Startups Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products |
- Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products
- Slack vs Teams vs Workplace: The intriguing dynamics of the work messenger market
- Terminated from my job, should I start a company ?
- I have found a lead investor but he doesn’t want to give money before one more investor joins. Now what?
- Using pension funds to keep a startup afloat?
- Methods so a startup doesn’t run out of money?
- A piece of advice that helped me stop worrying that my business idea already exists.
- How can you find environmentally friendly manufacturers?
- Are we approaching Product-Market fit?
- Background check for Russian dev?
- I want to get involved!
- Any ideas on how to market to adult workers?
- What makes you pursue something?
- Experience as a Startup Employee: Thoughts? Is this normal?
- Is it worth giving up control over quality in exchange for lower upfront costs?
- How to make a sales forecast for a new consumer product
| Feedback Fridays - A Friendly Feedback Exchange For Ideas and Products Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:07 AM PST Welcome to this week's Feedback Thread. This is the place to request feedback on your ideas and products. Be sure to give feedback if you are requesting feedback. Equivalent exchange goes a long way towards reaching your own goals and it makes for a stronger community. Please use the following format:URL: Purpose of Startup: Technologies Used: Feedback Requested: Additional Comments: Post your site along with your stack and technologies used and receive feedback from the community. Please refrain from just posting a link and instead give us a bit of a background about your creation. Feel free to request general feedback or specific feedback in a certain area like user experience, usability, design, or code review. You can also find more support using instant chat on the /r/startups discord. [link] [comments]  |
| Slack vs Teams vs Workplace: The intriguing dynamics of the work messenger market Posted: 07 Feb 2020 08:39 AM PST Watching new and rapidly changing markets can teach you many things. The work communication market led by companies such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook is something I have been following for a long time. Last year, before Slack went public, I did an analytical review of the data disclosed in Slack's S-1 filing. At the end of that review, I shared my opinion that Slack experienced problems in the enterprise segment: the competition from Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook for this market segment threatened Slack's long-term growth prospects and its $20+ billion valuation. A lot of things have happened in the eight months that have passed since I published that essay. A lot of new data has surfaced, with one of the biggest market intrigues fading away and a new one appearing. The leading characters once again reminded us of a number of fundamental rules the market plays by. And this is exactly what I am going to talk about in this essay. The facts about the race between Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Workplace by FacebookMicrosoft Teams was introduced to the market at the very end of 2016, and became available globally at the beginning of 2017. At that time, three-year-old Slack's DAU already amounted to more than 4M users, which is an impressive number for a young startup in the B2B segment. By mid-2019, Microsoft Teams took the lead in DAU, and by the end of 2019, Teams had outran Slack with their 20M DAU versus Slack's 12M (almost double). It is not only about how fast Teams was able to catch up and then take the lead, but how dramatically the growth rates of the two products differ. A good proxy of the new users' dynamics of Slack and Teams is their app download figures. In my experience with Workplace by Facebook (I worked on Workplace by Facebook for a few years, I am not working on it now), the new users of these services either install apps within the first few days or don't install at all. Therefore, the dynamics of the number of downloads of the apps should correspond to the dynamics of new users coming to the services (mind that this is not entirely true for older products due to the significant effect from the old users downloading apps again when they purchase a new phone). In 2017, the number of new users downloading Teams and Workplace were fairly comparable. Both of these services were gradually catching up with Slack, but were still lagging far behind in terms of the number of new users (keep in mind that Slack had already had about 4 million DAU at the time its competitors launched). In 2018-2019, Workplace continued to increase the number of its new users faster than Slack. Currently, Workplace monthly downloads numbers make 35-40% of Slack's downloads. In 2018, Microsoft Teams started to leave Workplace well behind and gradually closed its distance with Slack. By the end of 2018, Teams had caught up with Slack, according to the number of downloads per month. Shortly after, it flashed past Slack and left it in the dust. Presently, the Microsoft Teams app gets 2.5 times the downloads that Slack gets. The observed dynamics corresponds to what we saw in the DAU's chart above. It is worth noting that, due to the fact that Slack tends to thrive in the technology segment of the market, it is likely that the proportion of users who download Slack's app is higher than that of Microsoft Teams and Workplace. Slack's stock price began to tumble right after going public. You can see the sharp drop in the stock value right after Microsoft announced the DAU numbers for Teams in September of 2019. Now Slack's valuation has plateaued. It is currently estimated at $12-13B (the value reached $20+ B at the moment of their direct public offering). How did Microsoft Teams grow so fast: Understanding the importance of controlling distribution channelsWhat allowed Microsoft Teams to boost growth and outrun Slack in such a short period? Was it the product dominance? Not really. Instead, it was Microsoft control of distribution channels that delivered the product to its massive customer base. I have three hypotheses about which growth channels accelerated Microsoft Teams' growth:
Judging by publicly available data, here is what I think. The main driver behind Microsoft Teams's growth is the deep integration with Office 365. Most likely, we also observe the early results of the users migrating from Skype for Business to Teams. I suppose we will be able to see a more vivid effect of this process next year. Let's discuss each of these hypotheses in detail. Integration with Office 365Microsoft products are deeply integrated into the workflow of many companies in the world. The audience form Microsoft Office 365's main product (a bundle with all the Office products, such as Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc.) surpassed 200 MAU users by the end of 2019. Office 365 also includes the ProPlus, a special service that allows tech departments of any organization to install Microsoft services on their employees' computers, as well as control the frequency with which the individual products within bundles are updated. Some of these products fall into the Monthly Channel (monthly updates), others fall into the Semi-Annual Channel (updated every six months). In mid-2019, the Teams product was included into the Monthly Channel for the new version of Office 365 ProPlus. This meant that in companies using the new version of ProPlus, Teams would be installed on employees' computers automatically with the next monthly update. Microsoft spent a year and a half polishing the Teams product. Once it was good enough, the company began to gradually introduce it to its customer base through its powerful distribution channels. After hearing about this, Slack representatives were quick to announce that Microsoft Teams overestimated their DAU numbers by including such pre-installed Teams' clients. "We define DAU as the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in the last 28-day period across the desktop client, mobile client and web client," said Microsoft Vice President Jared Spataro. "Examples of an intentional action includes starting a chat, placing a call, sharing a file, editing a document within teams, participating in a meeting, etc." Migration of users from Skype for Business to Microsoft TeamsSkype for Business corporate chat came to life in 2015, becoming a replacement for its predecessor, the Lync messenger, whose audience exceeded 100M users at the time. The new product combined features from Lync and Microsoft's recent acquisition, Skype. On September 25, 2017, Microsoft announced that Teams would at some point replace Skype for Business. Last year, the company saved the date: Skype for Business will no longer be available for new organizations starting from July 31, 2021, which is a year and a half from now. But until this date, the Teams' product will live completely separately and won't affect Skype for Business in any way. Most likely, some organizations have already started the migration, which may impact Teams' growth rate. However, this process is currently organic, and is not forced by Microsoft at all. Given the end date for Skype for Business, we can expect that the migration process will only build up its speed, and is likely to become the second powerful driver for Teams' growth next year. The absence of any forced transfusion of users from Skype for Business to Teams is also evident in the dynamics of mobile app downloads for the products: Teams' rapid growth hasn't affected Skype for Business downloads at all. The launch of Teams free versionIn July 2018, Microsoft launched a free limited version of Teams aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. Despite the fact that the launch coincided with the first jump in the number of Teams app installs, I don't think that the free version was the main driver of their phenomenal growth in 2019. The main growth channel in the SMB market is word of mouth. I explained in detail how it works in a previous Slack's review. Despite a growing interest from the market, Teams loses much to Slack in terms of organic interest in the service, fueled by a word of mouth (based on Google Trends). It is also worth noting that the numbers for Microsoft Teams might be underestimated in the graph below, since many users can search for a product by simply typing "teams". However, it is impossible to distinguish those who are looking for the service from the ones simply using the same word for their query. I think that Microsoft launched Teams free version outside Office 365 (for Office 365 customers the product was already a free addition to the general bundle of services), in order to simply tick all the boxes and meet the industry's standard, covering all the potential audience segments. But I don't believe Microsoft is that much into the SMB segment because it has traditionally drawn most of its value from contracts with large corporate customers. I might be wrong, though. In Slack's case, the focus on SMB segment and corporate teams is part of their unique bottom-up growth strategy, a stepping stone toward attracting large companies. This strategy has worked to a degree and some large teams have already started using their product. But Microsoft already has large corporate customers and it doesn't make sense for them to use the same tactic to reach customers with whom they have already built a relationship. On the other hand, Microsoft might have wanted to win back the SMB segment, which they had previously lost to Google's G Suite product. Slack will continue to grow, but won't become the market leaderSlack ushered in a new generation of messengers for teamwork. The product quickly proved that it creates significant added value over email and other general purpose messengers (such as Skype), which took over users' hearts in most tech and media companies. Slack built an effective growth machine by using their bottom-up model: Using word-of-mouth, the free version of Slack finds a foothold into teams and then starts to grow inside companies (sometimes organically, and sometimes with the help of Slack's sales team, and sometimes in both ways simultaneously). These two innovations provided the foundation that allowed Slack to create a new market and become its dominant player in the tech corporate messenger segment. A similar growth model has also become the foundation of a sustainable business model with a negative revenue churn. This means that older customer cohorts pay more over time. This happens due to Slack's increasing over-time penetration in organizations where someone has already started using the service, as well as due to these companies' growth. The creation of a new product type, the leadership in the tech niche, and most importantly, a growth model that was not dependant on the size of their sales department made it possible for Slack to build a fast-growing multi-billion dollar business and drew the attention and interest of huge investors in Slack as a company. Yet when the company went public its valuation was mostly based on its future growth potential, particularly in the Enterprise segment ($28B a year, according to the Slack team's estimates). Much of Slack's S-1 filing was dedicated to demonstrating how Slack is successfully expanding into the Enterprise segment and how well the current growth model provides a launch pad for this process. Here's what the Slack's team said it in the S-1 filing: "We offer a self-service approach, for both free and paid subscriptions to Slack, which capitalizes on strong word-of-mouth adoption and customer love for our brand. Since 2016, we have augmented our approach with a direct sales force and customer success professionals who are focused on driving successful adoption and expansion within organizations, whether on a free or paid subscription plan." Slack was too slow to conquer the market and had no built-in protection mechanismsThis is where the most interesting things surface. By the time of its IPO, Slack had a working growth model, but in the six years since its launch, this growth model provided the product with no more than 5-6M paying users. It doesn't sound too impressive if we compare it to Office 365's 200M paying users, or Skype for Business (or Lync, if we are talking about way back) with its 100M users. Slack had a very small market share at the time of their IPO filing, while their main growth potential lay in the Enterprise segment. The key question was whether Slack could transform its growth model and capture the market before Microsoft or Facebook made their move. Here is what I had to say on the matter eight months ago: "Microsoft already has access to a lot of large enterprise clients from all verticals and has been selling them products bundled in a single package for a long time. They recently added Microsoft Teams to the Office Suite, which is just as good as Slack in terms of functionality. Does Slack offer enough incentive to convince enterprise customers to forgo the benefits of their long-term relationship with Microsoft? " And now at the beginning of 2020, it seems that we have an answer to the above question. Slack, most likely, won't become the leader of the market it has created:
Slack didn't give up and tried their best to resist Teams Slack is increasing its marketing and sales budgets. The company invests a lot in increasing its penetration in companies where teams have already started using their product. To do so, they even offer large companies the offer to pay for 1,000 annual licenses and get the rest of the licenses for free. But all of these measures don't stand a chance to what Microsoft has up its sleeves. After announcing last quarter's results, Slack's CEO mentioned that the Teams audience is less engaged than Slack's, which won't allow Teams to achieve the same effect that Slack has on teams and organizations. Teams' audience might not be as engaged as the Slack's. However, if a company has already switched to Teams, this fact blocks the path for any other direct competitor, in this case Slack, to enter this company. Slack's added value pushed many users of email and Skype for Business to switch to it. But when comparing Slack to Teams, the differences are not enough to trigger the same effect at the team or company level. Microsoft was quick enough to notice the startup that began to carve itself a niche in its market by capturing the use cases previously fulfilled by email or Skype for Business. Microsoft decided to create their competitor's twin and use it to kill Skype for Business and partially Outlook on its own instead of allowing Slack to do it. This is not the first time Microsoft has played this game. We can think of Internet Explorer vs Netscape, or Lotus/WordPerfect/Harvard Graphics vs Excel/Word/PowerPoint. The scheme "default + good enough" still works just fine. New intrigue within the race: Workplace by Facebook and Microsoft Teams fighting for "Firstline Workers"In January 2019, Microsoft released a product update, where all the new features were aimed at first-line workers (sometimes they are called frontline workers). First-line workers are employees who are at the forefront and are responsible for communication with clients (e.g., salesmen, waiters, cashiers, delivery, etc.). These people usually belong to the deskless workforce, thus, they do not have their own workplace, computer, etc. Frontline workers have never been among Microsoft customers before. Most of them don't even have an email account, since the cost of such an account would have been financially unjustified. Outlook, for example, costs $4-12.5 per month per user. Such a change in product's focus can be considered a signal that the Microsoft team is pleased with the results of protecting its borders from Slack's attack, and is now ready to expand Teams onto the new markets. And this is where a new intrigue comes into the spotlight. This time it's between Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook. Key facts about Workplace by FacebookWorkplace by Facebook was publicly launched in October 2016. In February 2018, Workplace announced they had 2M paid users, and only 8 months later they claimed the figure had grown to 3M. Workplace is not a direct competitor of Slack or Teams. Workplace serves a much wider function, connecting people from different teams and parts of the organization. Most of these people would have never talked to each other under normal circumstances (for example, employees of different Starbucks coffee shops). It is worth noting that Workplace also has chat for teams, but this is only one of the product's many features. Workplace targets large organizations, most of them located outside the tech sector. Its customers include Walmart, Starbucks, AirAsia, and many other large companies. If you look at Workplace customers, you can see that the product resonated with the companies whose first-line workers are very numerous. Knowing that, the fact that Workplace is choosing to move in this direction from a product point of view can't be an accident. "Today we're announcing new Workplace plans: Workplace Essential, Advanced, Enterprise, and a Frontline add-on. These plans will help organizations to connect frontline workers with the rest of the business, predict costs, and choose the tools they need," said Facebook vice president Julien Codorniou in a statement in 2019. In addition to this, Workplace is trying to solve the problem of integrating first-line workers into the company not only from the product's side, but from the business side as well. They even presented a special tariff for the first-line employees, which is much less expensive than the standard plan: It only costs $1.5 per active user. Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook's fight for the first-line workers segmentThe first-line market segment is a great opportunity. According to Gallup, today there are 2.7B first-line workers in the world and only 13% of them feel engaged at work. This market segment has historically been deprived of communication tools, making such employees detached from the company they work at. A product that solves this problem will create a significant added value. I find the current confrontation in this segment of the company communication tool market very intriguing. The starting line up looks anything but boring. Microsoft has no clear advantages in this market segment. First, they still need to prove that their current product can create value for first-line workers. Second, their current distribution channels don't reach first-line workers (they don't use computers, which means they don't have Office 365 accounts). Most likely, Microsoft won't have trouble reaching companies with first-line employees. But once they do, they will have to come up with something new to reach the end users. Third, the battle will take place on the smartphone battleground, not personal computers. And as far as we know, this has never been Microsoft's forte. Workplace stands in a more promising position to win this market. Workplace has already shown that its product creates value for first-line workers: their successful case studies include Starbucks, AirAsia, Walmart and some other big names. Workplace also has the advantage of not requiring any workshops to master their product (everyone is already using Facebook anyway, which means that the interfaces and Workplace features will be familiar to its users). Perhaps Workplace's other advantage is that this market segment is already using Facebook tools to solve its business-related tasks (using Messenger, Whatsapp, Facebook Groups). This is only a hypothesis, but even if it is true, the task of transferring such ad-hoc and unconventional use cases to a new specialized product is yet to be solved. Summing upSlack has redefined the business messenger market, has found a unique and working growth model, and has built a decent brand. This was enough to create a multi-billion dollar company, but it wasn't enough to become the leader of the new market. Teams, which can be called a free doppelganger of Slack, currently distributed across Microsoft's client base through well-established distribution channels, has already outrun Slack's DAU numbers by a factor of two. Next year, the gap is likely to grow. I think that at this point the battle between Slack and Teams is over. Microsoft has once again reminded us that without strong network effects or other powerful protection mechanisms, control over the distribution channels remains one of the main success factors. After showing Slack who is the best, Microsoft is off to conquer the first-line workers segment, which has been deprived of any attention from the key tech players for many years. Here, the standoff will be between Teams and Workplace to win a 2.7B user market. Both products currently hold similar positions. I might even say that Workplace may have a slight advantage here. However, both of these companies are just starting to pave the way, so the best drama is yet to come. Stay tuned! [link] [comments]  |
| Terminated from my job, should I start a company ? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 04:05 PM PST Six months ago I joined an extremely well funded fintech company that has SaaS business model (selling trading systems, algorithms to family offices with large assets). CEO has 100% equity. I'm the third employee (no equity but great salary) A week ago I was terminated for no reason, this is not the decision of CEO but my supervisor's. Since CEO & my supervisor are close friends.. CEO couldn't say anything to not risk their relationship. As far as I know termination didn't happen due to, I felt very disappointed and depressed for losing my dream job. Finally recovered from this termination hangover and started thinking on ways I can continue working on the same. I can replicate the above mentioned products (trading algorithms, systems) within no time, as I was the key developer and has excellent 'know how'. I'm thinking to start a startup with similar business model (SaaS) or a typical hedge fund, where investors bring in money.. we trade and split returns. Everything was fine until I reread my employee agreement. There's a strict non-compete for 12 months. That I cannot deal with similar products or any competitors in any kind. Not sure how to proceed, Shall I run things in stealth for 1 year while working on some day job ? Any suggestions would be really helpful. P.S: CEO is in good terms with me, termination wasn't his decision. I'm meeting him next week to discuss on severance etc. Not sure if I can ask him to waive off this non-compete without revealing too many details. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Feb 2020 02:03 AM PST Hey guys! Thanks for reading my post. We are registered in UK when most of the team lives in Russia. (we are a saas for traders with some paying customers So I have spend 6 months of my life to find a person that will agree to invest in my company) and I finally found that person. When I pitched that investor I told him that we have one more potential investor who might invest $100k in our $300k round. After that, the pitched investor agreed to commit $200k of $300k. Then, I sent the commitment letter to our "potential" second investor - and he started to ignore me. I don't know the reason. After I shared this situation with the committed investor - he said that he will give us money only if somebody else joins the round (somebody who has more experience in the market of crypto) So I am in a situation when I don't want to do. I have spent 6 months to find that first investor and I really don't want to spent 6 more months on finding the second person. What would you do? As I have said, we live in Russia but our company and our first potential investor are in London. Should I leave Russia and go to London or try and find some local business angel in Russia? [link] [comments]  |
| Using pension funds to keep a startup afloat? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:20 AM PST Sorry if this is in the wrong sub Reddit, I thought this might be the best place to ask if this is a thing. I am an employee of a startup company, it's been around for a number of years but still classes itself as a start up due to no products being sold and that its trying to commercialise a researched technology thorough investors money. The start up has had financial issues multiple times while I've been here, but the past few months I've noticed that money isn't going into my pension yet it is being taken from my salary. Is this a tactic used temporarily by companies to keep afloat until more investor money comes in or is something more "dodgy" occurring? [link] [comments]  |
| Methods so a startup doesn’t run out of money? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 04:18 PM PST What methods have you used to make sure your startup/company doesn't run out of funds? From pricing to expenses and anything in between, Id appreciate any advice, even if it's anecdotal👍 I've come across a list from CBInsights stating top 20 reasons why startups fail, citing no product-market fit as #1, Running out of money #2, bad team #3. I feel I can improve on 1st and third but I'm not too experienced with money matters. (Nor am I the best at budgeting, so I'm quite concerned) [link] [comments]  |
| A piece of advice that helped me stop worrying that my business idea already exists. Posted: 07 Feb 2020 11:05 PM PST |
| How can you find environmentally friendly manufacturers? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:55 PM PST Hi all, Not sure if this is the right place for this post! But I'm really interested in starting a clothing company but Its really important to me that I do it sustainably. I actually want to donate 50% of profits to environmental charities like WWF, so it's kinda central to the idea. Does anyone have any experience finding green sustainable suppliers and discerning if they are genuinely? Would really appreciate any advice! [link] [comments]  |
| Are we approaching Product-Market fit? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:45 PM PST (B2B SaaS Data Analytics Platform) Sales in 2019 were below half a million. We spent Q4 augmenting product features and fine-tuning our features and demo. Price point is greater than $25k/year. Our inbound lead engine is all Social Ads & Lead Magnets (eBooks and the like). We started 3 BDRs in mid-January who make 200 dials per day to inbound warm leads to book demos. We book 11 demos per business day. 80% of prospects who see a demo are turning into an opportunity (requesting a proposal/contract /pricing.) Of those opportunities, 15% are turning into paying customers, with an average 2-weeks close cycle. Since the BDRs started in January, things are a lot busier than last year. Are we getting there? Which metrics should we be seeking to improve next? [link] [comments]  |
| Background check for Russian dev? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:40 PM PST I am subcontracting a guy which I found on upwork, does amazing work that never fails but so far only worked on a specific repository. I have no $$ to hire within Canada considering my situation and I need to push something out. So before giving more access, I would like to check the guy. So far I could not find any Linkedin or social media information. Any tips on background check for Russians? There could be something sensitive in the code (not directly, but exposes some information for something else that could be sensitive indirectly). [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2020 05:35 PM PST What's the best way to get involved with a startup? I have some customer service, graphic design, and general "virtual assistant" skills but I'm never sure where or how to find open positions. If any of you have ideas on the best place(s) to look - please let me know! I always want to learn and grow and I think startups are an amazing place to do that at. [link] [comments]  |
| Any ideas on how to market to adult workers? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 09:21 AM PST Have a product that is geared towards adult workers (strippers, webcam girls, escorts etc) - but due to content restrictions it's hard to find/target audiences on traditional ad networks. I tried manual outreach so far, and contacting the parent companies (such as the strip club or the webcam site) but with little luck. Has anyone experience in the field? or any marketing tactics that could be scalable in reaching them? [link] [comments]  |
| What makes you pursue something? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:46 AM PST Hello All, I wanted to know what makes you pursue something you want to build when it already exists in the market? Of course, there will be a few things that you can do differently. However, there is nothing that would stop the already established company from copying/implementing the differences you are focused on. I'm having a hard time figuring out whether I should drop the idea or proceed. [link] [comments]  |
| Experience as a Startup Employee: Thoughts? Is this normal? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 01:52 PM PST Hi everyone, This is something I just needed to share and that I need some second opinions on from other people who work in startups. I have been an employee at this startup for about half a year now. It's not in a super-early phase and has a good-sized, pretty amazing team. At first, I thought I would really enjoy working there because of the typical "flat hierarchies, lots of responsibilities" bs and also because the team is just really fun. However, at this point I am very frustrated and I am seriously considering leaving the company. I'm not sure whether what I'm experiencing at this company is in a way normal to startups and there is hope it might get better or if I really should get out of there asap. I'm curious about what other people are experiencing as startup employees and I'm also interested in the perspective of founders.
I was hired into a team of people with no experience and I have very little experience myself. We were left without a clear strategy to follow and have been burning money ever since. This is somehow our fault. All of our positions have been relabeled three times since then. Some people were already cut from the team (pretty much over night). The tasks we are being asked to do have become less and less interesting over time, while monitoring became oppressive at some point. Salaries have been cut as well (out of the blue). Every time positions are changed/re-labeled or teams are re-structured, no employee is ever asked for their input. The opinion can only ever be "yes that's a good idea". I have been told to my face that I can't be disappointed about something every normal human being would be disappointed by.
People's emails are being monitored, so are their slack conversations. There have been jokes that our screens are being captured (from higher-ups, not colleagues). Everything we do is measured in some sort of output, not by effectiveness, but by amount. The word "hustling" is thrown around a lot. There is an absurd amount of micromanaging (yet no convincing strategy to be found).
Communication is abysmal. Every time a new change is coming, it's being announced and then implemented right then and there. Changes are usually not discussed with employees beforehand, not even if it involves them directly.
It is somehow expected to stay every Friday night and get wasted with the whole team at least once a month. Booze is on the company. People are being pressured into taking shots and playing drinking games more often than not.
If one dares question the CEO, it always ends bad. Criticism isn't being taken for what it is but rather as a personal insult. Criticism, no matter how valid, is labeled as an "excuse" and apparently there is a "no excuses policy". After writing all this it does sound pretty horrible. Is this normal? Is this going to change over time as the company grows? Or is this just a "bad egg"? What do you think? [link] [comments]  |
| Is it worth giving up control over quality in exchange for lower upfront costs? Posted: 07 Feb 2020 10:18 AM PST Hey everyone, My startup, offers a platform where homeowners can rent out their homes for $0 upfront cost — and a marketplace for residents to search for and rent fully furnished, ready-to-move-in homes within minutes online. We do all of the work of marketing, renting, and managing a property, and take on the upfront cost of furnishing the space by financing it to the homeowner over the length of the rental contract (typically 36 months). In return, we take a 10% share of the monthly rent, plus 10% APY on financing. This is how we keep tight control over the quality of the furnishings and interior design of our listings. Unfortunately, we're not a cash strapped company, and while the long-term economics of financing the furniture makes sense, the short-term impact on our cash balance does not. I'd love to get others' feedback on whether or not it is worth giving up control over the quality of the furnishings and interior design of our listings in exchange for lower upfront costs. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| How to make a sales forecast for a new consumer product Posted: 07 Feb 2020 02:48 AM PST Hi there, I am currently in the process of starting a business and our idea is to bring a new consumer product to the market. I am struggling a bit to get my head around doing a sales forecast for our financial plan/budget. Since there is currently no other comparable product on the market it is difficult to find relevant data on which I can base my assumptions. One approach that I have been considering, is to keywords to estimate the sales. The process I am thinking off is like this: 1.) Identify 10 relevant keywords that fit our product. 2.) Use the search volumes and click-through rate to estimate the number of visitors to our landing page 3.) Take industry / regional average conversion rates to calculate potential sales. For example: (this is all made up to illustrate the point) Keyword = fishing rod Search volume =2000 CTR = 5% Conversion rate = 1.5% Hypothesis: 2000 people are searching for "fishing rod" per month. Of these 5% (or 100 people) would "click through" and visit our landing page. Of the 100 people, 1.5% of them would "convert" and buy the product. In this way, with that one keyword, the estimated sales would be 1.5 (units) per month. Assuming that each person buys one unit. Does an approach like this make sense? Are there ways to improve upon the above? Are there any other/better methods for doing a sales forecast when you have ZERO data and need to justify all the assumptions you've made. **it would be cool to just assume that we will sell 100 units per month but there is no empirical data to back up any such assumption, which leads me to think about different ways of estimating it. [link] [comments]  |
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