What happened to Yoza? [Part 2 of 3]
I have received a lot of feedback for part one of the series and I want to appreciate everyone that took the time to read it and send feedback both online and offline.
Thank you!
“Tell me your dreams and I will make them come true” — Mozey Radio (Street lights)
To us, product-market fit was seeing the subscription numbers grow. We had a few customers who loved our product and they were our somewhat loyal customers for the next few months.
With the money already in the bank, all we had to do is make sure they had a specific washer, at a specific time in the week.
Laundry was done on weekends and washers were paid on Wednesdays. Wednesday nights were reserved for a beer and brainstorm session.
Beer also gave us the chance to call each other out;
F**K You Zerga!
You can’t do your F**king Job Nick!
Solo the website looks like s**t!
Thursday nights were for #Jamrock (reggae night) and we would go to Iguana(Bar), hand out fliers and buy the Deejays some beer or Red bull for couple of mentions about our product.
This is our repeatable execution model.
Then hit the weekend again
Find purpose:
The most rewarding part of building this business was stumbling upon the fact that our service was helping single mothers like Naiga pay their rent and take care of their babies.
I remember some hard days when everything wasn’t working but we kept on going for the women who really depended on the app to find more customers.
Most washers went from doing laundry for 2 customers a week to 10 -15 customers.
Media Traction:
We were covered by CNN and BBC at the end of the 2015 and start of 2016 and this amazing PR generated a lot business for us. This was such a big deal for our startup and opened us up to crazy opportunities.
We got an all time high before Christmas. Customers just kept pouring in and we dug into the work. The manual process helped visit our clients and we discovered how most clients would show small acts of kindness to our washers like giving them breakfast before they started washing.
We used the wave to partner with Dry cleaning companies for our premium clients and another big partnership with IFF.
Powder Detergent:
When you think about laundry, I bet you will think about that laundry bin in the corner of your bedroom that you keep adding to but never want to do. We saw the whole customer journey and one opportunity we came to appreciate was the powder detergent which was at the center of all the laundry, hence our partnership with IFF
“My bed sheets smell really nice and I love your powder detergent.” — Customer feedback.
IFF makes, among other things, fragrance technology that companies like Unilever use in powder detergent. I must say they are the best at what they do at least from testing different fragrances with our customers.
We were doing market research as a service for a global brand and competing with very well established firms. Our technology made customer research feedback instant compared to waiting for months to get this feedback.
We created so much value for the laundry and tech industry with so much ease and I guess that’s what product market fit feels like.
First signs of danger:
Much as we were genuinely winning the hearts of our customer, we overlooked one big thing that was developing and growing right under our noses
We underestimated the technology divide between our customers and washers
The washers had features phones and our customers had smartphones.
Yes, we appreciated talking to our customer physically BUT this was turning out to be one painful business to run if we didn’t fix it.
True, this played a part in our failure but this was not the only reason that we found ourselves in this mess we are in
In part 3, I get into the ego clashes and destructive diversification among other beautifully chaotic reasons as to why we went under.
