© 2009 Ninian Solutions Ltd

From Concept to Cashflow

Andy McLoughlin

I am co-founder and VP

strategy at Huddle.net

Award-winning cloud

collaboration and project

management

Huddle was launched in

April 2007

HQ in London, US office

in San Francisco

Venture funded, cash-

flow profitable

A little bit about us...

Securely manage all your

projects from one place

Share files with online editing, auditing,

versions, permissions and workflow

Collaborate and organise with

discussions, whiteboards and tasks

Live meetings with integrated

telephone and web conferencing

Work the way you want! Multi language,

RSS, iCal, social networks, desktop,

iPhone, mobile, open API

Who wants to build a $10M+ company?

Who wants to build the next $100M+ company?

Picture of a path (yellow brick road?)

The beginning of

the adventure

On trend

Taking the plungeTaking the plunge

Founding Team Picture of old school football team

Your founding team

In the Gospel according to…

Where to live (London vs San Fran) Picture: Golden Gate Vs Tower BridgeDo I stay or do I go?

(i.e. know your market!)

Launch: how soon

is too soon?

Launch early vs. launch late

Early feedbackEarly revenuesFirst mover adv.

× Imperfect product× Production bugs× It could bomb

Better productFewer bugsBig launch buzz

× No revenue× No user feedback× Someone gets there

first!

Generating buzz (or: how do i get featured on techcrunch?) Build a great product Learn how to pitch your product in one

sentence

Generating buzz

(or, “How do I get featured

on TechCrunch.com?!”)

Finding your first customers

Raising Finance

Financing your start up

Send me an angelSend me an angel

Venture capitalVenture (vulture?)

capital

AKA “Kissing Frogs”

The VC Process

Things you’ll need to know! User acquisition cost Cost to convert to paying Lifetime value “Payback time” (less than 1 year FTW) Monthly churn Yearly churn Viral co-efficient Justification for all projections

More money, more problems

What’s in store post-funding? Lots of hiring (and some inevitable firing) No longer in complete control User targets Revenue targets Virality targets Activity targets Measurement targets Targets to set targets

Hiring

Things we've learnt Your initial team may not make the grade Don’t be afraid to say no Meeting the perfect candidate is like falling

in love Working in a start-up isn’t for everyone Don’t hire people if you wouldn’t want to

spend all day, every day with them Go for smart, entrepreneurial people And…

“Bet on openness, build trust” Huddle’s product and company mantra Keep the team in one building Publish company targets and roadmap Weekly company stand-up with open floor Get engineers and product on sales calls Get sales and marketing people testing Company-wide product planning sessions 10% hack time to build cool stuff

Development: Moving from fragile to agile

Development: from fragile to agile

Process, process, process

Product Management FTW!Product management

(a.k.a. ‘how to lose friends

and alienate people’)

Pricing your product

Pricing – the hard lessons Decide how you’ll make money early Ad-funded free? Freemium? Enterprise? Don’t get into a price war People will pay more than you think Where possible, migrate customers to

yearly payments

Iterate, iterate, iterate!

Dealing with recruiters

Building a sales

team that sells

Making partnerships work

Making partnerships work

Partnerships – what we learnt Good partnerships can deliver everything

you want but... Be realistic Pick your battles wisely Be prepared to invest Be prepared to wait Be prepared to argue, argue, argue Only 1 in 10 will really succeed But remember that David beat Goliath!

“A place I'd want to work”

Creating “a place I

would want to work”

Creating that place Great people + nice surroundings = WIN Make everyone a shareholder Invest in a good coffee machine Table football league / Wii / beanbag area

encourage creative thinking and bonding Eat together regularly Regular outings with partners invited Continually ask yourself if this truly is a

place you’d want to work

Exit Exit?

© 2009 Ninian Solutions Ltd

Thank you! Email: andy@huddle.net

Twitter: @bandrew

Promo code: 1MONTHFREE