This presentation is about the lessons learned of twago within the first couple of months after launch. Typical things which many startups face in this or the other way. twago founder and CEO gave a insight into his learnings and views.

1. twago – Teamwork Across Global Offices
Workshop: Things we learned @twago
Gunnar Berning, Founder and CEO of twago.com
Maastricht, May 25th, 2012
07. Juli 2009 © 2009 twago
www.twago.de
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2. All Startups have the same goal in mind
Make the most
out of your
existing budget
1 © 2012 twago
twago.com

3. How we started...
• Understand your customers: Master thesis
• Be fast with a good version
• Learn from your customer as early
as possible: Observe and ask
• Trial and error
• Start with SEO yesterday
• Create reference cases (e.g. big brands)
• Communication / PR: Easy wins with data mining, adapting to news
• Build your network immediately
• Focus:
• Become #1 in a niche, then expand
• Remember your key levers: optimizing your SEM-CTR from 0.75%
to 1,5% lower your customer acquisition cost by 50%
2 © 2012 twago
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4. Building the product –
We eat our own food
twago made use of outsourcing and offshoring:
 Product specification: (Internally) Which experts to choose
 Spec. Homepage-Design: Germany depends on
 Coding: Russia
 Translations:
 your requirements
Switzerland
 Branding/Name: USA expertise
 Design of Webseite: Canada
Savings roughly 60%
 Design of Company Logo: Philipines
twago successfully showed the „proof of concept“ –
Huge chance for all startups
3 © 2012 twago
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5. The top 9 rules for Offshoring success
1 Be honest: Are you an Offshoring-Person?
2 Choose experts wisely
3 Basic understanding of different cultures
4 Increase communication: +50%
5 Make use of time zones
6 Use simple project management tools
7 Neutral code checks to get best quality
8 Secrets to stay secret: Use NDAs
9 Don‘t expect wonders
4 © 2012 twago
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6. Raising Capital – Welcome to lemming country
• The right target group – VCs, Angels, Family
offices, Strategic investors
• How much? Not 1.0 Mio.!
• If you have one, you have many
• Expect stupid VCs
• Contact them en-block – everybody at the same
time, not sequentially
• Don‘t use „businessplan@earlybird.com“
• The market is setting your price, not the VC
valuation method
• Create and show your BATNA (best alternative to
negotiated agreement)
• You can be peer to everybody
• Everything takes longer, expect 6-9 months
• Don’t over optimize the percentages
• It’s over when it’s over
5 © 2012 twago
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7. This is an interesting question...
Revenues
or
No revenues
6 © 2012 twago
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8. Teambuilding
Hire only team members which make you better, not bigger
Start Now
• Hire only team members which make you better rather than
bigger
• Use the methods of headhunters: LinkedIN and Xing
• Create entrepreneurs – make them responsible
• Enable them to take decisions!
• Keep your risk under control: Use interns and trainees
• Min. duration = 6 months
• Really good people = high salaries, compensate with equity,
• Make a cut if it doesn’t work
• Invest your time: Coaching, coaching, coaching
• Celebrate!
7 © 2012 twago
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9. Create a unique company culture
Your team must love to work for you
8 © 2012 twago
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10. Have fun
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11. 10 © 2012 twago
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12. Friday lunch all together
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13. 12 © 2012 twago
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14. Advertising
vs.
Who wins the fight?
13 © 2012 twago
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15. Create landing pages for your customer
750 Landing pages
14 © 2012 twago
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16. Measure
Think
Analyze twago.com
15 © 2012 twago

17. Analyze, analyze, analyze:
Measure – think – change!
Traffic and customer behaviour
Key drivers Conversion tests (A/B)
16 © 2012 twago
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18. Landing Page Test optimized conversion rates and reduces
user acquisition costs significantly
Landing Page A/B Test
Old Design Improvements New Design
 Few words: Focus
 „Clean“
 Build trust:
Verisign Logo,
Phone number,
green bulltes
 Reduce exit-options
3%* 20%*
Quelle: twago
17 © 2012 twago
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19. Scaling
18 © 2012 twago
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20. Scaling is a mind game
• Manual work kills scale
1
Posted Projects / Month
• Invest in automation and
2
1000 processes (I know, I know)
• Working with templates (SEM
3
800
landigpages, etc.)
• If you wonna go global, have
4
600
the option to quickly add
400 different languages
• Avoid local adaptions
5
200
0
and ...
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Never lean back
19 © 2012 twago
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21. Stay flexible and ...
... adapt to customer
needs and learnings
20 © 2012 twago
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22. We changed major topics
From... To...
Offshoring Outsourcing
Marketplace only Combined Marketplace
and Memberships
All countries immediately Focus on core countries
21 © 2012 twago
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23. International
rollout
22 © 2012 twago
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24. We are live in 6 countries, more to come this year
• Solve your problems first, then roll out internationally
otherwise you make your problem even bigger
• It‘s more than having a new language (legal, tax,
accounting, etc.)
• Go for the quick win countries first
• All teams are based in Berlin, as much as
possible centralized
• Native speaker only
• Local phone numbers
• Introduce a face of the country
• Adapt as few as necessary to
keep synergies twago.com
23 © 2012 twago

25. Don‘t be too much
afraid of the US
coming to Europe...
... but be careful
with you going to
the US...
24 © 2012 twago
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26. Expect
the unexpected
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27. Expect the unexpected
26 © 2012 twago
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28. Fight for your dream
27 © 2012 twago
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29. We change the world of working!
Contact: Gunnar.Berning@twago.com
28 © 2012 twago
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30. Thanks and feel free to follow us...
www.facebook.com/twago.com
www.twitter.com/twago_inside
or email me: Gunnar.Berning@twago.com
.com - work different
29 © 2012 twago
twago.com