Customers sitting next to you
Tap the internal market at your Accelerator
I am sitting at Eleven’s accelerator desk and I see a lot of people staring at their screens.
They are probably building some website/app or writing some marketing material.
They work hard to build a product and bring it to the masses.
Once the product is ready the time comes to sell.
And this is when it gets tough. Really tough.
This is why we tend to postpone that dreadful moment.
So, they tell us, we should start to validate early. Do it now and it’s going to be easier to accept criticism. Also, it will give us time to fix those mistakes we are probably developing right now.
The theory is great but in reality selling takes a lot of time and we don’t have it. The only way is to always be selling.
So, I look at this rooms of people looking at their screen and an idea comes to my mind: let’s sell to each other.
Let me start:
We at Adormo.com have apartments around the world and they are often cheaper than on other websites because we don’t charge a commission to the guest. Also, we visit them so if you have to go to, say, Prague, ask me and I’ll tell you the best deal at the moment.
For instance right now I’d suggest you this one, pretty new and in a great location. Want something really cheap? Go to Mila and you can stay in the center of Prague for 30 €.
Any friend coming to Sofia? See these ones, they are expensive but really nice. I stayed there the first time in Sofia.
A group of 4 will spend about 15 € each.
Need a cheap one? This one comes for 20 € for 1 person.
Again, no commission to you on top (we charge the owners).
And I’ve personally slept in all of them.
If then you still go to Airbnb or Booking.com it’s fine.
But we are on the same boat, so have at least a look at Adormo first.
Now, a few other people.
Let’s see. Busses. There’s these Stigni guys and you can book bus tickets with them. Next time we need a ticket, let’s go to their site and see if it that the job.
If it does: buy
If it does not: tell them why.
LEAP
What: share an extreme sport video
Next time you want to share an extreme sport video, use their platform and then share it on FB. You can do many other things on their site, but let’s stick to one. “Many things” is a killer.
You see, maybe they’ll be grateful and will use/promote your app even if it’s not the most comfortable thing to do.
What: go mobile/app quickly. Great for restaurants and non-technical people.
You are all probably too technical to need them, but you may have some friends in Sofia who run a small business and want to be mobile. Yes, sure, you could build it for them or point them to millions other solutions. The thing is that if you tell Martin, he will go there and solve their problem in no time.
This is an example of something else we could be doing: help other Eleven teams sell. Why not?
These above are just examples, but what can really be powerful is that each start-up sends a reply in this way:
- Website/App
- What you do in a few words
That’s it. Send it to the Eleven All group, comment here or get them at the bar.
Ivan from Yanado did this to me and I remember him now. I don’t remember many others. We had small talk but they did not try to sell to me, so I wasn’t challenged and I forgot.
Let me know if there’s something I can buy from you or some service I can use and recommend to my friends.
We are what, 70 start-up? That’s about 300 people you can reach easily.
And each person has maybe 30 friends, so this is 9000 people you could reach with one reply to this article.
Selling is a bitch and we may not want to sell to each other, as it may seem like we want to cheat each other. It’s not like that. We should help each other and the best way you can help me is let me try to sell you my product.
So, what are you building? Can I use it? Let me know!
