A talk we gave at the Indianapolis Lean Startup Circle Aug '13 meetup.

1. Hubstaff
What we’ve learned so far...

2. What is Hubstaff?
Tracks employee time
Takes random screenshots
Records activity levels
Gives management dashboard & reports

3. Some Stats
14 months
4300+ users
15k new screenshots uploaded daily
88+ days of hours tracked daily
20k projects created
100+ countries

6. Background
Dave Nevogt
Marketing/Operations
IU Business, Grown multiple 1MM+
online businesses
Jared Brown
Development
Purdue CS, 10+ years professional
experience, freelancer

7. Overview
3 Biggest early mistakes
4 Biggest early wins
We’re still getting started, lots
of mistakes still to make :)

8. The Plan
Present our mistakes & wins
quickly
Give 5 mins for discussion
The Goal: Present a real problem
in our business and collectively
learn how to solve it in a lean
startup way.

9. Mistake #1 - Not Building
Features Quickly
Retention
Over-engineering (robust)
Flexibility is king
Waste time on worthless features

10. Example - Multi-
Organization Support
Problem: Users work for multiple
companies.
Our solution: Users can belong to multiple
organizations. Avoid multiple accounts.
Issues: Complex, confusing permissions.
Long build-out. Confusing payment
process.
Results: 200+ customers have multiple,
paid organizations

11. How can we stop over-
engineering?
What would you do?
Do we put the effort in
upfront or later?

12. Mistake #2 - Not
Dedicating Enough
Time / Focus
Hard to leave current jobs
Opportunity window closes
Dedicating 100% =
Exponential results

13. Example - Dev & Support
Rule the Biz
Problem: Dev & support efforts
take up 80% of our scarce time.
Our solution: Find a dedicated
support person and do what we
can (work overtime).

14. How can we dedicate
more time?
What are our options?
What would you do?

15. Mistake #3 - Not
Charging Sooner
Didn’t feel it’s fully baked
Don’t know most valuable
demographic early
Higher retention of early users
Attract a different class of users

16. Example - Desktop
clients had bugs
Problem: Desktop clients had
bugs and web UI lacked core
features.
Our solution: Slap a beta label on
it and not charge.

17. How early should we
have started charging?
What would you do?

18. Win #1 - 50% split equity
& opposite skills
Keeps everyone fully invested
Nothing else can easily
replace it
Makes it easier to get all tasks
done

19. Is this the best way?
Many ways to do it
Has anyone had a bad
experience doing 50/50?
Do you shoulder the burden and
hand out small equity amounts?

20. Win #2 - Use services,
platforms and tools
Heroku, hosted Postgres,
ActiveAdmin, Intercom,
InstrumentalApp, New Relic,
Bootstrap, Rails, Themes,
GetAmbassador,
ReferralSaaSquatch, Desk, etc.

21. What services do you
use?

22. Win #3 - Early validation
of concept and marketing
White-labeled existing product
Tested conversion rates with
real marketing campaigns
Created new landing pages

23. Other than white-labeling
what ideas do you have
that could get you to a
paying product in 30
days.

24. Win #4 - Buying Traffic
Made user acquisition automatic
Validate whether the market wants this
very early
Validate whether marketing is
affordable and scalable
Zero-in on keywords and roll that into
SEO

25. What other traffic
generations methods are
really good and that we
should be doing?

26. Thank you!