hustle con: prototyping mattermark with danielle morrill, founder of mattermark
TRANSCRIPT
Prototyping Mattermark
Danielle Morrill CO-FOUNDER + CEO, MATTERMARK
How we landed our first customers
@DanielleMorrill #hustlecon
How I got to Mattermark
Dropped out of college Joined logistics shipping company
‘03-’04
Seattle 2.0 Contributor Created Seattle Startup Index
Moved to SF 1st employee at Twilio Head of Marketing
Shutdown Referly Not in love with affiliate marketing
2009 2009 2012
Quit Twilio Joined YC & started Referly
Feb. 2013
NOW WHAT!? “TechCrunch-killer”?
March 2013
@DanielleMorrill #hustlecon
“If you’re shutting down Referly why not start over with something completely different? If you want to kill TechCrunch, then do that.”
Paul Graham, Y Combinator
30 “tech media” posts in 30 days
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
WHY? • Validate that we could grow an
audience
90 POSTS LATER… • Hundreds of newsletter subscribers • 135,000+ monthly pageviews in 2
months
Detecting startup buzz wins
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
THE DATA-DRIVEN POSTS STOOD OUT • Startup Rankings Index • “Zombie VCs”
CREATED BUZZ IN STARTUP INDUSTRY
“Thanks Danielle! We should do this ourselves :-)” - Marc Andreessen
People wanted our data!
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
• Published our spreadsheet research • Readers accessed data behind form –
generated dozens of leads
@DanielleMorrill #hustlecon
Lightbulb moment!
Finding and analyzing data is hard. OUR PROBLEM
Let’s build an online database to make it easier!
SO…
Cursive v1
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
• We compiled all our spreadsheets into a database • Wired it up to a super-simple javascript table plugin
Productizing our data process
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
ANDY SPARKS (COO) • Manually collected raw
data • Identified pain-points in
process
KEVIN MORRILL (CTO) • Turned raw data into
online database • Automated Andy’s painful
process
June 1, 2013: The moment of clarity
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
Leena Rao’s post on TechCrunch described data-driven investing…
We coded furiously for 48 hours to productize what we built
48 hours later, Mattermark launched (free)
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
Investors wanted to access our data…
So we rebranded & launched Mattermark.com in June 2013
Free access = Valuable insight
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
Investment funds signed up and gave us game-changing feedback
Free access = Valuable insight
#hustlecon @DanielleMorrill
Led to $50,000 contract to build new functionality, proved valuable for future customers
ROY BAHAT
@DanielleMorrill #hustlecon
Off to the races signing up VCs!
Over the next 3 weeks, we talked to everyone on Sand Hill Road
Show VCs what we made and teach them how to use it THE GOAL
Hundreds of pages of notes with feedback RESULT
@DanielleMorrill #hustlecon
Armed with validation from customer development…
JULY 2013 Launched Mattermark Pro at $499/month