
Startup lessons learned after two and a half years - dcancel
http://blog.latentflip.com/post/33902095607/startup-lessons-learned
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Alan01252
First I really enjoyed the post. I'm even more intrigued now though, you have
100 paying customers at a maximum of £12 pound a month, this is only £14,400 a
year. Between two of you?!?

How long can you continue to live like that? How do you live on that amount of
money? Have you thought about raising the price?

~~~
philip_roberts
Hi Alan,

There are a few extra factors at play here,

\- Our price is somewhat anchored by the accounting packages we integrate
with, but we do intend to try and push that price up eventually (I should add:
by adding more powerful features, rather than just hiking it).

\- We offer founder plans for people keen to support us (think kickstarter)
which works out about 2-3 worth of lifetime value up front, and has really
helped us month-to-month.

\- I was still working a full-time, then part-time, job for the first 10
months or so. \- We were partly incubated for a year or so by my co-founder's
web design company, which allowed him to keep drawing a salary from that and
gave us an effectively free office. Although we are now both full-time on
Float.

\- We've spent a number of our weekends this year helping start an incubation
space (by literally knocking down walls) which has got us free office space
while it's being finished off (<http://techcube-ed.tumblr.com/>).

\- We have raised a tiny amount of money, which obviously helps.

\- We live in Scotland which I am sure has a much lower cost of living than
London/the Valley.

\- I have a _very_ supportive wife who works full-time.

~~~
Alan01252
Thanks Philip,

I find myself letting the fear factor of not having money completely control
my life and actions. I am very impressed by anyone who's able to overcome this
fear.

Your story is truly inspiring, and I wish you the very best of luck!

~~~
philip_roberts
It's not been easy.

It took me a long time to get up the courage to leave my job, and fear of
running out of money still paralyses me from time to time.

Fortunately my wife is amazingly supportive, and my cofounder is less
paralysed by little details like running out of money than I am and helps me
forge-ahead.

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philip_roberts
Hi everyone,

I didn't post this, but I am the author. Thanks for all the kind words on the
post.

As far as Float goes, it currently only works with www.freeagent.com, so if
you are a FreeAgent user, feel free to sign up.

I am (as we speak) working on integration with www.xero.com, and there's more
detail on that here if you want to try the beta: <http://floatapp.com/xero>.

All thoughts and feedback on either the post of the product are more than
welcome :)

Thanks! Phil

~~~
kfk
Hi Phil,

I am probably in a position similar to yours 2 years ago: I am working and
learning to code on the side.

Could I ask you how did you get the integration with xero and freeagent? I am
working on an app too (vendors and orders management) and I keep wondering how
to reach out potential customers.

~~~
philip_roberts
We are listed here: <http://www.freeagent.com/developers/goodies> which drives
some traffic our way.

FreeAgent and our customers have mentioned us on twitter/blogged about us
sporadically over the last couple of years.

Don't just wait. We are still working on our Xero integration (I only really
started on it last week), and I stuck up <http://floatapp.com/xero> so we
could collect emails of people who wanted to try the beta, and we've got ~70
replies (mostly from accountants) by sharing it on twitter/facebook/linked
in/Xero's support forums.

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fabiandesimone
I think you should really invest in your website. I did not know about Float
before, but so it happens that I´m shopping for a financial/accounting/cash
flow app and I got to be honest: Float might work and maybe is all I need but
your site really does not convey the value it might provide me if I become a
user (I´m refering to the home page, the tour page does a bit better but you
could improve it by tweaking a few things)

I suspect your metrics might have some key info relating to what I´m about to
tell you: grab the whole tour page and include it below the Start your free
trial in the home page. See if that helps your conversions.

Good luck!

~~~
philip_roberts
Hi Fabian,

We are currently quite focused on our target marget of FreeAgent customers,
and Float is not currently mass-market (yet) but you are right.

We recently released a page, more like you are suggesting, for Xero customers
here: <http://floatapp.com/xero> what do you think?

~~~
fabiandesimone
Your words:

When you’re working on your product, you’ve got some beta testers, it looks
shit but you’re making progress, and you’ve a huge list of things you want to
do, it’s easy to put off marketing.

“We’re not ready for loads of customers yet”

“We’ve too much to do to be marketing”

“Let’s wait till the product is great, then marketing will be easier”

The truth is, marketing is really hard. It takes time to work, it can be hard
to know when it is working, and you don’t see instant results so it doesn’t
feel very productive.

Getting started earlier, and doing a little as you go along is, I think, a
much better strategy than waiting till you launch. It gives you time to learn
about what works and what doesn’t, it let’s you learn about the process and
get better at it, and it gives your marketing time to work.

Market the hell out of the app man!

EDIT: What I meant to say is that as you put it marketing is very hard (I
know, that´s what I do) so don´t narrow it down. Go for it, right now!

~~~
philip_roberts
Fair play sir, fair play.

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vignesh_vs_in
Its quiet a big feat that tht OP moved from writing first line of code to
lauching a company in 10 months. Wonder how did he manage it?

I have been writing code/Mobile apps for 2.5 years still scared to take the
leap.

~~~
philip_roberts
Just launch. Seriously what's the worst that can happen.

I say that like it was easy, it clearly wasn't, but you just have to suck it
up and try it.

~~~
vignesh_vs_in
I am finding it hard to figure out the right co-founder. All my coder pals are
risk averse :(.

I have made a decision to quit my day job on 31/03/2013 no matter what. will
keep you guys updated on the journey.

~~~
philip_roberts
Somebody else just emailed me asking basically the same question, and looking
for my advice. My immediate thoughts were:

\- Do you need a cofounder immediately, or can you just try and do less. I
know that's easier said than done, but scale back your projects into what you
think the most important pain/solution is and focus on that, and see if you
can get some traction. It will be easier to convince someone else to join you
if you can get some traction.

\- Similarly: don't look for people to take a big leap, break it into smaller
steps. Do you know anyone who would do something for an evening a week. Or
hack on something at the weekend. Treat it more as a fun side-project, and
people might be more excited about getting involved. Then once they are in,
and you have some momentum, try and grow the committment (that's basically
what we did).

~~~
swastik
I agree with this.

I'd try and learn the basics of coding, put together a prototype and get some
initial feedback. It will be much better to seek a co-founder at this point,
who can help you complete the product and launch it.

It's not easy, and it is going to take time but that's probably the best way
to go about it.

