Building Web Apps From A To Z

David Bisset's (@dimensionmedia)Rehash of Presentation By:Mike McDerment@MikeMcDermentFebruary 24th, 2009Future Of Web Apps WorkShop

What We Will Be Covering

From Scratch To Launch

Building

Marketing

Product Management

Some Metrics

Financing

General Questions

What We Won't Be Covering

Deep Metrics

Venture $$$

Deep Financing

How Brian Talked Me Into Doing This

v

Mike McDerment

An entrepreneur with two successful start-ups to his name.

Mike is a founder of the mesh conference, lecturer at Humber College and a frequent speaker at Internet conferences.

What Is A Web App?

Web Application accessed via web browser

Desktops & Mobiles

Usually give you the ability to create a personal account and personlize.

Examples:Gmail / Google Calendar

Pandora / Last.fm

Online Banking

Twitter / Facebook / 4square

GET IT YET? WELL?!?!?

Part One: Building

Getting a Launch Ready Product

Launch Ready Product

You get paid to be a crayon (being creative, creating sales; make more money for users) or aspirin (taking the pain out of a task or chore). Freshbooks is an example of aspirin. You need to figure out which of these you are it matters in marketing, etc. down the road.

FACT: You don't know what to launch with... get people using your service as fast as you can. Figure out where you are, building least number of features, and put the thing out there.

Launching and marketing are two different things. Get something up. Actually launch in the future.

Don't Build Billing Don't waste time on this. Get people to use the service first, deploy billing later.

Set a deadline for launch.

GET TO LAUNCH AS FAST AS YOU CAN.

Part One: Building

Building The Founding Team

Building A Founding Team

Two kinds of entrepreneurs: (1) Those who want control, (2) Those who want to build something big not own or control something. TRUST.

Equity = ownership = bigger pie. How much equity do you give your team?

Human qualities: PASSION. If there's no passion...

Trust, honesty, loyalty, openness otherwise it will suck the life of you

Not in it for the money.

It's a marriage. Do the 3am Test.

Founders should find people that compliment themselves. Find people that have skills that you don't have.

Key roles in a startup: Entrepreneur, Manager, Technician

Design, Development, Operations, Sales/Marketing

Part One: Building

Mo Money, Mo Problems

Greed Is Good-ish.

Lawyers (Try to find a cheap one this and docs will be single biggest expense)

Don't use shared hosting.

Don't need an office.

Advisors are nice, but probably not needed.

Business plan exercise going through it is good

Part Two: Marketing

Categories

Categories

What category are you in (AutoNation is in car, Facebook is in social networking)? What does your product or service do? These are very important because this is the place in your customer's mind in which you live.

Can you create a new category?

http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Mind-Anniversary/dp/0071359168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267024471&sr=8-1

Creating a new category is as easy sometimes as adding online. Before there was online banking, there was banking. Hotel reservations is now online hotel reservations today.

Part Two: Marketing

Choosing A Name

Choosing A Name

Easy to remember

Easy to spell without explanation

Get a name that describes the category

Get a name that describes the benefit

Get a name that describes the difference between you and everything else

Fun. Harsh. Consonants.

Get the .com... it's just another constraint

If you are serious, you might need to pay up Freshbooks costs $2k.

Part Two: Marketing

Knowing Your Story

Knowing Your Story

There is an art to telling stories. You can convey more information in a story than any other format.

Stories give your history and will be remembered.

Different versions for different people (short, long).

Develop an Elevator pitch quick way to tell what you do in less then 30 seconds.

Stories do evolve, so make sure you refine the story online and offline.

venturehacks.com

Part Two: Marketing

Building Your Website

Building Your Website

Three pages

Startup needs homepage, signup page, tour page.

Blog possible fourth, in that order.

Home page must explain: What it is? Who it's for? Why it matters?

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Action-Formulas-Improve-Results/dp/078521965X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267027862&sr=8-1

Part Two: Marketing

Spending Wisely

Spending Wisely

Out spend or out teach how are you going to market your product?

Invest your time to teach others, talk at conferences, write books, write blogs, etc.

First step go to a conference.

Banners in your community. Marketing to your fellow community makes sense. At least it gives you brand recognization.

Google PPC (Outsource If You Can)

Community Emails

PR = renting relationships. Not exactly great.

Blogging tell your story, why you are doing it, stories of customers, etc. You are more interesting than you think. Have each member of your team blog (Freshbooks does this).

Part Three: Product Management

Do Support

Do Support

Everyone does customer support

At Freshbooks, new employees ALWAYS start off in customer service no matter what their job (to know what matters/what's broken).

Post your phone number on your website do everything you can to communicate your customers

Use a forum

Hit Twitter, Facebook. Be Everywhere.

As your organization scales, create a system for most asked features.

Usability Tests just sit down next to someone, give them a direction, don't say anything and see what they do

Do Support

Telephone Interviews are a must. Prepare a survey, and when asking about benefits keep the question open ended. In your own words, what's the single biggest benefit of our service?

Decisions = dope. Decisions are part art, part science.

You are the editor / curator of the web app.

Can't please all the people all the time.

If you aren't sure if you need to add a feature, don't do it.

If you do support, you'll know what to add.

Wait, wait, wait. Don't jump into building a feature right away.

Remove the pain, stay true to the vision. (Does this feature fit with my plan and dream?)

Part Four: Metrics

Hope You Are Comfortable With Math

Hope You Are Comfortable W/ Math

Expenses:

Hosting ~10% revenue.

Acquisition: CPA < 10 * ARPU

Burn Rate: Monthly exp monthly rev = Burn

Run Rate: Monthly Revenue * 12 = Run rate

VC asks you burn rate

What % of emails are glowing, what % of people who would refer you to friends and family.

Job satisfaction

Days you did not want to work

Part Five: Funding

When To Raise Some Dead Presidents(Money)

When To Raise Money

Raising Money Is The Beginning Of A Buttload Of Work, Or The End.

Ask When you Don't Need It, Aren't Begging For It

When you know your users better than anybody

When you have a formula for the $$$

When you've got traction

Web apps are so cheap to build, there's no excuse to building one before asking for venture dollars.

When You Know Your Market Size

Part Five: Funding

Where To Find Money

Where To Find Money

Consulting Businesses

Personal Savings

Love Money (From Family/Friends who don't expect to get it back)

Angels and Advisors

Your Mortgage

The Bank?

Venture Capital / PE

Capital Markets (When Going Public)

Part Five: Funding

What To Look For In Investors

What To Look For In Investors

Shared Values

Conviction

Trust, honesty

Operational experience

Domain expertise

3am test

it's a marriage

Am I Still Alive?

David Bisset

Twitter: @dimensionmedia

www.davidbisset.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbisset

Frontend Development, Wordpress

Just Offer Free Pizza, And I'm There