Edmonton Lean Startup Circle

That you’re not supposed to know how to do anything right, and that’s o.k.

you didn’t need to know how to do anything in the beginning - you just needed to get good at finding the right answers quickly.

If you focused on learning, getting the right advice, in near real time - then you could take on any challenge.  It’s quite liberating once you realize that.

2 weeks ago we walked away from $160,000 in seed funding because we decided after taking advice from many folks, including Joel from BufferApp, that we should get profitable before we take funding to get a better valuation, not rocket science I know, but as it was our first experience with investment the temptation to say yes was definitely difficult.The problem we're solving was born out of our own frustrations of managing the content development process. As I'm sure you can imagine playing email-tennis with word/google documents, and attachments is incredibly unproductive.

One of the themes that came up a lot was the idea of the growth team finding a leading indicator of a user who would turn into an engaged user later on. The growth team would then focus on optimizing for that metric. 

Characteristics of leading indicator metrics The various leading indicators fit into three categories: Network density: friend or following connections made in a time frame Content added: files added to a Dropbox folder Visit frequency: D1 retention

Other points from the speakers A few other interesting things were mentioned at the conference. Josh Elman mentioned that Twitter has two degrees of an active user: a plain “active user” is someone who has visited their timeline at least once in the last 28 days a ‘retained’ or ‘core’ user is someone who has visited their timeline at least 7 times in 28 days.

To ensure that you get results, you might want to give your clients that nudge at specific times, such as when:you’ve solved their problemthey’ve achieved success through your offeringthey express that they’re happy with your workthey thank you profuselyyou successfully deliver a product on time

Of course, most of your clients will be busy people who don’t have much time set aside for tasks like this. That’s why it’s your job to make it easier for them. One way to do this is to provide them with a few sample questions in your testimonial request email. Here are a few that you might want to put to use:What prompted you to seek [your/your company’s] services? What situation or problem did you need to solve?Why did you specifically select [you/your company] for this project?What made you believe that [you/your company] was the best for achieving your desired result?How did you benefit from working with [you/your company]?What are the two most significant improvements that have resulted from your work with [you/your company]?What exactly did [you/your company] do to contribute to the outcome you wanted?What were the results of working with [you/your company]?Describe why you feel that working with [you/your company] was successful.In the future, what type of businesses would most benefit from working with [you/your company]?If a potential client was on the fence about whether to work with [you/your company] or not, what would you say to them?

Letter to a client whom you’ve asked to write a testimonial:Dear [Client],Working with clients like you makes my business a great joy. Thank you for agreeing to provide a testimonial. Your story will help inform our potential clients why it’s good to work with us and how they can benefit.To help you get started, I’ve included a few questions, but please feel free to write whatever you like.[Include two to four questions, using the above list as a guide.]Thank you for your time and kind support. We value your business and look forward to working with you again in the future. Please let me know if there is anything further I can do for you.[Your preferred closing],[Your name]