Often, We’re Only Telling Half The Story: How Our Startup Finds Its Plot
NowFloats Annual Mail, Dec 2014
I write to my team at the end of every year. As we wrap up 2016, I have to write one again. But not before I reflect on where we were at this time in the past. You’ll find the rest of my e-mails here.
The following is the mail I wrote at the end of 2014. You’ll see why this one is especially close to my heart. It’s the year when we were ‘making it’. Little did we know how much more we could do. I’ll save that story for tomorrow, though.
Team,
Exactly this time, last year we were at 4.5K customer with 1.3K paid (I checked from my last year’s mail). And where are we today? We are at 32K customers with 15K paid which makes it a 700% (all) and 1100% (paid) growth in 2014. One word. Wow.
Let’s review the lowlights, before the highlights:
1. Cleaner entry and exit process on our platform. Still needs work!
2. Sales efficiency which includes enablement, training, leads and expectation setting
3. Capital: This took way longer than anticipated. In April, we moved ahead with a decision which was, at the time we took it, the right thing to do. Then we made a few mistakes and had to undo a few things. It will seem, in hindsight, that we were slow in closing. But the fact is we were perhaps too quick in finalizing but slow in executing. The good news is we stayed the course and stuck to our commitment. Lesson learnt.
4. Finance and Budgeting: Continued to be a low-light but we are on track for this in 2015. Hopefully.
5. Product: We have not innovated enough on the FP side of our product. We did well on the APP, the dashboards, the FB integrations, etc. but we have to bring back a bunch of innovation to our core consumer promise. [See how our app eventually turned out here.]
6. Engagement & Renewals: While we are a lot ahead of industry benchmarks on this, we have yet to hit our own higher bar.
Here are my top 10 highlights/updates of 2015:
1. You: The last time I counted, almost 18 (about 30% of NowFloats) had moved to different, bigger roles. So many of you sent me your 2014 stories. Each and every one was awesome. Some key phrases that I picked up:
“so much enthusiasm, dedication and madness towards work”
“Impossible word itself says I M Possible. So Try Try Try and Try till things get Possible.”
“Everyone feels that he/she is the boss of the company”
“It’s like a dream come true for me”
“Dil se I say that this is the perfect product for SME’s to get healthy profitable business”
“NowFloats is a place from where you can learn anything”
And I say this proudly in my investor documents: the early team members are still here!
2. Sales & Revenue (or the commitment of our sales team!): We are growing 40%+ MoM, just from our direct sales. And this rate, we are easily the fastest growing company in the SME space in India. We opened new operations: Ahmedabad, Mysore, and Vizag.
When we review some of the other players in the market (not necessarily our competition), we are ahead of many established players who have been around for years, even decades! And if we just replicate some of the bright performances we get from some of the sales people, we can be huge!
But what really matters is the culture that we have in our sales organization which is parallel to none. The WhatsApps, the Tweets, the Sundays, the energy. This is our IP!
3. Our Partnerships
a. AskMe: Our first channel partner and we continue to penetrate India with them. We are at the stage of going beyond and are now bringing market innovations with them.
b. Verisign: The team at Verisign remain one of our first and biggest corporate supporters. Wait for some great stuff coming in Q1 of 2015.
c. Microsoft: Our relationship with MS continues on the right track. From the 4Afrika initiative, to presenting at MS Ventures Global Demo Day in SFO, to the office space at MS Ventures, to partner and customer connects, to regular press coverage. In December, we launched an interesting/ambitious bundle for the Indian market along with MS O365 & GoDaddy. And very recently, the CEO of Microsoft International, Jean Philippe Courtois mentioned NowFloats under his top 10 moments of 2014. I stole his idea of ‘top 10’ to make this list :)
d. Datum Digital: We have the starting of a good partnership here towards Africa (starting with Kenya) and India.
e. Others: vConnect (Nigeria), local web partners & iSPIRT are going to be built out in 2015. Plans are on track!
4. Consistent Recognition: From being featured regularly in Economic Times to the cover story of Business Today, to NDTV, YourStory, e27, Frost & Sullivan, Zinnov, The Next Web, we kept the momentum on being in the news. We were invited to speak at prestigious events including NPC, TiE, INKTalks, The IT Minister of India, TechSparks, Startup Weekend, ThinkNext, Canada Technology Accelerator, ISB, FICCIFRAMES, Festival of Media, etc.
And winning such prestigious awards such as Google Top 3 Apps, The Hot 100, help our brand recall in the market. We also have our investors to vouch for us (Karthik Reddy to e27) and we even got compared to Wix & Weebly by Business2Community!
5. Granny’s Inn: In a span of 3 months, we got this customer to #1 in Trip Advisor and to over 60% occupancy from 20%. Manish Sinha, the CEO of this homestay has not only become a key testimonial but also a fan of NowFloats.
On the days I indulge myself, I watch this video with a stupid smile on my face:
6. Twitter: Almost 30% of NowFloats is active on Twitter. Many of you ask: Why is Jas obsessed with Twitter? Well here is the answer for the first time: Twitter is a sophisticated skill that requires commitment, the skills we need at NowFloats. Twitter is the perfect place to learn about our industry, the market, the competition. It’s also a sales tool. And finally, it’s the de-facto communication channel at NowFloats — both internally and externally. It’s the easiest way to get all of us on the same page, in real-time.
7. Our Investors and Advisors: For me personally, the last 8 months have been harder than the first 2 years. Growth, raising capital, making mistakes and taking a last minute U-turn on a very important decision. All part of the game, but if we did not had the right investors and advisors, we would have been toast by now.
8. Founders: All of you have seen the 4 of us spar (more Neeraj and I then Ronak/Nitin!). We do this in front of you and whenever we get the chance. But what I hope you also notice, is that we are back (or getting a beer) within hours. And that is what matters. Because when I was busy getting our funding in place, these guys were running everything. Which they always have been, just that I was more absent last few months :(
9. Our Product: Is this because I am a founder that I love our product?! I get fascinated about what we are doing every single day. I mean, look what we have done: no internet, no PC, no expertise, not even a smartphone… and we get you online and grow your business? Man! This is our purpose — make it simple for small businesses to get bigger.
10. The Delhi Metro Feeling: I use this phrase a little loosely to define the moments when someone recognizes us. And then buys from us! I think we had about 3 customers who recognized the NowFloats shirts in the Delhi Metro so far. Not counting the numerous other times when strangers nod when you say NowFloats. So much fun!
Looking forward to 2015
Before 2015 imperatives, a step back. To make sure all of us are on the same page: we have a technology platform with a wide gamut of demand and impact. That makes us think more broadly about scale in the least amount of time.
We started with direct sales even when our product was in alpha. This was our way of finding the market fit. And we will continue to invest and grow this team, for the specific reason of innovating with our customers, who, if you may notice are not online in the first place!
More recently, our bet on alliances is paying off with our partners driving a significant part of our scale and revenue.
From my perspective, here is what we need to focus on:
1. The Technology Evolution: In 2015, we will start investing in 2 distinct verticals, which, quite obviously, will mirror our two flagship offerings:
a. Lighthouse is about organic traffic. This is where our original DNA is/was — the core IP of NowFloats, around location based SEO. This is pure search traffic based on the location + our design + content that our customers generate. This is where we started and it was our innovation to the market.
b. Wildfire is NowFloats on inorganic steroids (pun intended!). This is what our customers have been asking us and thus this is the innovation that the market has driven us to do. Customers, happy with our organic offering want to grow their business even more and are willing to spend more money. We are using our technology and the Google partnership to innovate here — we have built this out already and are going to scale this in 2015. Most digital marketing agencies use a very manual process to do AdWords or FB campaigns; we will automate this and disrupt this market as well.
2. Innovation includes fulfillment, sales & distribution: This will be the year we invest and innovate on the distribution channels. For all our partners, including our own sales team. Confused? Think about this: If we create a platform that is so easy (and self-serving) to plug into with auto-provision, deep analytics, alerts, prompted actions, etc. then even our own direct sales team becomes a ‘customer’ to this platform. The same analytics & dashboards that we have built for our partners can now be used by city managers to understand what is happening in their location.
This is the same analogy as when we started direct sales and learnt from our customers. Now we are innovating with our partners and enabling our own teams :)
3. Engagement, Engagement, Engagement: Once we have a customer then we have to add such significant value that they see value every-day. This is the year we have to make RIA pervasive. From within the APP, email or whatever is the effective channel.
I have started using the phrase ‘complexity of growth’ a lot. And this sums up our current state and the focus for 2015. We are on track for growth. But we need to get predictable growth. Only we can f*** up now, not the market, not competition. The only way we will grow is when each one of you will understand the importance of your role and the DNA of NowFloats.
Finally, from all the mails I got this sums up everything about being at NowFloats. And what I am most passionate about.
“I cannot describe my experience in one line. For me, NowFloats is a place from where you can learn anything — how to work from the scratch; how to deal with customers; how to deal with more than one co-founder; how to work with deadlines; how to achieve your target; how to deal with your responsible, irresponsible and moody colleagues; how to enjoy work; how to work hard; how to start working after 12 PM and finishing at 4 AM; how to use smart phones, tabs, whatsapp; how to tweet and retweet; how to use slang; how to drink; how to work without AC and fan; how to get right data; how to become stronger and smarter. So, NowFloats is a perfect mixture of everything we can think of.”
To a great 2015!
Jas
