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ShoutEm - It's alright to pivot
1. ShoutEm story It’s alright to pivotLuka AbrusFive Minutes CEOShoutEm Member of the board 1
2. How it all started. Five Minutes development team Web development company, 2 guys Product oriented at first - Pticica, Trosjed… Standard issues with local market In a nutshell, too low ROI Custom mobile & web apps Service oriented Global product developed in parallel 2
3. First steps. Two key motivators Google Android and Ning platform Huge potential for Mobile Social Networking? First idea: “Mobile Ning” (without the mobile) Anyone can create their own community Schools, sport clubs, companies… Twitter simplicity Web-only microblogging Launched on LeWeb 2008 3
5. (No) Funding. How to continue the development? Finance it internally from other projects 5 people team / company Working weekends, holidays, long hours… Number of users rising, but no money Trying to find VC’s and large customers “Invest in lines, not in dots” 5
6. First pivot. Technology oriented – move to mobile Smartphone platform growth ShoutEmApp – unified app for all communities Year 2009 – year of learning Networking, development, pitches, competitions Number of users growing – freemium model No conversion from free to paid, no profitability 6
8. Epiphanies. Three of them! People are willing to pay for their branded apps One blog post briefly mentioned customized apps Huge interest – we picked a few & built them Community management crucial for success Examined 30.000+ networks on ShoutEm, very few active Build networks around existing sites and content Majority of mobile apps are pretty similar Huge interest for mobile apps – 400.000+ in iTunes Typical costs 10-50k USD News, Events, Community, Location, Podcasting, Photos, Videos… 8
9. Idea. Pivot. Investment. Second pivot was business oriented What if we could… Create a standardized app that fits 75% needs Sell it for 50-100$ per month Do it as a self-service model and scale it Build on top of current code base RSG Kapital investment, VC from Ljubljana They monitored us for two years Five Minutes team grew to 25 people 100% YoY growth, worldwide clients 1.2m USD funding in August 2010 9 VC funding
12. How did we use the investment? Opened up London and New York offices Hired sales representatives (Seedcamp network) Boost up the development Optimizing features, user experience, process… Hiring only the best And “restructuring” the rest Speed up the sales process Enterprise and lighthouse customers Self-service is good, but… 12
13. Today. Five Minutes 35 people, services &product business ShoutEm Sales. Sales. Sales. New York! 10 people Series B? 13
14. Pivoting 101 Everyone does it. YouTube, Nokia, 3M, Twitter, PayPal, Flickr, Seesmic… Natural process of evolution. Everyone will doubt you. The team. The partners. The community. You. 14