The document outlines the journey of a startup exploring different product ideas to find product-market fit. It describes how they initially focused on enterprise data visualization but pivoted after learning their niche was too small. They then explored ideas like an online "late jar" for employee performance tracking before realizing real-time peer feedback could help performance evaluations. After validating this with customers, they built an MVP for a lightweight real-time peer feedback system to help establish a culture of transparency, meritocracy, and self-improvement.

1. kaavio
it’s time to really get to know your data…
team
ivo parashkevov
102
mike shore 33
lukasz strozek
peter brandt 21
mentors 24
jeff epstein
carlin wiegner
9
march 12, 2013

2. team
ivo lukasz mike peter
ba harvard cs ms harvard cs ba harvard econ bs northwestern cs
mba1 mba1 mba1 mba1
kkr bridgewater morgan stanley jump trading
bcg google

3. original elevator pitch
an online data visualization platform
that allows business analysts to easily
visualize their data, share it with
clients/coworkers, and make it tell a
compelling story while maintaining a
live link with the data source

4. original canvas

5. act I: enterprise analyst
what we thought
- people in financial services and other industries
have significant pains with visualizing and
communicating about data
- people want to collaborate when creating and
consuming charts
- people want to empower their audiences to
interact with data themselves
what we did
- got out of the building for the first time
- interviewed customers we thought had pain

6. problem:
lack of focus

7. where is our niche?

8. act II: MS office power user
what we thought
- the problem is not a lack of market
- the space is crowded, but we believe that a key
segment is underserved
- there is a huge market: existing tools cost a ton,
and are far from simple
what we did
- built a demo and got reactions from customers
- focused on consultants as a user base

9. we built a product demo

10. more crowded than we thought

11. act III: trough of despair
what we realized
- nothing is resonating
- our potential niche seems way too small
- at the low end of the market, it’s hard to make
data viz work as a product unto itself
what we did
- went over all of our interviews
- engaged with mentors, Jeff and Carlin
- explored new ideas e.g. fantasy football,
quantified self

12. a major pivot

13. act IV: online late jar
what we thought
- one of the customers was focused on holding
people accountable and real-time tracking
- a concept like an online late jar could be used to
get our foot in the door for enterprise
performance evaluation
what we did
- talked to customers about the online late jar
- built wireframes

14. we built mock-ups for the
online late jar mobile app

15. act V: (minor) enlightenment
what we now think
- real-time peer feedback can correct for biases in
performance evaluation and reduce pain of
annual reviews
- customers are C*O/HR managers and distinct
from the users
- kaavio won’t sell itself, high-touch sales needed
what we did
- high-quality interviews with HR professionals
- researched how to sell into the enterprise
- built MVP

16. our customers
katie – human resources director at Jump Trading
frustrated with current solutions, would buy a product that captures what
“goes unnoticed”
thomas – head of support at Bridgewater Associates
wants real-time feedback tool as a way to get more metrics about health
of his team, loves the transparency, wants to include as part of 360
process
alissa – head of talent at Bloomreach
needs a lightweight (easy to learn) tool that would include 360 reviews
“a lot goes unmentioned and unnoticed”
“the employees are complaining that reviews take forever”

17. after this journey, our canvas
VALUE PROPOSITIONS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
More accurate view of GET: POC with customers' user Head of HR in a medium / large
performance (true 360 view, information enterprise
reduced cognitive biases)
KEEP: Great customer service and CxO in a small / growing company
Reduced burden on employees support
and management come annual
review time (intuitive workflow KEEP: Proactive training including
and aggregation of feedback) intro to new features
Timely and actionable feedback GROW: By reference
Transparent bonus / GET: Self-serve free online
REVENUE STREAMS
compensation criteria
GROW: Free version of product
Freemium model + low monthly
Foster a culture of continuous markets itself
premium subscription
self-improvement
CHANNELS Enterprise licenses
Direct sales License per seat
n Costs (Account
Self-serve online portal
tomer Support)

18. keeping an eye on the big prize…
get the foot in the door in the enterprise, collecting accurate, real time
peer evaluation information
expand to become the employee evaluation platform
of choice for these customers
total available market
disrupt HR/evaluations space $2B
data
-gartner EPM 2009 market $970M served available market
-successfactors 2013 revenue $502M $1B
-workday 2013 revenue $119.5M
target market
$100M

19. metrics that matter
user acquisition cost$14
customer lifetime value $120
price point $5 / user / month
user attrition 20% / year
margin 35% at scale of 300K users
competitive price point:
Successfactors $6 / user / month
work.com $10–$20 / user / month

20. mvp allen falcon
ceo cumulus global
var for end-to-end cloud computing
solutions
crisantos hajibrahim
ceo viwo, inc.
var for end-to-end cloud computing
solutions
anthony krumeich
cofounder/ceo bloodhound
mobile events solutions
james elkins
cofounder/ceo ribbon
web-based sales solutions

21. going forward
what we learned
we think we have a product market fit
is this a viable business
pending feedback from actual teams
pursuing after class
possibly!

22. week 1

23. week 2

24. week 3

25. week 4

26. week 5

27. week 6

28. week 7
VALUE PROPOSITIONS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
More accurate view of GET: POC with customers' user Head of HR in a medium / large
performance (true 360 view, information enterprise
reduced cognitive biases)
KEEP: Great customer service and CxO in a small / growing company
Reduced burden on employees
and management come annual support
review time (intuitive workflow Students / Professors
and aggregation of feedback) KEEP: Proactive training including
intro to new features
Timely and actionable feedback
GROW: By reference
Transparent bonus /
compensation criteria GET: Self-serve free online
Foster a culture of continuous
self-improvement GET: Online ads
"karma" score, across the board, GROW: Free version of product REVENUE STREAMS
and score-keeping markets itself
Freemium model + low monthly
CHANNELS premium subscription
torage (cloud) Enterprise licenses
Direct sales
ustomer acquisition costs (high touch)
dvertising costs License per seat
Self-serve online portal

29. week 8
VALUE PROPOSITIONS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
More accurate view of GET: POC with customers' user Head of HR in a medium / large
performance (true 360 view, information enterprise
reduced cognitive biases)
KEEP: Great customer service and CxO in a small / growing company
Reduced burden on employees support
and management come annual
review time (intuitive workflow KEEP: Proactive training including
and aggregation of feedback) intro to new features
Timely and actionable feedback GROW: By reference
Transparent bonus / GET: Self-serve free online
compensation criteria
GROW: Free version of product
Foster a culture of continuous markets itself REVENUE STREAMS
self-improvement
Freemium model + low monthly
x GET: Online ads premium subscription
) CHANNELS
Enterprise licenses
sts
ention Costs (Account Direct sales
License per seat
Customer Support)
Self-serve online portal

30. competitive landscape highlights
- Rypple – our most direct competitor – integrated into
work.com
- integration with SalesForce
- request specific feedback from peers or customers
- track progress towards goals
- custom-designed badges visible to all employees
- “push” process heavily optimized for review workflow
- offer ongoing reviews, but not real-time
- can solicit feedback, but it's only qualitative
- good analytics and forced ranks
- more limited than SuccessFactors
- integrates well with payroll, benefits administration,
employee records, employee on-boarding, etc.
- goals tracking and pay-per-performance features
- solicit or give feedback at any time

31. competitive landscape highlights
Realtime? Lightweight? Peer Review Points? Transparent?
yes. no. -ish. no.
(badges)
no. no. no. no.
no. no. no. -ish.

32. frequently asked questions
what other solutions are available?
work.com, successfactors, workday
why are customers unhappy with these solutions?
don’t solve the pain of accurate feedback / time burden, don’t foster a culture of self-
improvement
what are the segments?
small businesses where reviews are ad-hoc, medium businesses with a strong cultural
identity who need a lightweight solution
will businesses pay for this / is it a must-have?
yes, at a low price point, yes, for some.
why real time?
increase accuracy (“stuff goes unnoticed”), decrease time burden (“reviews take
forever”)
what other benefits did they see?
self-improvement, strengthening of culture of meritocracy

33. economic projections
thousands of USD year 0 year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4 year 5
revenue $0 $2,160 $6,768 $12,614 $17,292 $21,033
total cost $1,353 $2,852 $4,662 $5,792 $6,165 $6,538
profit ($1,353) ($692) $2,107 $6,822 $11,127 $14,495
# users (thousands) 0 36 113 210 288 351
# employees 10 22 37 48 52 56
key assumptions:
• price is $5 / user / month
• sales rep quota: 1000 new users / month;
• 20% annual attrition rate
• 1 account manager for every 25,000 users
• 5-10 engineers, 1-3 PMs, 2-4 testers, 1-2 sys-admins

34. channel - direct to businesses
- freemium “hook” model (dropbox.com)
competitive pricing - successfactors: $75 / user / year
- work.com: $120 – $240 / user / year
revenue model - recurring, per user per year
strategy - low price point to incentivize companies to use
alongside large HR solutions, and to cater to small
companies
pricing tactics / - free up to 3 months – to get users “hooked”
suggested price - beyond that, $15 / user / year for basic version
point - $25 / user / year for rich analytics

35. what is kaavio?
a lightweight real-time, fully transparent peer feedback system,
which lets people reward others in their community for their effort,
and provide rich feedback on how they can improve
who are our customers?
HR manager in a medium company who wants to improve current annual
review system
CxO in small / growing company who wants to deploy a light-weight 360
feedback mechanism when formal HR structures are not in place
they care about a culture of transparency, meritocracy, and self-
improvement

36. product-market fit canvas:
transparent system establish a culture of
leads to a norm of continuous self
ongoing community improvement
feedback
peer-focused HR / mgmt
transparent evaluates
real-time employee
low barrier performance
to use
• real-time feedback review process is:
• feedback easy to summarize • inaccurate
• receiver gets feedback • not timely / actionable
immediately • cumbersome