KickoffLabs Plan

Create a site in 60 seconds and build a customer list
Team:
Additional Information:
Josh Ledgard & Scott Watermasysk
Sammamish, WA & Monroe Township, NJ
Founders met at Telligent System while leading engineering teams who built the Telligent Community collaboration platform
Scott led the software architecture and platform team, and Josh led the program management, test, design and feature development teams
KickoffLabs is our first startup business, but not our first 1.0 software release.
Proudest accomplishment:
Getting the first round of customer feedback on the KickoffLabs beta. Previously, guiding the Telligent team to several successful product releases, including 1.0 versions of Enterprise and Analytics products
Biggest challenges you face:
Customer Acquisition: Gathering mind share and putting ourselves in front of users quickly so we can iterate and grow.
Balancing simplicity with customization options for site owners so that they can create “unique” feeling sites.
Additional info you want us to consider?
Our target is new and small businesses who need to perform a simple set of online engagement activities with their customers.
External Links:
http://kickofflabs.com V1 Launched
Kickofflabs on LinkedIn

Meet the Team
Scott
Watermasysk
Josh
Ledgard
Vanderbilt
Built developer collaboration software at Microsoft
Red Sox
Shipped Telligent Enterprise 1.0, Analytics, and more at Telligent
KickoffLabs Commitment: 100%
Rutgers
Built leading .NET based blogging platform .TEXT
Yankees
Shipped Community Sever 1.0, GraffitiCMS, and more at Telligent
KickoffLabs Commitment: 100%
We both believe in:
Transparency: Talking about your business early and often.
Gathering Customer feedback and validation on new products and ideas.
Building simple solutions that save you time and make it easy to get started.
Building an audience who believes what you believe is important enough to do first.

Market Landscape
Tools for small businesses to manage their online presence. Lots of separate solutions exist, but none with all the right ingredients that’s simple and affordable enough.
Business Lifecycle
Landing Pages
Building an online presence and collecting customers before you open the doors
LaunchRock: Most direct competitor with todays features
Unbounce: Focused on A/B testing and complicated WYSIWYG editing
Listening & Analytics
What are people saying about your business?
Radian 6: “Plans start at $600”
Google Alerts: Not well suited for social sources.
Twitter Search: Limited history & only twitter
Web Presence
After a landing page most business just need “One Page Love”
Custom: Hire a local developer and spend $$$
Hosted Blogging Service: Most businesses don’t blog
Big Iron CMS:Joomla, SiteCore, or Sharepointare $$ and complicated
Mailing Lists
Staying in touch with customers
MailChimp: Features targeted at larger businesses with > 10k customers.
Constant Contact: $15 dollars a month to send one email?

Customer Acquisition Strategy & Costs
Targets: New and small Businesses looking to create or simplify online presence
So Far: Ad-hoc Low Hanging Fruit
Created mailing list via a KickoffLabs.com powered landing page 
Blogging for businesses .
Regular updates to Facebook & Twitter
SEO friendly tour, pricing, and signup landing pages
Launch: Build early adoptersset
Send out review accounts
Engage to industry influencers for feedback.
Focus on converting existing mailing list & interview early adopters to discover strengths
Achieve cost coverage at 40 minimum plan users ASAP
Start local with attendance & speaking at local new business events
Get 4-5 case studies published across different verticals within 90 days
Post Launch: Test “Marketing” Customer Channel sources
Target early adopter market targets with discounts for students, startup co-ops, etc.
Build out strategic partnership with related services (New logo design services, etc)
Adwords Trials to cut off people looking for new web site & mailing list development
Test direct advertising on targeting new business customer communities
Trial a real referral program alanetflix

Product & Company Status
Product – Free Private Beta
Opening public paid plans within 2 weeks.
Launch feature complete with landing pages, email collection, demographics, and simple analytic
Trial at http://stagingkickofflabs.com
Will be moving to kickofflabs.com within 2 weeks with paid plan launch.
Launched at http://www.kickofflabs.com
Site Dashboard Screenshot
Company
Two dedicated founders with 100% focus.
No employees, but have outsourced some design work. All development done by founders today.
Low costs enable us to be 100% self funded.

90 Day Milestones
Today
In 90 Days
Product – Phase 2 Features
Simple mailing lists
Dramatically improved theme customization for web presence
Data export & listening analytics
Company – Profitable & Growing
100 Active Paying Customers
Part time designer on boarded
At least one strategic partnership to help build customer base

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KickoffLabs Plan

by Joshua Ledgard

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