Concept of a startup

Editor's Notes

1. \n
2. Hi! My name is Denis Popovtsev, I work for Yandex, in information architecture group. We study users and help our services to develop a marketing strategy - to determine the positioning of the product, determine the audience and its needs.\n\n
3. it is not clear how to make a marketing strategy for a startup. \nOften it's creation of something new, and how do you examine the market, which does not yet exist? \nAnd there are a lot of users, and all have different tasks. How to describe the target audience -- this is a question. "Young bachelors 19-24" - it describes nothing.\n\nI think that startups need other methods - adapted to the Internet and more practical. I want to share my approach that I use in Yandex. It helps me to see the diversity of user needs and what products are most in demand in the market.\n\nMy story may be of interest:\n- For those who choose which features must be implemented next in a product\n- For those who develop the new product and think about what functions are most important to users\n- For those who want to find a team of like-minded people - who need to explain all the coolness of his ideas \n\n
4. Imagine that you have made your new web service and launched it.\n\n
5. Your service is entering the market, which most likely already have similar products and big players. \nIt could be startups with established audience, and the big players - such as portals, which due to giant traffic can draw attention to any new product.\nAlso probably your advertising budget, traffic sources and resources for development are very limited. In this situation, it is critical ...\n\n
6. ...to make the current users of your product your real admirers, so that they begin to use it actively and recommend it to others. In this case you will not need any aggressive promotion.The main difficulty is how to achieve this. I'll try to simulate the situation when a person is searching for a new product.\n\n
7. For example, i'm very interested in a time management. I want to do tasks in time, not to forget the important things and to plan my time ahead, i need to use my time as efficiently as possible. And I really need a program that will help me to do this.\n\nI need mobile application, so i go to the App Store and see that there are a lot of such apps. I begin my search...\n
8. Does this application suit me? I think that this one is too complicated for me. Weird small icons, tips in a small font, too many input fields... If i need to dig into this every time I need to make a new task, I get bored very soon.\n\n
9. Here’s another application. It is very simple. And perhaps a little too simple for me. Is it possible to make a reminder here for some tasks? And in general, not very clear what is the difference from standard iphone notes.\n\n
10. Oh, this looks better! It looks more professional, but at the same time not overwhelmed with information and features. Personally i’ve chosen this one. It is called Things and now it's on my phone. \n\nYou see, my choice of time management application was highly dependent on my habits and beliefs. I’ve chosen Things but another person could choose one of the previous apps. Maybe all that someone needs is to make several shopping lists.\n\nEveryone likes different things, but you need to make a specific product for a specific purpose. You can't be liked by everyone. How to choose points to focus on?\n
11. Let's try to think about how different people manage their time?\n\nWell, certainly there are people who have difficulties with scheduling their time, and prioritizing. It is difficult to keep up to date, and always too much work, so they desperately need a few extra hours in a day. These people do not keep task lists and they don't understand why time is never enough.\n\nNow imagine the opposite situation. There are people who, either by personal choice or by necessity have developed a highly efficient ability to manage their time. They understand the importance of each of their tasks. They are able to do tasks in time. Often they manage other people or complex projects.\n\nWe can say that these two categories of people are opposite to each other on the axis, where on one hand - complete chaos, on the other - perfect order and control.\n\nBut surely there are people who are in the middle between chaos and order. When we try to organize our activities, we begin to make lists. Initially it may be just weekly shopping lists, then it will be lists of work and home tasks...\n\nAnd if it's not enough for us, then we begin to group tasks - to combine them into projects, to set goals and achieve them. We are moving into the next category - people who investigate how much time they spend on something, and if it meets their life goals.\n\nIt turns out that even in such narrow market as time management apps, there are different categories of users, and - most important! - each needs their own product. \n
12. Let's try to think about how different people manage their time?\n\nWell, certainly there are people who have difficulties with scheduling their time, and prioritizing. It is difficult to keep up to date, and always too much work, so they desperately need a few extra hours in a day. These people do not keep task lists and they don't understand why time is never enough.\n\nNow imagine the opposite situation. There are people who, either by personal choice or by necessity have developed a highly efficient ability to manage their time. They understand the importance of each of their tasks. They are able to do tasks in time. Often they manage other people or complex projects.\n\nWe can say that these two categories of people are opposite to each other on the axis, where on one hand - complete chaos, on the other - perfect order and control.\n\nBut surely there are people who are in the middle between chaos and order. When we try to organize our activities, we begin to make lists. Initially it may be just weekly shopping lists, then it will be lists of work and home tasks...\n\nAnd if it's not enough for us, then we begin to group tasks - to combine them into projects, to set goals and achieve them. We are moving into the next category - people who investigate how much time they spend on something, and if it meets their life goals.\n\nIt turns out that even in such narrow market as time management apps, there are different categories of users, and - most important! - each needs their own product. \n
13. Let's try to think about how different people manage their time?\n\nWell, certainly there are people who have difficulties with scheduling their time, and prioritizing. It is difficult to keep up to date, and always too much work, so they desperately need a few extra hours in a day. These people do not keep task lists and they don't understand why time is never enough.\n\nNow imagine the opposite situation. There are people who, either by personal choice or by necessity have developed a highly efficient ability to manage their time. They understand the importance of each of their tasks. They are able to do tasks in time. Often they manage other people or complex projects.\n\nWe can say that these two categories of people are opposite to each other on the axis, where on one hand - complete chaos, on the other - perfect order and control.\n\nBut surely there are people who are in the middle between chaos and order. When we try to organize our activities, we begin to make lists. Initially it may be just weekly shopping lists, then it will be lists of work and home tasks...\n\nAnd if it's not enough for us, then we begin to group tasks - to combine them into projects, to set goals and achieve them. We are moving into the next category - people who investigate how much time they spend on something, and if it meets their life goals.\n\nIt turns out that even in such narrow market as time management apps, there are different categories of users, and - most important! - each needs their own product. \n
14. Let's try to think about how different people manage their time?\n\nWell, certainly there are people who have difficulties with scheduling their time, and prioritizing. It is difficult to keep up to date, and always too much work, so they desperately need a few extra hours in a day. These people do not keep task lists and they don't understand why time is never enough.\n\nNow imagine the opposite situation. There are people who, either by personal choice or by necessity have developed a highly efficient ability to manage their time. They understand the importance of each of their tasks. They are able to do tasks in time. Often they manage other people or complex projects.\n\nWe can say that these two categories of people are opposite to each other on the axis, where on one hand - complete chaos, on the other - perfect order and control.\n\nBut surely there are people who are in the middle between chaos and order. When we try to organize our activities, we begin to make lists. Initially it may be just weekly shopping lists, then it will be lists of work and home tasks...\n\nAnd if it's not enough for us, then we begin to group tasks - to combine them into projects, to set goals and achieve them. We are moving into the next category - people who investigate how much time they spend on something, and if it meets their life goals.\n\nIt turns out that even in such narrow market as time management apps, there are different categories of users, and - most important! - each needs their own product. \n
15. Let's try to think about how different people manage their time?\n\nWell, certainly there are people who have difficulties with scheduling their time, and prioritizing. It is difficult to keep up to date, and always too much work, so they desperately need a few extra hours in a day. These people do not keep task lists and they don't understand why time is never enough.\n\nNow imagine the opposite situation. There are people who, either by personal choice or by necessity have developed a highly efficient ability to manage their time. They understand the importance of each of their tasks. They are able to do tasks in time. Often they manage other people or complex projects.\n\nWe can say that these two categories of people are opposite to each other on the axis, where on one hand - complete chaos, on the other - perfect order and control.\n\nBut surely there are people who are in the middle between chaos and order. When we try to organize our activities, we begin to make lists. Initially it may be just weekly shopping lists, then it will be lists of work and home tasks...\n\nAnd if it's not enough for us, then we begin to group tasks - to combine them into projects, to set goals and achieve them. We are moving into the next category - people who investigate how much time they spend on something, and if it meets their life goals.\n\nIt turns out that even in such narrow market as time management apps, there are different categories of users, and - most important! - each needs their own product. \n
16. «Newbies» would not use MS Project. They need an app as simple as you can imagine. They need ability to very quickly and with very little effort to write down a thought or a task without thinking about its format.\n
17. «Lists’ fans» want to create one or more lists, and change tasks’ status. Most advanced users would set up reminders.\n
18. And if one is interested in how rational and effective is his life, he wants to understand whether his activities meet his life goals.\n
19. «Profi» already knows everything about himself. He needs a tool to work with large amounts of tasks, to draw all dependencies between them, so that the Gantt chart is just for them.\n\nOK, so we realized that users are different and we need to please them in different ways. But how to choose, for whom it is better to make a product? Let's return to our diagram.\n
20. How many people are in each of these niches? Most people do not manage their time. And there are very few «pros». \nBut note that most «pros» are interested in time management programs, and «fans of chaos» are unlikely to be interested in them. The second category represents the optimal balance between quantity and interest: people who consciously maintain task lists, but do not look too far.\nAnd here's the curve which shows the number of applications in each niche. Most applications are in the second niche - "list makers".\nLook - using only our common sense we discovered a lot of knowledge about the market. And now this knowledge will help us to choose the right strategy for our product.\n\n
21. How many people are in each of these niches? Most people do not manage their time. And there are very few «pros». \nBut note that most «pros» are interested in time management programs, and «fans of chaos» are unlikely to be interested in them. The second category represents the optimal balance between quantity and interest: people who consciously maintain task lists, but do not look too far.\nAnd here's the curve which shows the number of applications in each niche. Most applications are in the second niche - "list makers".\nLook - using only our common sense we discovered a lot of knowledge about the market. And now this knowledge will help us to choose the right strategy for our product.\n\n
22. What do you think of making a product for absolute beginners? After all, there are lots of them. The only problem is how to make them to know about you, get them interested in your app and how to teach them basic skills of time management.\n\n
23. If you want to sell your application to professionals, then you need to have a VERY good understanding of their basic needs, objectives and techniques that they use. After all, professionals are very picky. On the other hand, they will pay more for an interesting product.\n
24. There are different strategies to enter the market. Suppose that we have decided to make a product in this niche. \nHere you will find users who have already realized that they can't cope with an avalanche of problems in an old-fashioned way. They do not understand the reason for their eternal haste and congestion, and they are looking for a tool or approach to organise their life. \n\nThere are many people, and what is the most important for you - they already have an interest, they actively look for something like what you’re going to offer.Your product will attract these people by offering solution of their pressing problems. What are the problems and peculiarities of these people?\n\n
25. Imagine a person who is always in a hurry. The deadline of his project at work passed yesterday. \n\nDue to traffic jams way to work took twice longer than it was scheduled and important meetings were postponed. In addition, he has to make regular utility, telephone, credit, Internet payments -- he just can't remember everything. \n\nAlso he would like to spend more time with his family, etc. In this situation, he has absolutely no time to sit down and carefully plan his life.\n\nHere are characteristics of this category of people:\n- They have very limited time (for using your product too);\n- They do not remember to write down all their tasks;\n- When they remember to write down their tasks, they do this in a number of different places - in a diary, on post-its, in computer;\n- They are fully focused on their current activity - whether at work or at home.\n\nSo if you want to make a product suitable for this group...\n\n
26. ... its concept should be very simple and straightforward. To grasp the idea of your product should not take more than a few seconds, otherwise these people will stop using it quickly. Such people always have more important things to do. Besides, they lack motivation to systematically manage their time. Your product can give them such a motivation by cool interface or a gameplay elements - such features will work very well for them.\n\nHowever, your product should not...\n\n
27. ...be too complicated and time-consuming. Sophisticated settings, complex charts, incomprehensible terminology, bulky tutorials will just alienate your potential users.\n\nNote however that different category of users, for example, "goal setters", will find such tutorials and complicated techniques very interesting.\n\n
28. Now you need to focus on the most critical problem of the users, which your product is designed to solve. I can offer two ideas:\n\n1.As it is very difficult for your users to write down their tasks and to keep them in one place, you can help them with that simplifying the way of entering tasks (handwritten or voice input) at the same time giving them an opportunity to perform this on all electronic devices they have.\n\n2.- For beginners it is usually difficult to keep track of routine tasks (like payments, birthdays, meetings etc), so you can automatically aggregate all of user's tasks based on what we know about them (for example, if you know that a person uses the ISP services, you can remind him to pay once a month)\n\nYou can come up with other ideas, if you do a detailed research - users activities, devices and programs they are using. You can interview people from this target group and learn more about their problems. So you will understand what really turns people on, and probably learn something new.\n\n\n
29. This was just an example of market research and finding a niche for your product. At the beginning we drew a map of the market. \nTo do this, we drew the axis "chaos-order". After that, we have identified categories of people and understood how do they differ from each other. Then we identified the number of potential users and competitors in each niche.\n\nWhen we had a full picture, it was very easy to choose a niche for our new product.\n\nI recommend you this approach, because I think it is very simple and effective. Often people want to make a startup based on the idea they like, but there is always a risk that it will not attract users. \nAnd if you just see all the niches, it is possible to compare them and make an informed choice. This allows you to ...\n\n
30. ... Clearly identify your target audience. Then you can examine it more deeply. You can easily find such people and interview them.\n\nWhat is the most important - it is much easier to describe your idea to others. Your potential investor will more likely give you his money if you show him that you understand your market and you consciously choose a niche (and do not reinvent the wheel)\nI am an information architect in Yandex and making such maps is a regular job for me. My example of time management was a very simple task and in such a case only one axis is enough, but often i have to build ...\n\n
31. ... two-dimensional maps (this diagram shows positioning for our service "Yandex.Market" among other e-commerce websites)...\n\n
32. ...or even three-dimensional maps. This is a map of the internet car market. The dots represent various topics (such as repairs or buying a car, or travel by car). The bigger is a dot, the larger amount of content can be found on the Internet on this topic. Horizontal axis is the popularity of the topic. Vertical axis is its profitability. Three dimensions.\n\n
33. I would like to recommend you a book that describes similar methods of study of different areas very well. Summarizing the idea of the book, drawing a diagram - for example, a map of the market will help you to make the best, informed decision. It will be easier then to discuss it with other people.\n\n
34. Thank you for your attention! I hope that I gave you some useful tips. If you have any questions, please write to my e-mail...\n\n
35. And if you want to know more about Yandex initiatives for statups – visit our website company.yandex.com, or here's a direct link to a page with detailed information. Good luck!\n\n