From total failure to millions of dollars

.

Introduction

It's not about the story of Elon Musk, who put all his money on the Tesla, and I'm not going to talk about Mr. Jobs taking over Apple's rescue company at the last minute. The story I'm going to say is nothing special, and it won't make history like the previous two, but it's a much more realistic opportunity for entrepreneurs like you and me. This is my story, it completely changed my life. I really want you to feel the same, and hopefully it will help you make the hard choices.

Source

The story goes back to 2009, when I was 24 years old, my own GSoft software consulting firm has achieved little. I have 25 employees and we develop software for various organizations in Quebec. Business is good and fun, but we need to change it to the next level. At that time, Microsoft SharePoint was very popular and we saw a chance to develop a simple tool around him. Sharegate was born at that time, we set foot on the journey of becoming a product company.

Disaster formula

No product concept

To be honest, I know nothing about the product company, which plays a key role in our failure. How to develop a good product that everyone is willing to buy and use? Good ideas are easy to find, but they are much more complicated to implement. This requires proper ideas and knowledge of product development, and these are not immediate events. There are a lot of things you need to do to successfully sell a product.

No clear vision

We set up a team of programmers (including myself), telling them to develop a new product that must be ready in a few months ' period before a big meeting arrives. What is the product vision? What is the purpose of the product? Why are we doing this? Who is the service object? How to compete with others? All of these questions we have not thought about, because we are too focused on market opportunities. Yes, a lot of people are trapped in this trap. We found a flaw and then repaired it too quickly without putting the foundation in place. We made that mistake, too.

Not a knowledgeable

Worst of all, we don't know anything about SharePoint (ie we don't know anything about the industry). We are simply programmers who tap code to develop products for something we know nothing about. No one in the team has a business knowledge of what we do. It sounds absurd, but we are. We're a bunch of pushy, hairy little guys who want to do something. We only know that some things have to be done.

Poor software architecture

Not only do we know nothing about the industry, but we also develop the worst software architecture because of this ignorance. Our ignorance has made us make bad design decisions, which ultimately result in software that cannot be maintained. The main consequence is that the cost of adding new features is too high, which is bad for startups like us.

Technical Force Tour

It must be acknowledged that we are more passionate about writing complex code than solving real business problems. This is almost inevitable if the team is formed with only young programmers. We are so busy that we are busy developing the most epic software architecture so that we forget the problems that need to be solved. The user experience is clearly not a priority, and we even let programmers design screens to their liking. So, because most programmers hate design screens, the user interface sucks and is extremely difficult to use. Shame on you!

No marketing

What about the marketing team? What marketing team, it's just a bunch of programmers who want to do marketing. A lot of people will be wishful thinking. They think that because they have good software, the software can sell themselves, and then everyone will be queuing to buy it on the day of release. Bad marketing makes a lot of good products buried, and good marketing can bring many bad products to revive. The importance of marketing is completely underestimated by us. Our website is very bad. No CMS (Content management System). No seo (SEO). There is no value positioning. No landing page. There's nothing! No way, knock code too busy!

Wishful thinking that the next function is the Savior

Even if our marketing strategy is bad (we can say no), there are still a lot of people who find us online and try out the product. We received feedback and thought that if anyone asked anything, it would mean that everyone was thinking the same thing. The good news is that we've achieved a lot of the required functionality and we hope to suddenly bring in a new group of customers. The next big feature is not going to make your business any better right now, and it's easy to fall into the trap of throwing money into a new feature that nobody uses. The development of the enterprise should be gradual, if no one uses your product, your problem is obviously bigger than the lack of function.

Too many functions, no value

I should have learned to say no to most of the feedback, because we end up with too many products that are not valuable to our customers. Too many options, too many buttons, too many useless reports, everything is too much, but the basic function we are looking for is too imperfect. Remember, the most functional software will never win the game.

Don't trust your product

There was a time when we needed to use our products for a project of our consulting firm, but we never let the product run away from our environment because we lacked enough trust in it. It's too bad. The product doesn't work in real life, and by that time we realized we had to do something.

Two, desperate

2 years in the past, we spent almost 1 million dollars, about 100 efforts, and ended up with only 4 clients (of whom 2 were the old clients of consulting firms, only for good intentions). Product is very unstable, a lot of loopholes, is a complete failure, we do not have much money left.

Thinking time

So I decided to go to Argentina to be quiet. This is what I call thinking Time (TTT). I need time to pull back and walk away from the troubles at home. Sometimes too much commitment to success is too urgent to ignore the brutal reality, but we all know that this is not going to work. At that time, you have to jump out. Great entrepreneurs are good at solving problems, and many solutions require a retreat.

So when I came back, I had 3 choices:

1 continue to try to hope miracles happen
2 Kill the product and return to a much more successful consultancy.
3 Kill the product and start again.

I decided to kill the product and start again.

Everyone was sad, but we all knew it was necessary. A miracle cannot happen without a change. Yes, we've learned a lot, but the market is still waiting for a player like us, and that's why we decided to try again. I have confidence, but also very nervous. I persuaded the partners to reinvest in a product that showed no sign of success. Sometimes, you don't want to regret your future, so we have to try again.

Table determination

I have clearly expressed my confidence in what I have done and even named the project "Rebirth" so that everyone will understand their special mission: to regenerate our children.

Fully Transparent Vision

This time we have a clear vision. We want to develop a simple to the extreme tools to simplify the use of SharePoint. Simplicity is everything, and the following picture keeps reminding us of our vision:

Master Your Business

This time we have also absorbed industry experts into product design and roadmap planning. With a deep knowledge of the industry to join the people, the situation becomes very different. We finally know what we are doing.

In the first week, I took the whole team to a small house on the hill. The next few months will be stressful and intense work, so we need to relax.

In just a few days, we've compiled code that usually takes 1 months to complete. This week's team building was fantastic, and then we managed to maintain the momentum that was so desperately needed.

Mission Critical

The challenge is clear. The new software needs to be delivered within 3 months. So we decided to focus on very basic features rather than releasing a bunch of features. I almost felt like I couldn't get a client, but I had to avoid the trap. As long as you develop the right function, there will always be someone to buy the product. This idea helps us keep our products simple.

I have also set two important principles: strictly prohibit copying from the previous version of the paste, no software developers to design the screen. That sounds nothing, but it's a matter of survival and death for our efforts to do the simplest tools in the industry.

To bring the MVP to market in less than 3 months.

This transformation (pivot) allows me to get out of the code and focus on product management and marketing. I have the right developer to develop anything I need, but I need to step into the marketing staff and leaders. I set up a very good marketing team, large-scale marketing efforts into every vertical market, and finally gained some visibility. It's important to keep this in mind: even if you have the best product, you will never succeed without the right marketing. My point is that the code for each input of 1 dollars will be in marketing to invest 20 dollars. Frankly, we don't have that much money, but you know what I mean, and we didn't take that into account in our last version.

Substituting hacking mentality

You need to have a developing mindset about product success. You have to suffer for the product to be known. A penny to the harvest. Writing code is only halfway through the road, and the remaining half of the road will be very painful, a moment will make you very frustrated, believe me.

Right now

Now I can proudly tell you that we have 25 full-time employees in this product. Product income has reached millions of dollars. We are profitable and self-sufficient. We have the best products in the industry and are known for their simplicity. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide are using our products. We are still developing at a very, very fast pace.

The decision is difficult, but it turns out to be worth it, don't you think?