Week 42 🛫 #TravelTuesday on a Thursday…
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What we did
The Big Picture
This week I spent three focused days drafting Moneycado’s “Six-Page Memo”, an essay on how we see the financial services landscape, the problem we’re solving and how we’re doing so. As we’re gearing up to pitch for seed investment, it helped me to distil my thinking. I’ve sent out to a few trusted friends for feedback, and will publish in the next fortnight.
On Thursday we went to Founders Factory to present to the operations team. We focused heavily on framing the problem we’re solving, rather than giving the standard pitch. It’s absolutely essential that we give the right background to the team that will be helping us develop our concept. Matt presented confidently — he’s improved enormously from where he started — and we felt really welcomed by the team. A great start!
You can check out the presentation here.
Marketing
On Thursday we ran our second #TravelTuesday event. The second event is always tougher than the first (we’ve used up the goodwill from our friends!) but the turnout was encouraging. More of our audience was through word of mouth than through our social network. We had presentations from:
- Greg, CEO of Go And Travel
- Reine, travel marketing supremo and official Friend of Moneycado
- Will Liney, itinerant adventurer and film-maker
- Sam from Bare Boat Sailing
73 Day Goals
Friday marked the end date for our our ’73 Day Goals’, the targets which Matt and I formulated together at the end of June.
How did we do?
- 20 active users on our prototype
Incomplete. We brought on technical team members(Mark and George), figured out how to connect to banks (via Yapily, following an abortive attempt with Teller) and designed a means of setting up savings goals and plans. It’ll be another 2 weeks before we’re ready to take on users for our prototype product. - 3 events
Incomplete. We ran two, which have helped us build community and reach potential early users. Although we didn’t hit the goal I consider this a success. - 5 partners
Not started. Our business development fell by the wayside, as we rationalised we’d have far more success once we could start utilising the Founders Factory network and the fantastic Alice Ferrari! - 1000 waitlist
Incomplete. Our current waitlist is 282. Working towards this number encouraged the wrong behaviour during July, where we were more focused on getting the word out than building a message that users naturally wanted to share. We’re now far more focused on creating share-ability and really strong ‘A-hah!’ moments.
We didn’t fully achieve any of our 73 Day Goals. Do I consider this a failure? Absolutely not. The most important output for early-stage startups is validated learnings which we acquired in droves. These goals pointed our effort in the right direction, which was their intended purpose in the first place.
What we will do next
Next week we move into Founders Factory, where we’ll be based until 9 March next year. Next week the focus will be entirely on bringing our assigned Founders Factory team into the fold. Our success in the program depends heavily on making them feel a part of the Moneycado team and mission, and so we want to spend the time getting to know them properly.
On Monday we’re meeting to discuss our OKRs (objectives and key results) for the six months. I hope to share these with you in next week’s blog!
Problems we’re facing
- Finding more technical talent to help us with our prototype (Mark is off on a 2 month trip in September); and
- Finding an outstanding wildcard for our Morocco design sprint 11–18 October. Spread the word!
Thanks to
- Greg, Will, Sam and Reine for speaking at our #TravelTuesday event; and
- Yannick, Jenny and Peony for providing feedback on our Six-Page Memo.
Until next week!
Oli
Moneycado is your new bank account for your bucket list. To find out how much your trip might cost or get some trip inspiration based on your travel profile head to our website.
