twago @ maastricht week of entrepreneurship
DESCRIPTION
This presentation is about the lessons learned of twago within the first couple of months after launch. Typical things which many startups face in this or the other way. twago founder and CEO gave a insight into his learnings and views.TRANSCRIPT
07. Juli 2009 © 2009 twago 0 www.twago.de
twago – Teamwork Across Global Offices
Workshop: Things we learned @twago Gunnar Berning, Founder and CEO of twago.com
Maastricht, May 25th, 2012
© 2012 twago 1 twago.com
All Startups have the same goal in mind
Make the most out of your
existing budget
© 2012 twago 2 twago.com
How we started...
• Understand your customers: Master thesis
• Be fast with a good version
• Learn from your customer as early as possible: Observe and ask
• Trial and error
• Start with SEO yesterday
• Create reference cases (e.g. big brands)
• Communication / PR: Easy wins with data mining, adapting to news
• Build your network immediately
• Focus:
• Become #1 in a niche, then expand
• Remember your key levers: optimizing your SEM-CTR from 0.75% to 1,5% lower your customer acquisition cost by 50%
© 2012 twago 3 twago.com
Building the product – We eat our own food
Product specification:
Spec. Homepage-Design:
Coding:
Translations:
Branding/Name:
Design of Webseite:
Design of Company Logo:
(Internally)
Germany
Russia
Switzerland
USA
Canada
Philipines
twago made use of outsourcing and offshoring:
twago successfully showed the „proof of concept“ – Huge chance for all startups
Which experts to choose depends on
your requirements
expertise
Savings roughly 60%
© 2012 twago 4 twago.com
The top 9 rules for Offshoring success
Be honest: Are you an Offshoring-Person?
Choose experts wisely
Basic understanding of different cultures
Increase communication: +50%
Make use of time zones
Use simple project management tools
Neutral code checks to get best quality
Secrets to stay secret: Use NDAs
Don‘t expect wonders 9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
© 2012 twago 5 twago.com
Raising Capital – Welcome to lemming country
• The right target group – VCs, Angels, Family offices, Strategic investors
• How much? Not 1.0 Mio.!
• If you have one, you have many
• Expect stupid VCs
• Contact them en-block – everybody at the same time, not sequentially
• Don‘t use „[email protected]“
• The market is setting your price, not the VC valuation method
• Create and show your BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement)
• You can be peer to everybody
• Everything takes longer, expect 6-9 months
• Don’t over optimize the percentages
• It’s over when it’s over
© 2012 twago 6 twago.com
This is an interesting question...
Revenues
No revenues
or
© 2012 twago 7 twago.com
Teambuilding Hire only team members which make you better, not bigger
• Hire only team members which make you better rather than bigger
• Use the methods of headhunters: LinkedIN and Xing
• Create entrepreneurs – make them responsible
• Enable them to take decisions!
• Keep your risk under control: Use interns and trainees
• Min. duration = 6 months
• Really good people = high salaries, compensate with equity,
• Make a cut if it doesn’t work
• Invest your time: Coaching, coaching, coaching
• Celebrate!
Start Now
© 2012 twago 8 twago.com
Create a unique company culture Your team must love to work for you
© 2012 twago 9 twago.com
Have fun
© 2012 twago 10 twago.com
© 2012 twago 11 twago.com
Friday lunch all together
© 2012 twago 12 twago.com
© 2012 twago 13 twago.com
vs.
Who wins the fight?
Advertising
© 2012 twago 14 twago.com
Create landing pages for your customer
750 Landing pages
© 2012 twago 15 twago.com
Measure Think
Analyze
© 2012 twago 16 twago.com
Analyze, analyze, analyze: Measure – think – change!
Key drivers
Traffic and customer behaviour
Conversion tests (A/B)
© 2012 twago 17 twago.com
Few words: Focus „Clean“ Build trust:
Verisign Logo, Phone number, green bulltes
Reduce exit-options
Improvements New Design Old Design
Quelle: twago
Landing Page Test optimized conversion rates and reduces user acquisition costs significantly
Landing Page A/B Test
3%* 20%*
© 2012 twago 18 twago.com
Scaling
© 2012 twago 19 twago.com
Scaling is a mind game
• Manual work kills scale
• Invest in automation and processes (I know, I know)
• Working with templates (SEM landigpages, etc.)
• If you wonna go global, have the option to quickly add different languages
• Avoid local adaptions
and ...
Never lean back
0
200
400
600
800
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1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Posted Projects / Month 1
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© 2012 twago 20 twago.com
Stay flexible and ...
... adapt to customer needs and learnings
© 2012 twago 21 twago.com
We changed major topics
To... From...
Outsourcing Offshoring
Combined Marketplace and Memberships
Marketplace only
Focus on core countries All countries immediately
© 2012 twago 22 twago.com
International rollout
© 2012 twago 23 twago.com
We are live in 6 countries, more to come this year
• Solve your problems first, then roll out internationally otherwise you make your problem even bigger
• It‘s more than having a new language (legal, tax, accounting, etc.)
• Go for the quick win countries first
• All teams are based in Berlin, as much as possible centralized
• Native speaker only
• Local phone numbers
• Introduce a face of the country
• Adapt as few as necessary to keep synergies
© 2012 twago 24 twago.com
Don‘t be too much afraid of the US coming to Europe...
... but be careful with you going to the US...
© 2012 twago 25 twago.com
Expect the unexpected
© 2012 twago 26 twago.com
Expect the unexpected
© 2012 twago 27 twago.com
Fight for your dream
© 2012 twago 29 twago.com
Thanks and feel free to follow us...
.com - work different
www.facebook.com/twago.com
www.twitter.com/twago_inside
or email me: [email protected]