites permit you to post listings directly to their site using an API? How about extending this idea to motorcycles? You could add cycletrader or other motorcycle specific sites.
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#9Did these other sites permit you to post listings directly to their site using an API? How about extending this idea to motorcycles? You could add cycletrader or other motorcycle specific sites.
The sites that don't have an API, we simply provide an iframe and provide the user the tools to easily cut & paste into the iframe (Worst part in the app). 90% do have APIs though, which we use extensively.
Right now, my niche is only dealers with 200 cars or less. It's what I know. Later, when I feel like we've dominated this niche, we'll expand into other areas for sure.
Thanks for the ideas.
Re: My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone.
#10Good article and being domain-specific has allowed you to really focus. It looks from your FAQ that you're still in 'beta' (although that word is not used) from your pricing policy. Are you experimenting with different pricing here or are you just being secretive? Curious as pricing has always been something that I've struggled with setting with our products, so wondering how you're doing it