

My Startup(s) Story. I hope it motivates someone. - nkabbara
http://grasshopper.com/blog/company/2010/03/01/entrepreneurship-its-personal/

======
saturdayplace
> This brings up a very unusual business model for aspiring entrepreneurs.
> Work in a domain that is technologically challenged until you understand it
> profoundly. Then start a business that advances that domain by empowering
> its actors.

I wonder... is collaborating with someone who 'profoundly' understands the
domain a way to short-circuit this process?

~~~
nkabbara
It's definitely how most people do things today. The way I did it, like
everything else, has its pros and cons.

Some of the pros:

1\. My buddies in the dealership domain are my customers. They call me up and
ask me for a feature directly.

From my experience, this yields better quality features than talking to the
domain expert that's probably trying to translate _his_ conversation with the
customer.

2\. There's the advantage of you being in a domain where most people are your
friends _then_ your potential users. A lot of psychological walls are broken
this way (what is he trying to sell me?). We trust each other by our
reputation in the industry and this tends to extend to they quality of
software they expect from us. Them knowing that we're developing it ourselves
helps a lot.

Imagine cold walking into a business like a salesman would and offering your
product. Now imagine walking into the business where you know the owner very
well and you intend of having coffee with him first, then telling him about
how you might be able to help him out. Big difference.

There are more, but these come to mind now.

So it's not only quality of software, but also how much easier it is to get
your first paid user base that will enable you to create a good product that
would hopefully scale beyond your paid-users-as-friends.

------
maxwin
I took a look at <http://www.zipzoomauto.com/>

Nice work. One thing I dislike is the absence of PRICE until I fill out all
the information. A lot of online fads ask for all your information (including
credit cards) before they tell you how much they are going to charge. And this
is really a bad practice. Just tell me upfront how much you want me to pay
before you ask for my email/phone/name/address etc.

~~~
nkabbara
Thanks!

You are 100% correct. I feel the same way. Read my response to inovica for an
explanation/excuse. :)

This will be updated soon.

-Nash

------
inovica
Good article and being domain-specific has allowed you to really focus. It
looks from your FAQ that you're still in 'beta' (although that word is not
used) from your pricing policy. Are you experimenting with different pricing
here or are you just being secretive? Curious as pricing has always been
something that I've struggled with setting with our products, so wondering how
you're doing it

~~~
nkabbara
Thanks!

Nope, no secrecy. I really don't believe in it for most situations.

It's mostly my tendency (weakness) to focus on developing new features than to
update the marketing site. I'll be updating this with pricing very soon since
I finally hired a great developer to help out in some of my coding
responsibilities and to help shape ZZA's policies and future.

\------------- Here's our current pricing:

10 cars or less $55. 70 cars or less $125. 200 cars or less $225.

No contract. No limit on features. No setup fee. \--------------

Here's what we did/considered to reach these prices

0\. We wanted to serve the startup dealerships. We know how hard it is to
start one up (we did it, after all), so we wanted to provide a cheaper entry
point.

1\. We looked at what competitors were charging and what features they were
providing.

2\. We talked to more than 10 dealers to get their input.

3\. We definitely don't want to convey that we are competing on prices. We're
not! We're competing on understanding of domain, features and quality.

4\. I read some blogs regarding this subject. Like Joel's and some others.

5\. Had tons of discussions with people who's judgment I trust.

6\. Estimated at what volume of vehicles would a given price make the most
sense.

After doing these things, I simply wrote down 10 @ 55, 70 @ 125, 200 @ 225. It
_felt_ right.

As you can see, it's very non-scientific and many would disagree with this way
of doing it. But it's what we did.

Maybe when it's time to rethink our prices, we'll have more time for surveys
and research.

Hope this helps.

~~~
inovica
Thanks for this and amusingly I've followed the same 'path' - what feels
right. I majored in Business at university (and only subsequently taught
myself to program so I could converse correctly with the programmers I
employed) and we were taught to do a lot of market research before making a
decision. I've never really done that though and just chose a price which is
why I asked the question. Maybe the market ultimately decides by whether they
buy or not. Thank you for sharing though - really appreciate it and I'm sure
others on here do also. Best of luck with your venture

------
perplexes
I've noticed in a few of these stories that the path the entrepreneur took
wasn't optimal by their own standards (e.g. charging early), yet there is
still success.

If you want success, should you follow what they _did_ rather than what their
advice says you should do?

~~~
nkabbara
A very valid point and it has come up in my head many times, not just in
regards to entrepreneurship, but other issues with a similar pattern.

Before giving out the advice, I had to ask myself whether things started
getting better because of charging customers, or did charging customers
coincide with an unknown event that caused some success?

Everything points to the former, in _my_ case. But I do believe this
particular advice applies to many other startups, not just mine.

Edit: I'd like to add, that after charging and studying usage more closely we
removed some unused 'cool' feature that we thought were awesome. Charging
customers also prunes your app. If you pay attention.

------
tron_carter
Did these other sites permit you to post listings directly to their site using
an API? How about extending this idea to motorcycles? You could add
cycletrader or other motorcycle specific sites.

~~~
nkabbara
The sites that don't have an API, we simply provide an iframe and provide the
user the tools to easily cut & paste into the iframe (Worst part in the app).
90% do have APIs though, which we use extensively.

Right now, my niche is only dealers with 200 cars or less. It's what I know.
Later, when I feel like we've dominated this niche, we'll expand into other
areas for sure.

Thanks for the ideas.

------
ztravis
Good article - interesting story - but correct "let's" to "lets" right in the
opening blurb on zipzoomauto.com!

~~~
nkabbara
Wow! I feel embarrassed.

Thank you very much for this. Much appreciated.

Fixed.

------
oxtopus
Great story! Have you considered video?

<http://videocarlot.tv>

~~~
nkabbara
Video sounds really cool, but our niche doesn't seem to care for it much. It's
mostly the high end dealers that like them. Maybe one day when we target them.

------
staunch
There was a great story about a guy that did a similar thing for the fast food
industry. Anyone got the link?

~~~
Enra2
I would love to see that link too!

~~~
staunch
Found it: [http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gala-24486-software-
resta...](http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gala-24486-software-
restaurant.html)

~~~
Enra2
thanks!

------
rubyrescue
at what point will you be able to focus solely on the software, assuming
that's what you want to do?

~~~
nkabbara
In the last few months, my focus has been 90% on the software.

What I did with the dealership is Im more or less, followed the advice in
E-Myth ([http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-
Abou...](http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-
About/dp/0887307280)) and created position contracts for all our employees (7
of them now.) This has cut my involvement in the dealership tremendously. Now,
I only put out fires, make sure management is going smoothly and handle some
of the accounting.

At the head of the dealership is my brother, whom I trust. He makes sure that
all manuals are updated and are followed. I make sure his position contract is
followed.

This way of doing things will be much harder if you don't have a partner that
you can trust to handle his part. Specially when things start growing.

