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Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level? (part 2)
Follow up on a previous post - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14450432
Made every mistake that many YC videos tried to get me to avoid.
19 months to launch and then 100 days to sign 12 contracts, total worth between $50K to $100K annually! I think we have reached the “next level” that I had asked about i.e. take a pain point and turn it into a web product that brands actually pay us for. We have built a web product that brands can use to reach customers and do business with them via WhatsApp. Brands use us to provide loans, sell premium holidays and even help make babies via In vitro Fertilization - all without their customer leaving WhatsApp
Now the Ask HN part. The next level from here is to build a $100K a month business. We’re close to signing deals with massive CpaaS providers who have approached us to sort of “white label” our product and help them serve their clients. That would give us a steady pipeline of business fed from the nearly 1200 brands that these providers already work with. This appears to be so much quicker and efficient to $100K a month, than spending months converting individual brands. But, this would require us to take a different path – not a web product but build a more flexible API product. Think Twilio Flex or Moltin.
Any you fine folks here navigated this path? Decided between a Shopify vs. Moltin? Serve brands directly vs. go indirectly via providers who serve em brands? Would love to hear your comments. One specific question that's in our minds is, what if these providers are just using us an MVP and once the business is validated with their clients, wouldn’t they just kick us to the curb and build their own product?
Any you fine folks here, interested in joining us as a cofounder, we would love to hear from you. We promise you lots of paper money, loads of startup heartburn, sleepless nights and faster aging on the (long) way to product-market fit. (clue: we think like Vinod Khosla about equity ).
- Jugurtha 7y agoI think sharing a bit of the technical side would help attract the people you're looking for. For example, sharing your technology stack would attract the people familiar with that stack. Also, if you share a block diagram of your process, even without going too much into details in case you're worried to be copied at this stage or something. Something like a box receiving a message, and another box processing the message and sending it to a "partner", that gives an idea on how this machine works might help. Heck it can help people think more abstractly and propose ideas to generalize that solution to address a different vertical than the one you're addressing right now. Maybe build an API so that other companies might use your service and you could add to your references on your website. By the way, this could increase your revenue, avoid the "white-label" situation, increase your credibility and attract technical talent. In other words, treating this request as a product/sale and removing friction to attract people's minds to the idea/concept would be beneficial.
- arjunvpaul 7y agoThanks for the comments. > I think sharing a bit of the technical side would help attract the people you're looking for. For example, sharing your technology stack would attract the people familiar with that stack. Mostly React and NodeJS. - Web app is MySQL, React, Redux and NodeJS - Multiple micro services (REST) built on NodeJS and Spring Boot - Other tech: RabbitMQ, WebSockets > Also, if you share a block diagram of your process, even without going too much into details in case you're worried to be copied at this stage or something. Something like a box receiving a message, and another box processing the message and sending it to a "partner", that gives an idea on how this machine works might help. Heck it can help people think more abstractly and propose ideas to generalize that solution to address a different vertical than the one you're addressing right now. Not at all worried about getting copied (lesson learned from YC Videos). A video is show here - https://www.zoko.io/zoko-sales https://www.zoko.io/zoko-sales . Question is what's the right business strategy/tactic to get to $100K a month? Continue to sell the product shown in the video or make an API that will enable partners to make the product show in the video.
- Jugurtha 7y agoI like the site's simplicity. > Continue to sell the product shown in the video or make an API that will enable partners to make the product show in the video. You already have and API. The site proposes two products: "Zoko Notify API" (with a Swagger UI) and "Zoko Chat Sales", in that order. I can't see the pricing... Also, Zoko is not using Zoko. Contacting you requires sending a form, instead of being able to chat with you. Why are you not using it? Is putting the location, physical address, and marker on the map absolutely necessary on your contact page? Also: > Chatting with customers leads to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate. Where is that from? I found a Medium post with dubious "stats". Maybe include testimonials in text and video?
- arjunvpaul 7y agoThank you for the pointers. Good point about "Zoko not using Zoko" :-) Will change that before teh end of the month. >Where is that from? I found a Medium post with dubious "stats". Maybe include testimonials in text and video? The stat is from a widely quoted Forrester study. Interestingly the website was built in a day using a free service called WIX. We dont have much difficulty convincing clients. Our paying clients may have actually seen our website in passing. Most of the selling is by getting clients via facebok and linkedin ads and demos scheduled via Skype/hangouts/anydesk/zoom etc. Probably had 4 people reach out to us by the website in 4 months. its been kind of ignored till now.