Hmmm so where do you start when you’re not an industry expert? This is something I find myself asking alot. You see the grey haired entrepreneurs (i.e. the more successful ones) and think who am I to challenge that?
30+ years of top level industry experience and how can I possibly compete? I still don’t know but I can tell you how we’ve been dragged from side to side…
So we started in January, originally we thought, Christ sell something online. Straight onto the boards.ie entrepreneur forums to see how it’s done. There’s tons to read, articles that’ll make you think and people that’ll inspire you. So what to sell? We started with jocksandsocks.com. Pretty much because it had a funny name.
This led to us to sliding around infront of underwear suppliers, during a terribly cold winter, in industrial parks around Dublin. We started building a picture of how that market works by talking to the wholesalers. People thought it was interesting (not an indicator of anything) and we figured it was worth a shot. Then we started seeing that it mostly involved selling male tongs and looking at lots of balls. This didn’t really appeal to us. Not that we’re faint hearted but we just didn’t really care too much about the world of underwear, us with our high falutin backgrounds in investment banking and electical engineering.
I think the next big idea was Triathalon supplies. Brian had organised Triathalons before so had an idea of costs and demand. We then went around calling up various manufacturers in China to see how much they’d charge for a swim cap. I think Brian still gets call from sales agents at 3 in the morning. It seemed like we’d a few deals arranged straight away, I think we stopped with that plan because after doing some maths, we figured we could just about make half a yearly dole salary out of it. Better than nothing but not by much!
I really wanted to break into software, after being a developer on horrible and boring bank projects for years, I’d a nice bit of experience. Brian was also keen, although we were more keen just to start making cash really (still not attained).
Our first ideas revolved around social media efforts. We really just got into twitter at the time and were blown away by the business application of it. Especially in Ireland where we seem 2 years behind most technologies and ruled by a select few. An honest, proactive approach by business could change the landscape (we thought).
I think the main one was a local deal finder. We looked fairly extensively at Yelp, BrightKite, Gowalla, Foursquare etc. to see if there was something we could build. We were thinking small business, although we can see now this is horrifically tough area to start in without having a big market. So we were thinking of a social media deal finder, we discussed coupons, vouchers (there’s a difference!), marketing, directories, apps. Lots and lots of discussions/arguments/compromises made.
We then went to an incubation center who kinda thought the idea wasn’t terrible but asked us to do market research. This was tough enough, but we went out to the myriad of shops and bars in Cork to build surveys. It felt pretty good to have that beginning research under the belt. Every time we talked to someone, we uncovered something new. We did start figuring out some simple facts though…
- People don’t have time for your product. If its saving/making money for them. They’ll use it. If not, PFO.
- They like buzz, think social media is cool and all but ain’t gonna pay until you prove it.
- Most don’t even have websites.
So not much you can do there right! (Maybe there is but we can’t live on fresh air).
Rubicon in Cork liked the fact we were trying. Cold calling is starting to become a skill! And they saw we weren’t idiots (I think) so they took us on. We pitched a social media integration tool, something to manage profiles for small business. Very Postling like. Seemed to work, so we got offices and mentors, a start really (although our mentor does not exist yet, although the business doesn’t either so maybe we’re too early stage). Everything seems to lead onto something else with us, so we’re starting to get a bit cocky.
Since then we’ve been researching tons. Will people buy this tool? Who’ll buy it? Why would they want it?
We’ve started moving through the digital media agencies in Dublin to find out what they need. Seems like nothing but I’m continually surprised by how the project is shaping up. We’re casting the net a bit wider to London next to see how they react. We’re subscribing to Steve Blank’s “Four steps to the Epiphany” model. Mainly because his blog rocks but more importantly, because we’ve no money. We’re pretty slow, slower than we’d expected. But I like to sum up our attitude in one way:
If you bang your head against a brick wall, eventually there are 2 outcomes. Either the walls gonna fall down, or your head’ll break.
Currently the heads a little tender and the wall’s dusting a bit, but somethings gotta give.
