
Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level? (part 2) - arjunvpaul
Follow up on a previous post - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14450432<p>Made every mistake that many YC videos tried to get me to avoid.<p>19 months to launch and then 100 days to sign 12 contracts, total worth between $50K to $100K annually! I think we have reached the “next level” that I had asked about i.e. take a pain point and turn it into a web product that brands actually pay us for. We have built a web product that brands can use to reach customers and do business with them via WhatsApp. Brands use us to provide loans, sell premium holidays and even help make babies via In vitro Fertilization - all without their customer leaving WhatsApp<p>Now the Ask HN part. The next level from here is to build a $100K a month business. We’re close to signing deals with massive CpaaS providers who have approached us to sort of “white label” our product and help them serve their clients. That would give us a steady pipeline of business fed from the nearly 1200 brands that these providers already work with.  This appears to be so much quicker and efficient to $100K a month, than spending months converting individual brands. But, this would require us to take a different path – not a web product but build a more flexible API product. Think Twilio Flex or Moltin.<p>Any you fine folks here navigated this path? Decided between a Shopify vs. Moltin? Serve brands directly vs. go indirectly via providers who serve em brands? Would love to hear your comments. One specific question that&#x27;s in our minds is, what if these providers are just using us an MVP and once the business is validated with their clients, wouldn’t they just kick us to the curb and build their own product?<p>Any you fine folks here, interested in joining us as a cofounder, we would love to hear from you. We promise you lots of paper money, loads of startup heartburn, sleepless nights and faster aging on the (long) way to product-market fit. (clue: we think like Vinod Khosla about equity ).
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Jugurtha
I think sharing a bit of the technical side would help attract the people
you're looking for. For example, sharing your technology stack would attract
the people familiar with that stack.

Also, if you share a block diagram of your process, even without going too
much into details in case you're worried to be copied at this stage or
something.

Something like a box receiving a message, and another box processing the
message and sending it to a "partner", that gives an idea on how this machine
works might help. Heck it can help people think more abstractly and propose
ideas to generalize that solution to address a different vertical than the one
you're addressing right now.

Maybe build an API so that other companies might use your service and you
could add to your references on your website. By the way, this could increase
your revenue, avoid the "white-label" situation, increase your credibility and
attract technical talent.

In other words, treating this request as a product/sale and removing friction
to attract people's minds to the idea/concept would be beneficial.

~~~
arjunvpaul
Thanks for the comments.

> I think sharing a bit of the technical side would help attract the people
> you're looking for. For example, sharing your technology stack would attract
> the people familiar with that stack.

Mostly React and NodeJS.

\- Web app is MySQL, React, Redux and NodeJS \- Multiple micro services (REST)
built on NodeJS and Spring Boot \- Other tech: RabbitMQ, WebSockets

> Also, if you share a block diagram of your process, even without going too
> much into details in case you're worried to be copied at this stage or
> something. Something like a box receiving a message, and another box
> processing the message and sending it to a "partner", that gives an idea on
> how this machine works might help. Heck it can help people think more
> abstractly and propose ideas to generalize that solution to address a
> different vertical than the one you're addressing right now.

Not at all worried about getting copied (lesson learned from YC Videos). A
video is show here - [https://www.zoko.io/zoko-
sales](https://www.zoko.io/zoko-sales) . Question is what's the right business
strategy/tactic to get to $100K a month? Continue to sell the product shown in
the video or make an API that will enable partners to make the product show in
the video.

~~~
Jugurtha
I like the site's simplicity.

> Continue to sell the product shown in the video or make an API that will
> enable partners to make the product show in the video.

You already _have_ and API. The site proposes two products: "Zoko Notify API"
(with a Swagger UI) and "Zoko Chat Sales", in that order.

I can't see the pricing... Also, Zoko is not using Zoko. Contacting you
requires sending a form, instead of being able to chat with you.

Why are you not using it?

Is putting the location, physical address, and marker on the map absolutely
necessary on your contact page?

Also:

> Chatting with customers leads to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and
> a 40% increase in conversion rate.

Where is that from? I found a Medium post with dubious "stats". Maybe include
testimonials in text and video?

~~~
arjunvpaul
Thank you for the pointers. Good point about "Zoko not using Zoko" :-) Will
change that before teh end of the month.

>Where is that from? I found a Medium post with dubious "stats". Maybe include
testimonials in text and video?

The stat is from a widely quoted Forrester study.

Interestingly the website was built in a day using a free service called WIX.
We dont have much difficulty convincing clients. Our paying clients may have
actually seen our website in passing. Most of the selling is by getting
clients via facebok and linkedin ads and demos scheduled via
Skype/hangouts/anydesk/zoom etc.

Probably had 4 people reach out to us by the website in 4 months. its been
kind of ignored till now.

~~~
Jugurtha
> _The stat is from a widely quoted Forrester study._

Then I think properly quoting that with a reference link to the report. People
might not read it, but they'd at least know they could. As much as I don't
like the 50 billion IoT by 2020 figure, a link would help me.

> _Probably had 4 people reach out to us by the website in 4 months. its been
> kind of ignored till now._

The site is ignored because it hasn't been converting or is it not converting
because it has been ignored?

I'd like videos that explain different ways I could use the products. Say I'm
a shop owner, what exactly can it do for me. What's the problem it solves and
how? You can get such a video for a few hundred bucks.

Resources on how to set things up.

An example application for developers.

One of the things we insist on in our own product: a dev must be able to
extend the application in less than 5 minutes, a user can go through an
example in one minute. All the products we shipped where we ignored this sold
because they solved but sucked. We're shooting for self discoverable
functionality next. It's painful to see a user struggle to accomplish
something. Have you shown the site to shop owners and devs and observed them?

EDIT:

How would you take me from now to paying customer? How do I give you money?

Also, a counter on your front page on the amount of sales that went through
your products would speak volumes _and_ give you a nice KPI to track. Total
dollar value, number of customers served, number of clients, average per
client, average purchase amount.

A nice dashboard that tells you things, and help you guide this turning knobs
(optimize for number of customers or average purchase price?)

If you can add endpoints for such stats for clients to tap into, generate
reports, use with other BI tools, to help them steer their business.

Something to help them get an idea on their Net Promoter Score and then the
backend to run language processing on messages and display what customers
liked and disliked in a tree map. I.e: 60 percent of your customers are
detractors, 40 % of these disliked the interface, etc.

~~~
arjunvpaul
Thanks for the pointers on the shortcomings of the website. Have added them to
my long list of to-do improvements to the website.

> _How would you take me from now to paying customer? How do I give you
> money?_

\- Customers start an an incoming lead from linkedin ads or facebook ads. \-
Then a phone call letting them talk and me asking a lot of questions about the
problems they face using WhatsApp for business today. \- Then I show them a
screen share demo and touch on their problems and how the product solves it.
\- Followed by a signing an order form (word file) \- We then setup their
accounts and send a precomposed email with links to the API, API key and
access details to the web app. \- Also start a whatsapp group so they can ask
and get immideate help in integration. \- Billing starts 7 days after API key
receipt. All fees paid upfront and all usage through upfront purchase of
credits. We have setup stripe in the billing section of the web app.

~~~
Jugurtha
Note also the two icons for Facebook and Twitter on your site point to WIX
profiles ([https://www.facebook.com/wix](https://www.facebook.com/wix),
[https://www.facebook.com/wix](https://www.facebook.com/wix)).

Maybe you can flesh out that scenario on the website to explain the process to
a prospect. Putting a video out there so you don't have to do the operation
with each client (one video that shows how the product can solve the problem).

What's the need for signing the word file? Why do they need to sign it?

Can I as a prospect directly click on an icon on your website or scan a QR
Code and start a WhatsApp/FB messenger with you?

~~~
arjunvpaul
Not sure where the icons are showing up. I had removed all such links. (forgot
to mention its a 3 person team. me, cto and an entry level coder)

> _Maybe you can flesh out that scenario on the website to explain the process
> to a prospect. Putting a video out there so you don 't have to do the
> operation with each client (one video that shows how the product can solve
> the problem)._

Maybe its an Indian thing but folks dont seem to read anything. They prefer to
call me directly and then see a demo. I also like the call first, because I
can quickly decide who will convert and who will not.

> _What 's the need for signing the word file? Why do they need to sign it?_
> Thats the contract. If there's no ink on paper we dont setup dedicated
> accounts. Most of the work is manual for setting up accounts, linking
> numbers, setting up template messages etc. So unless its a customer who is
> ready to commit for a year, the coders dont even hear about them.

> _Can I as a prospect directly click on an icon on your website or scan a QR
> Code and start a WhatsApp /FB messenger with you?_ Not self serve right now.
> Once you sign a contract, you get a demo account (still shared with other
> clients). you get an email with access information so that you can start
> playing with a shared demo account and also play with the API, while we
> setup the accounts.

~~~
Jugurtha
> _Not sure where the icons are showing up. I had removed all such links.
> (forgot to mention its a 3 person team. me, cto and an entry level coder)_

They don't appear on mobile, only on desktop. Must be a media queries issue.

> _Maybe its an Indian thing but folks dont seem to read anything. They prefer
> to call me directly and then see a demo. I also like the call first, because
> I can quickly decide who will convert and who will not._

A prospect who has to call you cannot buy when you sleep.

I'd treat prospects calls not as a _preference_ , but as a symptom of the
product's ambiguity. This is problematic.

I do not understand your product because there's no real clear, concise,
complete, and correct description of your product. In that case, there's a
choice to make between complete ambiguity on one hand, and calling you on the
other. We shouldn't conclude that I'm calling you because I prefer to call.
I'm calling you because the product's description is not doing the job it's
supposed to do, _you_ are doing its job.

Instead of having customers call you and _conclude_ that they prefer calling
you, can we ask ourselves about what their alternatives to calling you are?
Reading? They don't. Why? "People don't read". Maybe, but do they not read
because it's an intrinsic human behavior, or because the product's copy and
description sucks? We don't know until we fix the copy.

In this case, you have become the bottleneck because there's only so many
calls you can answer, and so many hours you can work and describe the product.

I'd say you have a hypothesis about people not reading. Can you test your
hypothesis by fixing the links of the icons to point to your facebook and
twitter pages, and add a product description.

Did you have users open your website and observe them and talked to them while
they're trying to make sense of what you're selling. Did they understand what
your product does from your website or did they look puzzled? What can be done
to fix that and put a ton of lubricant to the pipeline.

> _If there 's no ink on paper we dont setup dedicated accounts.

Why not?

>_Most of the work is manual for setting up accounts, linking numbers, setting
up template messages etc.

Why is the work manual? Why do you have to set up template messages? Can the
customers set up their own template messages? Can you propose the most common
template messages and offer them so a customer can have their basic needs met
by default? What exactly is the manual part of the work?

> _So unless its a customer who is ready to commit for a year, the coders dont
> even hear about them._

Why are the "coders" involved when a new customer is signed? What are they
doing when a customer is signed? What can be automated? How are you spinning
up new accounts? What inefficiencies have made it like that?

Prospect lands on your website. Prospect reads your product's description, or
watches a video. Prospect can click on the pricing page. Maybe you offer a
free-tier or a trial period. Prospect signs up for a free-tier account with
limited functionality and is now a user. User likes product and induced demand
kicks in. User can click to upgrade their account in exchange for a monthly
fee or per interaction simply by going to billing and pulling out a credit
card or something. User can set recurrent billing.

Anytime you or the "coders" have to intervene, I'd see that as an inefficiency
that has to be cleared.

That's the next level in my opinion.

