
How should I go about the next step of my startup? - sidarok
Hi everybody, this is my first post and I am seeking some valuable advice.<p>I am running Coachius - A niche social platform for coaches and mentors.<p>Coaching community is diversely booming and is very much underserved. In U.S alone, only life coaching is estimated to be a 6B$ sector.<p>I wanted to develop a platform to give coaches and people who are looking for coaching to connect at a social level, discuss and engage for sessions.<p>With this in mind I developed an MVP - http:&#x2F;&#x2F;test.coachius.info<p>What do you think about the idea and the MVP?
What do you think my next steps should involve? (keep pitching?, go live quickly? focus more on monetization?)<p>Thanks to all of you in advance.
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davismwfl
I worked with a client last year that was coaching small businesses and my
team worked with them to help those clients get off the ground with basic
marketing sites launched etc. I'd say that you are at least on to something
targeting that market as we found it much larger than anticipated. We have
since stopped working directly building the "students" products (unless they
have a real engineering problem to solve) but we have made (and are adding
more) a few specific solutions that serve the broader community and have
brought those to market.

What I learned is that the educational, mentoring, and advice part of the
market is quite large with people on both sides willing (if not anxious) to
pay money to learn things that others take for granted (be it how to provide
the advice or in getting the advice). Linking those two communities together
is of significant value, and making it so that they can communicate more
effectively seems very valid. Now what that means in terms of potential
opportunity, I don't know exactly, but I can tell you we see some of the
products we have (and are launching) in the space easily growing into a very
nice sized business that do not require investment backing and are profitable
from very early on. Our specific focus is very much on delivering the content
and marketing the content and solutions versus a social media based forum,
although we are integrated to most social media outlets.

As for advice, launch something quickly, get some buy in from people willing
to actually pay for it and get some traction. If you are seeking investment
you'll need to prove traction anyway so that is the first thing to focus on
IMO.

Good luck and have fun!

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sidarok
Thank you very much Davis, for the insightful comment.

It is indeed a big and underestimated market waiting with full of untapped
opportunities.

Currently the site is entirely free - I was thinking of gaining traction first
and then monetizing it.

So would you advice me to go ahead and launch it, or keep it at stealth mode
and raise money - so I can quit my day job and fully focus on this?

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davismwfl
I'd advise that you launch with a minimal set of features and get people on
the platform and make additions to it as you go. There is a saying, you should
be at least slightly embarrassed by your version 1. Can't remember who said
it, but man it so works, it also is a great motivator to improve.

I personally don't believe in stealth mode without some very special
circumstances, and this wouldn't be one of them. The times I would say stealth
is good is for serial founders that have credibility to raise money privately
and keep the wraps on something until it launches. And even then, they likely
have some large clients committed already and are already on a solid path.

So my 2 cents, don't quit your day job. Launch the site, get some traction,
get feedback, don't hide it, promote promote promote. Once you have some
traction and have people talking a little about it, then you can start to
think about a pitch deck and trying to raise money (if that is your goal).
Although there is "easy" money as some say, it isn't that easy really, you
still have to have fundamentals in place or have a track record proving you
can do it. If you get a little traction though, it isn't unrealistic to have a
small group or a high net worth person provide you some seed capital to try
and accelerate the pace.

Personally, I wouldn't go the raise money route initially, I'd first start off
trying to make money with the platform. Bootstrap it, see what happens. The go
big or go home attitude isn't necessarily wrong, but the majority of
businesses are not launched or founded that way. They start small and build
up. Nothings stops those businesses from being as large as a VC backed
business (though money does equal velocity), and you can always attract money
at a later date, usually under more favorable terms.

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webstartupper
Firstly, congratulations on finding a large enough industry you are passionate
about.

Pick a niche in the coaching industry based on the following conditions.

1\. The niche must be small enough such that there is no current market leader
(or market leader can be displaced)

2\. The niche is big enough that there are enough customers to validate the
idea.

3\. You have some unfair advantage in that niche. For e.g. You have experience
in business coaching or you have access to customers in the fitness coaching,
or you have a close friend working in relationship coaching.

Then, validate your idea by talking to customers in that niche. Build and
market your app till you are the market leader in that niche. After that, you
can decide to pick and dominate another niche (or all of them)

Benefits of this approach

1\. By sticking to a small niche, you can make something that resonates with
the customers. It is much easier validating a product built for a very
specific purpose.

2\. By starting with a small niche, your goal will also be small. So it will
be easier to figure out whether you are on the right track.

3\. You will be able to become the market leader in a small niche much faster
than you can become the market leader in the coaching industry. Once you have
validated your business in the niche, it is much easier raising funding for
the larger goal.

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j2bax
Will your service save your target customers time and make their lives easier
or make their work more effective? If so, charge for it! Even if only a small
amount, don't undersell yourself. If its not worth paying for, they probably
won't use it for free either. You should definitely consider a free trial if
nothing else but keep it in their minds that your service offers value. If you
have paying customers you will also be much more likely to devote yourself to
improving the service and seeing it through to full fruition. If a prospect
converts to being a paid customer, they will be invested in using the platform
and continuing to validate what you are doing.

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sidarok
It will make indeed their lives not only easier but also will let them find
more clients, and for clients more coaches.

But on the other hand without the users the value of the platform is next to
nothing.

That's why in the MVP I have developed all the social features that are
commonly available - A professional profile (linkedin) live chat and
messaging, notifications (facebook) and groups for forum chat.

My aim was to develop a community first to whom I can sell the further
services much easier.

Do you think this is flawed? (fremium model?)

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obayesshelton
Maybe look at some accelerator programmes etc and work with their startups,
the reason I say this is that they are always missing maybe 1 or more person
and if they have a full team they might be missing some specific skills which
a mentor could give them.

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blairanderson
Find a single customer and get them to pay for your service.

When they say no, find another one.

Repeat until you have a bunch of customers.

Coding and hiring will be required to accomplish the above tasks.

~~~
sidarok
Hi @blairanderson, thanks for your comment.

Currently the site is completely free and not even launched yet.

The dilemma I am having is to continue implementing features to charge for vs.
launching it as it is and seeing what happens, what user feedbacks are - and
then develop those services.

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timjahn
Launch it. Launch launch launch.

Let customers tell you what features they need.

