I always had a lot of ideas. I am one of those kinds of people who invented Facebook before Zuckerberg or Google before Sergey Brin and Larry Page got to it.
Do you like iced coffee!? My idea! :) My version of Game of Thrones ends better than the “original” one.
Therefore, I was happy when one of my many ideas ended with the proposal from my boss to start the implementation of this service as a part of our company.
… two weeks of research and planning later, we determined and approved resources that we needed to implement my ideas into a real SAAS software product, as well as clear KPIs and triggers that would imply additional investment.
That’s how our 2-person startup team (one full stack developer and I) was formed. Later our team extended with another two junior managers who were recruited to offload duties from my job routine outside this project and to boost work on BC (for now, let’s just call our project BC). Besides, we have the opportunity to seek help and expertise from our other designers, marketer and developers in the company.
Our product wasn’t the biggest priority in the company. But that’s how I gained the trust and a great chance to realize my first “world-changing” idea.
ACCEPTING NEW RULES AND CLIMATE
Initially we planned to publicly release our service in the late spring of 2020. It turned out to be quite an ambitious deadline which we will later find to be unrealistic. When it became clear that in the best case scenario we would be able to finish the development closer to the end of the summer, that meant that there will be more costs, and in turn, means that we will need to use our marketing budget to continue development or request additional funds.
The first scenario will mean that I would start with almost no money for advertising and content creation. So I preferred the second one and was sure in my ability to convince all my superiors. But it seems I did not foresee something …
COVID-19 and also quarantine in most countries of Europe and the USA, which started a new global recession. This is the period when companies need to optimize processes and also reduce their costs and expenses for survival. The climate is not only not particularly suitable for additional investment but even endangers such projects as BC, and the next few months will bring only losses to the company.
Struggling with thoughts of not completing the project was very annoying and depressing. But at the end of the day, you accept the facts of this climate and requirements. So at this point we concluded that we had two ways to weather the storm.
The first one was to snuggle up to the shore and wait out the storm on land with the hopes that the wave will not be strong enough to shatter our ship to hell. Then we can quickly return to work without losing too much of the progress we already made. The other was to sail towards a big wave, hoping to move far enough from the shore and that our boat and team will handle and overcome the wave.
The Sun will come out tomorrow © little orphan Annie
I feel like a lot of people have similar dilemmas right now and I don’t know which choice is correct. I feel that’s personal and depends on lots of factors. But what I learned from my experience in managing products/projects/processes, is that the lack of decision is always the worst decision. Therefore, in the next few days I consolidated all product documentation, marketing plans, and roadmaps.
I crossed out tasks and ideas that had seemed great and innovative to me just a few months earlier and rescheduled or searched for an alternative. I looked for ready-made solutions and prioritized again our features and goals. The whole process of rethinking and minimizing the project is a separate story with lots of agitation and emotions. This feeling when adrenaline fills your body and mind. Damn amazing and at the same time frightening state. As a result of the whole process, our domain backlinkcontrol.com appeared as a public splash page with a countdown to launch.
May 19, we will launch our project and begin to promote it. To save this project, we decided to sail to the wave as fast as possible. For BC survival, we decided:
- To throw away part of the functionality and features.
- Release our service initially in the form of a working MVP (minimum viable product), that will be valuable for early users as soon as possible. And to develop all other features in the process of marketing and distribution by updates.
- We have redone almost half of our marketing plan, making it more focused on all sources on few but strong traffic and engagement channels we can handle better.
- Start implementing marketing actions right away.
The decision to throw out some functionality was hard. Really hard. It is as if you are tearing integral pieces from your dream. But when you need to survive there is no time to dream, all you are doing is acting and focusing on things you can do. We should attract customers and make the project self-sustaining in the next three or at least four months. That will prove our theory and will open the opportunity for additional fundraising from the head company.
About Product:
Backlinkcontrol (BC) — is a low-cost SaaS service for Link Builders and Link Buyers who need a fast and easy way to find out and track the quality and relevancy of the backlinks they buy and monitor further.
Unlike Ahrefs, Semrush, and Majestic (most authoritative Link Analysis Tools), we check backlinks in real-time and are open to using them to make our service more useful and accurate.
How it works you can find in our Product Designing Post from the Journey.
But for most readers of this post, you probably need just to note that SEO is one of the most misunderstood parts of marketing. So that makes a lot of opportunities for “bullshit” sales and different types of scammers.
Link Building, in turn, is the essential and most controversial part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) with some risk factors. The price of a backlink or the process of creating a link to your resource can vary from a few cents to thousands of dollars. And usually you can find scams in any price category.
About “Journey”
I intend to honestly and openly document our entire process of developing, launching, and marketing this service. I hope that it will be helpful for someone besides myself 10 years from now or that it will motivate somebody to find new possibilities in that negative narrative around us these days.
But I definitely would not waste time writing all of this right now if I did not believe that it can bring value and benefits for Backlink Control.
This “journey” is part of our marketing strategy, the results of which we will also summarize in it.
I will publish at least weekly reports of what is happening and some progress stats. I will be infinitely grateful for any feedback and advice.
Our team will also publish all micro-updates and micro news on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages. So if you are interested in all the details, subscribe to our social accounts and stay tuned.
Other Parts of the Journey:
