Start with the problem first, not the solution.
Not sure what this is, start here with our README, or catch up on last week, VRBTM On-boarding Campaigns | Week IX.
I’ve been thinking about what we’re building and why we’re building it a lot since last week. This is coming from how we’ve been running into the problem of people not understanding what we’re doing. Even with the README and these weekly articles documenting everything, it’s apparently not clear. That said, when we have the opportunity to explain the product to someone in person, they get it no problem. Which means that what we’re saying, and what we’re typing out are not the same.
With that, I expect Nick and I are not the first to wonder: Are we building something people will actually want. Let alone use and pay for. And if how we’re explaining it isn’t coming across in a way people instantly get, there’s no way they’ll spend enough time with the product to realize the value it provides.
Taking a step back, I realize that all of our write ups focus on the solution and don’t really name the problem. In each case we jump to our execution instead of paint the picture of why we need to solve anything in the first place. We have to give them something to relate to. We have to start with the problem first. Which is easy, it’s why I came up with the idea and it’s what Nick saw the value in right away when we first started.
The Problem
Have you ever needed to get an approval from a client? Do you transfer that content in slide decks, word documents, spreadsheets, emails? Do you have to transfer that content manually between each of those places? Do you have more than one copy of each asset? Do you manually keep track of each version when you have to make revisions? Do people get added in and taken out of email threads? Do people give you feedback who actually aren’t your client? Do you have to dig through email threads to find feedback? How many emails chains does it take to get something approved? Do you really know when something is approved?
How much time do you and your team spend just keeping track of everything?
What if there was one platform that tracked all of your content, feedback, versions and approvals, and automated all communication — would that potentially be valuable to your business and clients?
We’ll that’s what VRBTM does.
VRBTM sends content to your clients where you can set approvers, commenters and viewers, in secure, authenticated review pages where all activity and feedback is tracked in a single, timestamped, feed. Oh, and approvals are legally binding so you can enforce your project plan when clients ask you for more than they’re paying for.
You can test out our prototype right now, and we’ll have beta accounts ready by the beginning of 2017.
That’s the type of writing I/we need to be doing when we’re writing about what VRBTM is. We need to name the problem, put forth a view of what the future could be like, offer a solution and give proof that it exists. I think we’ll see a lot more engagement that way going forward. I also need to go back to those older articles and update them with this so we don’t lose people if they start from the beginning like we have been.
Overall this was a bit of a slower week for me. Transitioning away from the production side of things: product design, email on-boarding. As we’re getting closer to having a feature full product that people can sign up for I need to add another thing to what I’m doing. Business development. Which means strategizing and talking to people about VRBTM who we have (or will) identify as potential customers of ours. We can’t have all of this work be for nothing, so getting VRBTM in the hands of those who will benefit from it most will help us is so many ways as we look to growing it. Along with this, as I mentioned a couple weeks back, I need to develop financial and growth models to help us see where this can go and what to focus on. Now, I know that any model or projection we make will without a doubt be wrong. Though the models can act as a guide that we can measure against and give us a place to start from. At least we’ll have a sense of what it’ll take to run the business in a cash efficient way.
Next week:
- Growth Projection Models: low, mid, high
- Cost Per Acquisition Model
- Cost Per Customer Model / Lifetime Value
- Expenses Model
- Continue reading Venture Deals
Read the other half of this week with Nick’s vrbtm.co development stream | Week XI where he implements our new styling.
We’d love to hear from you…
Get in touch at Founders@vrbtm.co, talk with us on twitter @vrbtm.co, and read our story on medium.
Wes Jones is on Twitter @WesJonesCo
Nick Dandakis is on Twitter @Dandakis
