How to (not) antagonize your customers in a Lean Startup world
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Transcript of How to (not) antagonize your customers in a Lean Startup world
HOW TO (NOT) ANTAGONIZE YOUR
CUSTOMERSIN A LEAN STARTUP WORLD
Ryan Hops
Loyalty WorldMarch 2013
MY GOAL
How to succeed in the digital era, in the world of lean startup, and not piss off your
customers.
I WANT TO LEAVE YOU WITH:
ME:✓ 20 something entrepreneur
✓ Product guy
✓ From Chinese HedgeFund to fintech entrepreneur
✓ UWO - Bachelor of Finance
WALL STREET SURVIVOR SOME NUMBERS: 3M+ pageviews/month, 500k+ users
JOINT VENTURES: With huge financial portals like AOL and the Motley Fool
OUR TECH: Our tech powers 80% of the top business schools in the US
THE EVOLUTION OF WSS
Like many consumer internet startups, WSS is the poster-child for being a pivot machine.
Let’s create a gambling website(2007-2008)
IDEA #1
LEARNING #1
Gambling was a little too grey.
Yahoo Fantasy sports for stock market(2008-2012)
IDEA #2
LEARNING #2
Managing a sports team is a more fun than managing a
stock portfolio.
Financial Education3RD TIME’S A CHARM
LEARNING #3
Huge opportunity to integrate onto 3rd party sites.
THE 6 STEPS
WE TOOK TO NOT PISS OFF OUR
500 000 USERS
(AND NOT LOSE OUR $1,000,000 INVESTMENT)
#1 - WARNING
✓ Give people warnings...
✓ Like lots of warnings...
✓ Like early, often and everywhere...
SOCIAL MEDIA
BLOG
ON-SITE MESSAGING
✓ Don’t worry about your competitors.
✓ Stealth is VERY overrated.
TIP:
#2 - FIND YOUR CORE
✓ Who are your power users/customers? And how can you reach them?
Reach out and make it personal.
WALL STREET SURVIVOR’S TWO BIGGEST FANS
The Johnson brothers from West Monroe, Louisiana
TIP:
✓ the more passionate they will become about your company
✓ the more you will learn about your all users
TIP:The more you connect with your power users:
#3 - SHOW MOCKUPS
✓ Get feedback early. Show to your future customer base as well as existing.
FIRST MOCK LAST MOCK
TIP:
✓ Show, Show and show some more. The more you show, the less drastic your launch will be.
TIP:
#4 -
✓ Create an invite-only beta version
✓ Behavioral vs attitudinal data
BRING THEM INTO THE PROCESS
CROWDSCIENCE
QUALROO
Install Feedback-gathering tools
GETSATISFACTION
✓ If you are proud about your beta, you’re doing it all wrong.
TIP:
#5 - GIVE THEM OPTIONS
✓ People hate when change is forced on them
2,794,000
That’s how many people still use AOL dial-up!
Bottom line: Some people WILL not change.If it’s still profitable to do so, give them options.
2,794,000
Legacy.WallStreetSurvivor.com is still available.
✓ Make them feel like the old site is a rusty old car.
TIP:
#6 -
✓ Don’t listen to your customers too much
✓ Customers (sometimes the best customers) are biased
SOME CUSTOMERS ARE WRONG
✓ If companies only cared about what their customers wanted, there would be no iPhone.
TIP:
BONUS: CASE STUDY
DIGG V4
✓ Digg was founded in 2004 by Kevin Rose (picture on the right)
✓ In 2008, Google offered to buy it for 200m.
✓ By 2010 it was one of the ten biggest sites on the internet
DIGG V3
✓ In 2010, Digg relaunched the site with a brand new design and a totally revamped functionality
✓ In one month after their launch traffic dropped 34%
✓ The never really looked back. In 2012 they sold to Betaworks for $500,000.
DIGG V4
✓ They didn’t involve their power users.
✓ Digg was a community that thrived on it’s power users (less than 100 people).
✓ When the site launched, they were as shocked as everybody.
FATAL MISTAKE #1
They headed over to Reddit to complain and stayed there.
WHAT HAPPENED?
TODAY
Reddit.com is one of the most popular websites around
Image source: newsone.com
✓ They implemented features that none of their users wanted
✓ They built features like My News that no one wanted
FATAL MISTAKE #2
✓ Test, test, test.
TAKE-AWAY:
✓ Too much change - too quickly!
✓ No communication
✓ No roll-out of features
FATAL MISTAKE #3
COMPARISON: FACEBOOKFacebook has had as many unpopular changes as any startup but they roll-out their features slowly - not all at once!
2006 - mini feeds
2008 - the Wall
2009 - Fan pages and the Like button
2010 - the Wall is gone... the Newsfeed is here!
2011 - Ticker and Timeline
THANK YOU!Q&A TIME!
Ryan Hops
Linkedin.com/in/ryanhops@ryanhops