More inches

On Monday I met another entrepreneur who could use our solution.

In fact, because of his business idea we brought forward a feature and rolled it out this evening.

It took me over a week to write the feature but it was quite involved.

His general feedback was good and gave us new perspective on our app. Incidentally he used to work at a company where I worked.

On Tuesday I submitted to Apple the latest app (including the new feature) and this evening they approved it. It normally takes up to 24 hours to then roll out but in this case it probably took an hour.

This is just as well as from tomorrow they have a change freeze over the Christmas period.

And after it was rolled out I uploaded the app to the Google store for Android distribution. And despite Google stating that it could take a few hours to roll out again it was out within an hour.

Another inch

Overnight the latest version of the app, complete with new colours, a new logo and language choices, went onto the Apple app store.

Now, no more excuse not to do more dev.

Inching

You know, almost every day we make progress. No quantum leaps but still progress.

Yesterday I rolled out the new app to Google and Apple - Google delivered it pretty quickly but Apple likes to take their time and review every submission.

I am not going to do any more app dev until this version is rolled out to the iPhone.

Instead, today I looked at flyer designs (which were produced yesterday evening). I also found that Dropbox has some quite good capability to comment on files.

TheCrazyChicken and I also had a chat with the friend who is interested in joining us as a co-founder.

Progress is progress but we aren't really making the progress we need to make investors want to give us loads of money.

A week of adventures

Last Thursday I had lunch with a friend who may be interested in joining us as a co-founder.

After lunch we went to a nearby café and there I had a cappuccino.

I spent the rest of the day feeling nauseous and in the small  hours started throwing up.

I'm not saying it was the coffee, or the meal but it was definitely something.

As you can imagine this laid me low for a few days - in fact I still don't feel fighting fit.

App-wise we have a new logo which will go on stickers for shop windows and also go on the app.

By Monday I was making some progress with the app. I gave up using the multi-app plug-in - the latest version doesn't work with appery.io any more - and simply coded it in by hand, seeing as I am such a JavaScript-wallah by now.

On Wednesday I bought a new old MacBook Pro. New because it is still in its box (and it is still in its box, I haven't opened it) and old because it isn't the new version of the MacBook Pro. I need USB ports and in an interesting product management move Apple no longer provide them on their devices.

So I bought the old one which was on sale to clear the stocks.

I also bought it as my mini Mac is very slow, only 4Gb RAM. I also need to access a Mac wherever I am (which most likely means England over Xmas) as I can no rely on remote access to my desktop Mac.

Yesterday I went to an AGBC meeting where TheCrazyChicken found two people who wanted to use the app for their businesses.

To think: she was almost not going to attend.

Is nothing easy?

No, because I ain't an app developer.

It's just not in my nature.

The only reason I have been able to develop to apps and configure a back-end system is because I am persistent.

Having now rolled out the main app to Apple and Android - in a MVP+ state - I now want to add a new feature: multi-language.

Easy. There's a plug-in for this and appery.io have a tutorial on how to do this.

Except it no longer bloody works. No doubt I will get it working but nothing works first time.

(Except many months a go I managed to write a JavaScript database query which was quite complicated and worked the second time).

Instant Startup

This evening I went to a little start-up event. Twenty minutes to prepare a business idea based on a combination of three randomly chosen existing businesses.

It was fun but also a good networking opportunity. More importantly I received good feedback about our business proposition with one person (an experienced businessman) seeing lots of use cases.

It's traction, baby

Yesterday I submitted the latest versions of the app to Apple and Google.

The Android version went out during the day and this morning I was surprised to see that Apple had also approved and released the iPhone version. That's very quick for the fruity company.

I'm still experiencing some occasional initial instability problems with the iPhone version but it quickly disappears and is not a show stopper.

After a brief migraine this morning I went for a coffee with an analyst from a VC.

It was a good chat although he said his firm needed to see a revenue stream before any sort of investment, even seeding, could take place.

I hope that in early 2017 we will show a growing revenue stream as well as a growing customer (and user) base. Right now all we have is two onboarded businesses.

He did, however, see the value in the idea and said he could even see himself using it. Which is great feedback.

Feeling lofty

A few months ago Amazon Web Services asked to speak to me about my views around them assisting startups.

One of the things on my wish list was for them to have one of their Amazon Loft events in Munich.


Well, about a month ago they emailed me about their upcoming month long loft event in Munich. I only responded to it last week.

Felt of bit of a hipster being there.

Afterwards I paid a social visit to our first onboarded business who was a few metres away.

Belated news

On Friday we increased out onboarded businesses by 100%

Er, that means we now have two businesses.

We have to keep an eye on them and help and encourage them to use our service.

I probably didn't write more about it because I was busy running and drinking later on Friday and the next day recovered just in time to go to a wine trade show.

As well as buying a lot of wine I also sampled loads. Which explains my lack of production on Sunday.

Take-aways from the fireside chat

Yesterday evening I attended a local Silicon Valley Fire Chat - Entrepreneurs Night.

At it the organisers, Axel and Marita, talked about their view of the startup scene in Munich.

In particular, they repeated their view that there is no need to go to America for funding.

A lot of what they said they have said - and I have blogged - before but here are some takeaways:

Here are the four big things you need to get investment:

• communication skills - including being able to articulate your vision (which goes beyond having so money customers or making so much money)
• extraordinary people in your team - and you need to be able to find them. Our business has two co-founders but we definitely need more and are struggling to find
• have an MVP - reduce it to the absolute minimum, even ignore differential features unless it is core to the product and get it out there. Hint: don't wait for bugs to be fixed but add them to a known issues list on your blog
• valuation - in Silicon Valley it's about 10x forward looking revenue. Remember that valuation is basically just a guess and there is no reason why European startups shouldn't receive US levels. If investors disagree challenge them.

Some other advice:

• co-founders need an equal share and big staken in ensuring that the business survives and thrives
• find a mentor - often they want nothing in return or maybe say around 0.5% equity ... something small
• add to the Munich startup ecosystem, offer to help without expectation of reciprocation

Oh, and I just remembered, I also met an investor at the event. Will chase him up today.

Networking in the time of catastrophe

On Tuesday evening I went to an event held by Democrats Abroad to watch the US election results over some biers - quite a few beers actually.

Obviously I am not a Democrat not least as I am not an American. But I have, and have had, strong connections with the US and also beer.

(There isn't a Republican equivalent of DA probably because I suspect most republicans are afraid of "foreign". In any case even if I was an American I wouldn't be a Republican either).

There were some Hash House Harriers there (I'm a member of the two Munich kennels) and one introduced me to a woman she brought along.

And she works for a big consortium in the innovation apps area.

We exchanged business cards and LinkedIn connections. Since then I've been racking my brains to see how our app would work for their business.

I've now figured out how it would work and in fact it would fit really well with their business - I may have been a bit tired after a night of lots of beer; shock, horror and disgust; and ending after 5am on Wednesday morning.

We haven't gone away

Seems it's been a while since I lasted posted but things have been happening.

I was in the UK for a week although I did do some work on the business.

The app looks a lot of better.

We tried to get a third co-founder but they disappeared off the radar.

We've onboarded one business though they actually have to use the app now and so far they haven't. We're not surprised and expect they will need a bit of hand holding.

I was ill with a cold which, in retrospect, was probably a flu like infection and has been going around Munich.

More good advice

Some hours after the meeting with the lady involved in funding startups I met another lady who runs a PR company in Munich (with global reach).

She had some great feedback and advice about our solution and also said she would introduce me to an investor.

Progress

Despite my bloke interrupted post actually I have been making progress:

The app more looks like an app now. Although it did involve a tour around stack overload and github.

At the end of yesterday's pitch night one of the organisers mentioned that they would holding a "clinic" today to see if their startup-assisting-business could help startups with financing. They have an interesting business model for this.

I hope I didn't kill too many people in the room as I rushed to the front to put my name down.

Met the organiser this morning and will send them a pitch deck and have a conference call with them soon.

She too stressed that we need to show some traction. We will.

Take-aways from yesterday's pitch event

Last night I went to another Entrepreneurs Night - pitch event at werk1.

Here are my takeaways:

• European investors are funding European companies which have gone to the US to find funding.
• US valuations are significantly higher than Europeans ones
• Valuations cannot but be disproved - if someone says your company is not worth €8m or whatever ask them why not, how much is it worth and why.
• Better valuations are needed because by series E funding of €50m is not really enough for a company.
• No European angel has been outstandingly successful with a European startup. On average they are losing money.

And Axel's advice:

• 8x20 on forward looking revenues (I really must get the slides for his presentation)
• get revenue as soon as you can
• ideally grow by 1% per day
• have a disruptive business model

For the pitches they were judging on:

• Team
• Idea
• Growth Strategy
• the pitch itself.

At the end he reminded us that entrepreneurs are, at most, 0.1% of society.

Bloke interrupted

Been busy but:

• my Surface Pro died. It was only 11 months old. I went to the shop from where I bought it and they told me that if they sent it back to Microsoft it could take six weeks to replace. When they realised there were no armed police nearby they then calmed me down by telling me that I could also use a special Microsoft service to expedite this. As a result no one died and the shop wasn't horribly destroyed. Microsoft were awesome and a few days I had delivered by courier a brand spanking new Surface. I did, however, have to configure it for my needs.
• On the day of the Venture Wiesn in Munich (an event I had been advised to attend by a VC) I developed my third ever migraine. I took a pill my doctor had prescribed for this eventuality. Instead of feeling "foggy" I now felt "woozy" but not better. I checked the details of the medicine on line and worked out from its half-life that I would be ok to have a beer later on that evening. I ended up having four beers at the Venture Wiesn and felt much better. Made good contacts there.
• A few evenings ago my modem suddenly died. In the morning I had to go to a local DT shop, buy a new one straight away and then set it up. Turns out the modem included a firewall with an email service whitelist which is, apparently, updated by DT on a regular basis. But my email service provider is in the US and so wasn't on the whitelist. After a bit of investigation I manually added it.
• And yesterday I went into town with the alertness of a zombie. I had forgotten to renew my transit ticket and, for the first time ever, was unlucky enough to suddenly be ticket inspected. Not a cheap experience.

Better news:

• A week or just over ago I had a Skype call with an interim manager who knows some angels. Although what we are doing isn't in their space, he reckoned we had a good idea. He also added that we need some traction, at least a couple of customers, even for angels.
• We have a young IT guy volunteering to help us in his spare time. It will take a little while to bring him up to speed on how we do things but once he understands this he will probably be more productive than me - even though he had limited time due to work reasons.
• We're pursuing a third co-founder who has been a bit unlucky recently but hopefully will be able to join us.

Take-aways for Funding for Startups online seminar

 Yesterday I watched an online seminar on this subject - it's focus was doing this in Europe.

Here are my takeaways (with some names remove but - for co-founders - in our samepage site).

• Seedcamp - good way to progress your startup
• It is now easier to find funding in Europe
• Crowd funding here is alive and well - I've heard this elsewhere, it's difficult to do this in the US due to their overbearing regulations. It's also a great way to involve your customer. It is most definitely not Kickstarter which they called a demand generator. Notable platforms include Seders and Crowdcube.
• Angels - seed funding up to €1.5m. They may not, however, be so involved as before. Some names will be in our samepage version of this:
• Keep going to events to meet potential angels.
• Also, get to London and Berlin to get into the startup ecosystem there
• "Timing is important" in terms of product 
• Investors are now spoilt for choice
• Quality of founders has improved.
• Have a comprehensive team
• Make sure you can differentiate against similar ideas from competitors
• Be global - you can no longer build a one-country-only business and expect funding
• "Once Delaware can't go back" - meaning if you register there you are stuck
• UK registration is still recommended - despite all that Brexit nonsense - because of transparency and respect for the rule of law.
• There are several government grants (Honey 2020, Marco Polo 2, London Investment Fund, Enterprise Capital Fund, Angel Co fund) although they may be costly in terms of preparation of the materials (need lawyers etc.)
• "Capital in King" - approach funders before you need the funding
• Investors are looking for:
• Team
• Proper incorporation
• Thorough understanding of the business area you are in
• Traction
• Engagement - understand the value to, and use by, users
• The solution should be
• big
• needed
• and talk about it, get feedback

Take away from the PAN investment seminar

Another excellent seminar, the third and last in this series.

A pitch deck was given out but here are my additional take aways:

• This talk was focused on VCs and seemed to have a slight German edge
• Get financing for 15 to 18 months, not fewer 
• VC ownership can range from 20 to 30%
• The initial pitch deck should be no more than 20 to 30 slides
• It takes six to eight months to close
• You must have questions for the VC
• Lawyer up
• Angel investment ranges from very small to 10m(!)
• Next stage investors will ask them to compare your previous round's pitch deck with what you are now presenting
• So you should allow your seed round to have a decent amount of time to show achievements  and traction 
• Guaranteed catalog is hard to negotiate 
• By series A show there is at least a plan to eventually get a CFO

Third time lucky

Yesterday I went to a rather excellent 12min.me.

The investor I wanted to catch up had also put his name down and was there at the beginning.

We agreed to talk after the talks (which lasted 12 minutes).

There was, of course, a lot of networking going on afterwards but we managed to speak and for me to show him the app.

He gave good advice (go to Bay Startup who may forward your details to suitable angels). He also agreed to put me in contact with an angel investor who seems, to me, to be quite suitable.

Fighting

I went to the Tech Founder's meetup on Wednesday mainly because a possible investor was there.

He wasn't.

So, on Thursday morning I dropped him a message via LinkedIn. He said he was going to the Founder's Fight Club - which I hadn't heard of - that evening.

I put myself on the wait list and was soon accepted.

It was a very good evening. We were put in teams and as to propose a business solution to a stated problem.

Our team did well, we almost one but didn't, and got a special prize. I did my usual assertiveness thing to make sure that I was noticed by everyone, including the investor I wanted to talk with.

I will try to catch up with him when he's next in Munich but at least he is more aware of me now.

There were some take aways:

• Don't worry about exit
• Find an itch - so that it's something you really want to work at
• Read about Google Sprint which is an alternative to Lean Startup.

It was a very fun evening and I met some good people.

Super progress

On Monday I realised that when Apple, a few days before, had written that they looked forward to me re-submitting the app they mean they hadn't received the new version. Even though I had uploaded it to iTunes Connect.

I spent the morning carefully resubmitting it. This was quite an effort.

On Tuesday night, in bed, just before I switched my phone to "stop-pinging-me-everytime-I-get-an-email-or-other-notification" I received a ping. Apple had changed the status of the app from "In review" to "Ready for Sale".

But it is a free app.

I got up and checked the status on my iTunes portal and checked the online documentation which confirmed that "Ready for Sale" meant approved and released to the App Store.

But it could take 24 hours (and some forums had reported days) before it would be visible on the App Store.

Five hours later, in the morning, I woke up and checked the App Store. It was there!

Finally, after two months, the app is not only on the Google Play Store but also on the Apple App Store.

Yesterday evening I went to a Tech Founders pitch event. About 15 people in a line doing a one minute elevator pitch one after the other. A VC investment manager I hoped was there wasn't. Then there was food (of awesomeness) and beer. Then I left and met a friend nearby for cocktails.

This morning I used the opportunity of missing the investor to drop him a LinkedIn PM.

Take-aways from the lean startup meetup

Not much really as I knew most of what was being talked about but ...

• when doing user interviews, maybe 10 to 20 would be sufficient
• as an inducement maybe vouchers (€50 value) or prizes but generally people are happy to help

Questions worth asking (this is around web usability):

• go to a page - what does it tell you?
• what do you see?
• Complete a task - think out loud.

Bit of an update

I am now in the happy state of being able to submit apps to Apple and for them to reject them.

This is a major improvement over not even being able to get the damned certifications working.

Today I resubmitted an app, having spent the last day correcting it, getting into more problems, then fixing those problems.

The tyranny is over

For years I have been keeping all the business cards I've been given.

And for quite a while being kept on a ledge in the living room.

Today there were biblical levels of rain, angled straight again the living room window.

There must have been a leak - small enough not to be noticed for a while but big enough to soak all the business card.

I spent an hour going through them - one by one - then throwing them out.

Many of the people on the cards I couldn't remember. And as these cards were often 10 years old, or older, basically worthless.

The only way to keep up to date is through sites like LinkedIn.

Actual progress

The development of the iPhone version has been driving me crazy.

But in the last few days I got it to work.

I then got it into iTunes Connect and then TestFlight.

Initially Apple rejected it because I hadn't put in a demo account for them to test it. Actually I had and re-explained it.

Then Apple rejected it again from the App store as it has the word "beta" in it. But they allowed it to be used in Test Flight with selected users (this is why it's a lesson learnt - don't forget FB and other social media and sources of assistance).

But I didn't know anyone else with an iPhone. The Crazy Chicken suggested PMing friends in Facebook. I did and three people responded that they were happy to try it out.

So now I have an app in test mode and hope to correct it and release it onto the Apple app store soon.

I also recorded a YouTube video on how to use it. This took a few attempts as I was using Apowersoft to mirror the screen of the mobile  and it kept timing out.

Lounging

Today before lunch I left my flat.

I had some hommous, tabuleh and falafel downtown and then I sat in a couple of parks listening to some pod casts. I also had some ice cream.

Obviously.

Oh yeah, that's because this morning I finally sorted out what to do with the iPhone version of the app and was able to submit it to the Apple app store for review.

I even tested it in Test Flight and what I uploaded works.

I hope Apple accepts it and allows it to be published.

After several hours of world class lounging I met up with the Crazy Chicken, reviewed the investors' pitch and costs spreadsheet and then had an excellent curry.

Despite my ethnicity it seems I may be a bit sunburnt.

Worthwhile

It's nearly always worthwhile, if not immediately obvious.

This evening I battled through a storm (which never was) and went to an AWS user group.

The talks didn't really do it for me but at the end I talked to the organiser (who I know) and he reminded me of AWS Activate - VCs partnered with AWS Activate can have their businesses use AWS at a reduced price. But it is also a great source of potential VCs. He also said he'd put me in contact with the head of Activate.

Finally

Certain sounds do it for certain people. For some, it's the sound of a child's laughter. For others it's the sound of their partner reaching climax. For me it's the sound of my app receiving a PN on the iPhone.

I have the app working again on the iPhone.

Turns out a configuration change I had made hadn't been properly replicated.

There are still some other problems but I think they are solvable.

Take-aways from the lean startup event on traction

This evening's event focussed on traction and the main speaker talked about his fintech startup.

Ironically - because of financial regulations - they couldn't start with an MVP.

Key takeaways were:

• Find investors who think like founders - so don't accept money from just anyone or someone who demands a detailed business plan.
• Focus on your immediate target customer
• Hire on a continuous basis - avoid contractors  - a bit contentious here though it was pointed out that it is often cheaper
• Focus on the product - say no to most feature requests
• Don't scale - again keep to the focus on target customers.

Bit of progress

Yesterday we visited a restaurant to whom we spoke some while ago.

At the time they seemed not very interested but recently they approached the Crazy Chicken and asked about the app.

Right now it is appropriate to put a few exclamation marks.

Here we go:

!!!!!!!

So we met them yesterday and I have already onboarded them.

The restaurant is round the corner from the Crazy Chicken so we (or she) can easily gain feedback.

As well as on boarding them I have also added them to our CRM tool.

Still haven't got the app working on iPhone yet though.

Bewildered

For well over a week I have been battling to get the app working on an iPhone (it works on Android and is actually published on the Google Play store).

But with iOS it is soooo hard and confusing.

And it's not just me.

This is a goddamn adminstration topic - getting the IDs, certifications and profile right which Apple requires.

Looking at forums I know others have had problems.

I am visiting a relative but am still looking into it.

Today Appery.io gave me some advice (it took me a while to work out what I was doing so I could articulate it to them). Their advice was, however, a bit too close to "we don't know either" (to be fair, Appery.io's support is great and always helpful. I have no complaint about this response).

And now Outlook 2016 has crashed on my Surface.

Ooops

Earlier in the week I established distinct test accounts.

Today I received a quick call from the Crazy Chicken asking if I meant to send messages to live accounts.

I kinda was working too fast.

Launch day

Yesterday was a big day.

Breakfast with the Crazy Chicken where we went over a few things including preparing for a five minute presentation we were going to give at the business club later that day.

During the croissants I received an email from the president of the club's chapter that we should get there early so we could hand over our deck.

Went home and worked on the QR codes for the flyers and last minute checking.

Meanwhile CC contacted a couple of businesses who are very interested.

During the afternoon one of the businesses (an OMB) was having problems with the iPhone version of the app.

I double checked yet again and then found that I was having problems as well.

I remade the QR codes then went to meet the CC who visiting the other business.

Her son was also having problems downloading the app but I couldn't replicate it. Maybe he had an older iOS version.

After meeting the business owner and the CC, the CC and I rushed around the corner to find a print shop (incidentally Siri found for me not only print shops but escort agencies as well. Not what I had asked for). We needed flyers printed.

One shop point blank refused to do anything this week but did mention another shop nearby. We went there, in a queue and I left the CC, eventually grabbed a taxi and made it to the business club just in time.

The CC, with whom I was going to do the presentation, came along in another second and made it with seconds to spare.

We gave the presentation which seemed to go ok.

We also handed out the flyers.

As we all went to do the networking/eating thing some people with iPhones reported problems with the QR code on the flyer.

After eating I talked to one of them, checked his iOS (same as mine), checked his QR scanner (same as mine), doubled checked the flyer - it loaded on mine. Very strange as my iPhone is a new one and I haven't reconfigured it in any meaningful way (e.g. putting it in a developer mode - not sure there is just a thing).

It hit me early this morning. The certificates I have been using have been for developers only and in fact only my iPhone was assigned to the list of authorised developers. So that is why no other phone would work.

Spent most of today reading up on Apple certificates - totally not straightforward. I managed to understand the subject and then incorporate a proper production certificate for the app.

Then found that I had to first have it tested on iTunes Connect and then found that to do that I have to load Application Loader.

On running the app through this loader it gave error messages which, apparently, only XCode can deal with.

So now I am running XCode's simulator which is rather slow on my Mac.

Quite an odyssey.

Take-aways from the investment 101 part 2

Another great event even though only three people turned up (12 said they would).

But that was two more than I expected, looking at the event on meetup.com

Turns out others had booked directly on Eventbrite.

Now I have used Eventbrite before but mainly go to meetup.com

So, on my return home I made sure the app was loaded on my iPhone (my main phone now, ladies) and had a butcher's (= look).

There is a lot of stuff on there.

The VC speaking was from a clean tech VC firm but his points were still pertinent. Here are the takeaways  (omitting any ones that have been mentioned by others before):

Things VCs like:

• fast market entry
• early adopters
• short sales cycles
• fast feedback
• steady growth (they love them some steady growth)
• coffee kitchen culture
• kiss

also:

• don't follow every opportunity
• when communicating with key or potential stakeholders, CC the others who should (but maybe aren't) aware that you are in contact with their colleagues

• revenue x up to 10 as valuation

• Munich Venture Partners invest 1 -5m€, then 3- 5m€ often with other investors.

• Expected 3 to 5 times investment as return, ideally 10x

• Accept a lower valuation rather than impossible milestones, crappier liquidation preferences and persuade your exiting investors likewise. Also a valuation which is too high leads to a down round at the next funding series.

• Talk with VCs before you need investment, keep it informal

• Growth expectation is officially 10x but lower growth acceptable

• Aim for 50 - 100m€ to arouse the VCs interest

VC equity:

• 10 - 50%
• 15 -25% is healthy
• call the ball park 20%

An angel's view

Going through my emails this morning I noticed this question on Quora (I'm not sure why I get their newsletter - it tempts me into Facebook levels of time wasting - but this time I'm glad I did):

"How has SV Angel been so successful over the years, given how challenging seed investing is?"

Ron Conway, of SV Angel replied and gave is view of the characteristics of founders which stand out:

"

• Founder(s) is rifle-focused on product and building the best possible user experience
• Decisiveness, ability to make decisions quickly but thoughtfully – do not procrastinate, trust your gut
• Flexibility on idea and ability to morph and respond to market dynamics
• Able to clearly articulate their vision – incredibly important for both fundraising and company building, ensuring entire team understands direction and mission"

Why nobody will steal your shitty startup idea

This is so true and made me laugh.

Also, by talking to people about our idea I have received so much feedback, advice and recommendations - some of which have made a significant difference to our progress.

(Hat tip to Martia Roebkes in the Startups Tractions and Funding Facebook group).

Take-aways from 12min.me

Yesterday evening I attended the Munich chapter of 12min.me

This is where people talk for - wait for it - exactly 12 minutes on a subject close to them.

Yesterday's talk was in English and although focussed on intrapeneurship did have some useful takeaways:

• Planning more than one year is senseless
• Business plans are fake
• Start from the user
• Focus on customer lifetime value

• Team
• Fast decisions
• Know who does what when
• Timing - to market, technology waves
• Get the word out
• Signals and supporters
• 24/7
• Stopwatch v calendar
• Market check
• Send not only your show master but also your nerd when pitching

Steam-less

This morning I went to a business who may be one of our first two customers (and beta-testers).

Before that I had an MRI scan as a couple of weeks ago I had a migraine - only ever had one before years ago.

I also noticed that in the last few days I have been slowing down on the dev stuff.

I'm not saying I am burning out but tomorrow I am going to Bologna until Monday evening and am not taking my lappy. I will, though, be taking my tummy.

Serendipity

Yesterday morning I was going through my emails deleting most of them as I went along speed skimming just the first two lines.

One was from CrunchBase and mentioned the name of an investor at the last company I worked for.

I deleted it before my mind registered the name.

So then I had find it in my trash and recover it. It was news about this VC company combining funds with another VC.

I went on with the rest of my day which included meeting with an experienced executing and former professor who gave an excellent talk at the last AGBC Exchange. He was kind enough to agree to meet up for 15 minutes so we should show him the app and our lean startup canvass.

It was a very long 15 minutes (over an hour) and he gave good feedback and advice.

During our talk he mentioned that he was actually based in a room provided by a VC company - the same one. Oh, I chimed in, all super-up-to-date-on-things: I hear they have a new joint fund.

(I actually met them once at the company at a rather bloodied meeting).

Uplifting article

Well, a bit uplifting if you are in the mobile messaging app business (TechCrunch).

Take-aways from the AGBC Exchange

The Munich chapter of the American German Business Club once or twice a year has a Saturday morning event where there are various seminars held on different themes.

And this year it started with us, The Crazy Chicken and I, giving a three minute talk about our business's product.

Our approach was to start by telling (true) stories where businesses would have benefited from using our product - "if only there was an app for that".

Then The Crazy Chicken interrupted me and reminded me that I have been working on the app and carried on with a couple of more slides.

It seemed to go down well (I was congratulated by the president).

Then the seminars started. The most relevant one was also the most excellent, not least as it was run by a former professor who has worked in startup here and in Silicon Valley and has been involved in getting funding. We will be contacting him soon as he was happy to talk to us about the business and give feedback.

Here are the take-aways from the event:

• Customers should love the product and cannot do without it
• You need a revenue model, perhaps copy an existing one (as that should work) and know that a subscription model has advantages. Also the revenue stream should have low friction so it is trivial to understand and submit payments
• listen to customers and potential customers
• It's bad to not look closely enough at existing customer behaviour.
• Also bad not to be watching the competition and emerging trends
• Fund raisers should see a clear path to revenue

To summarise:

have a clear revenue model and product fit.

Takeaways from the Entrepreneurs Night - Silicon Valley Style Pitch Event

It was a toss-up between going and doing more app stuff but I decided to go.

Just before leaving for the event I had, in any case, fixed a major problem I had spent several days working on (and on which a real developer would have spent an hour on).

It was worth attending. As Axel Schultz, the organiser, said, it was the best pitch event so far, even against San Francisco and Berlin.

Here are my takeaway:

• should have a significant number of businesses who have been canvassed, preferably before writing code, but in the double figures
• "obsession makes a good entrepreneur"
• consider equity-based crowd funding where you actually get a 100 or so experienced investors who can help you. This becomes part of the value added investor thinking which also includes "smart money" 
• Axel like the idea of two people developing a business to actual traction
• Munich will probably take over from Berlin in terms of startup activity in two or three years
• For startups speed beats perfection

Not fantastic

When I go to the shops on the underground, tram or whatever, I am still working by reading startup and tech blogs on my mobile (now a bit easier with the iPhone 6s Plus).

And of course TechCrunch combines startup and technology subjects so is often read by me.

Seems we are reaching a point of inflection in the startup world according to this and this

Long one

Been working on the app since 0830 this morning (more like 0805).

I made no progress before lunch. And afterwards I only made progress by working on something else (I use Trello to keep track of app issues - like I'm a little one-man-band-of-Agile-hipsters).

So, I did make some progress today but there is a lot to do.

I  also found the inspiration for a five minute summary of what the company is doing for a business event on Saturday.

Hopefully have more steam tomorrow.

(And yes I know an 11 hour day is no biggie for startups but most of what I'm doing is totally new to me and therefore rather tiring).

dun dun ... dun

An SaaS provider wanted our D-U-N-S number (yes, that is how it is written).

But we are a baby-business (no, we don't sell babies, we are just small) and it could take two weeks to get one, apparently.

Except it turns out that Dun & Bradstreet have already assigned one to us.

More business progress

Having bought a box of paperclips on Friday (and securing strong interest from one business) yesterday I purchased an iPhone.

Although we already had access to one I thought it was time to get our own and settled on an iPhone 6s Plus for two reasons:

- although appery.io will "compile" for iOS pretty easily I think that as we go operational (at least in beta) I need to always have one on hand in case there are problems
- the larger screen of the Plus will be better when we demonstrate it


Also, we gained the serious interest of a business as another beta participant.

Significant business progress

Today I bought some paper clips.

Damn right it's a big deal. Even though we talk about the paper-less world (think about that the next time you go to the toilet) sometimes you need, in business, paper.

And that means paper clips.

So, today I bought a box.

Not just any paperclips but an assortment of coloured paper clips.

Clearly we are a serious business.

Also, we visited a potential customer, showed the solution and asked if they were interested in participating in the business beta test:  absolutely.

Take-aways from the Fintech panel

This evening I went to a German American Business Association meeting where there were two panels holding discussions around Fintech.

I attended one focussing on regulation.

It's actually been a while since I worked within the Finance world.

Anyhoo my takeaway was:

• Berlin used to be the only place for startups in Germany but now Munich is catching up (we're not in Fintech but it is good to know. Also, I am not totally sure what was said because it was said in Foreign).
• As a culture Germans tend to go for reference-able products and services. It's also a "me-too" attitude and I read of one entrepreneur who was told that he would only get investment if his idea was a copy of something in Silicon Valley. All this, however, is now changing.
• Something else about something that we will keep within our business and will sort out pretty damn quick.

Despite there being a lot of people it was a great networking opportunity.

To read and to watch

Last night finished reading Venture Deals: Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.

A really good book but I will have to read it again. A few times.

It certainly opened my eyes to the complexities around getting a deal.

This morning I watched a video from one on the authors Venture Capital Crash Course with Jason Mendelson. This needs to be watched a few times as well.

This was found from the Ask A VC blog. There are lots of great VC blogs. You know, some people think the internet is for a communicating post-nuclear holocaust. Some think it is for Singaporean women to post pictures of their teddy bears. Some people think it is to show the, um, more fun aspects of human behaviours - when naked. But actually it is for VCs to write about their views and activities. So I am starting a blog roll, initially as a label (tag).

Friday

Posting this a day late ...

had a great meeting with the head of a local American German Business Club. We are getting so close to getting beta testers.

This morning I rearranged my schedule for next week so I can go to a business club meeting. The meeting's topic isn't really associated with us but it was suggested and it will be a good networking opportunity.

A blur

This evening I briefed someone who is basically an associate - he is not employed by us but wants to develop his mobile app dev skills, for which we will get some developed mobile apps.

Explaining the current set up was very tiring.

Also very tiring was everything else, before and after as we are getting prepared for a major (ish) presentation tomorrow.

Investors' seminar

Yesterday I went to an "Investment 101 Part 1 - Post Accelerator - A Three Part Series", a two hour meetup event whose guest was Kevin Czok (who totally deserves this name check, as did the organiser Jewell Sparks. As you know, when you are named checked in the ultimate startup blog you are living large).

Unlike some other startup meetings this was a tight two hours, around a conference centre in a law firm, with a slightly older, less hipster-ish, but still relaxed (the organising partner was also dressed down) attendance.

Here are my take-aways:

• a lot of VCs don't advertise, you have to seek them out and if you do, get an introduction rather than cold call.
• VCs tend to look for seven to 10 years of involvement in the business, well at least German ones do
• read Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld - I've already downloaded it to my Kindle.
• also check out Brad Feld's blog 
• if you have to incorporate in the US, it will probably be best in Delaware or California

When you approach VCs you have to:

• have a real business which has a solid, scalable model
• be respectful to everyone, some VCs are quite small and you may be lucky just to talk to a junior
• show traction and how you would use the money
• disclose anything (e.g. dormant co-founders) before you are found out
• take projections seriously - don't be glib
• don't forget to include legal costs
• have scenarios on what would you do if you raised more/less/none/exactly what you wanted
• some VCs will do convertible loans before series A round
• VCs might take 5 to 25% of equity depending on investment
• ultimately the deciding factor for VCs to invest is the team (including are they fun to work with - answer: yes we are)
• beware of liquidation preferences - better for a co-founds to have less equity 
• documents can be in English (yay!)
• business plans are less required by VCs (than by, for example, banks).
• a pitch desk can be 10 - 15 slides (with even ca 60 backup slides) and take 45 minutes of a 1.5 hour meeting with VCs - though the initial meeting may just 15 minutes. 

Foreign

With the apps all nicely working and being regularly updates I, and the Crazy Chicken, totally didn't notice that one of the apps was back to English.

I had reverted back to it a couple of weeks ago when trying to get the last bit of the code working. I'm not fluent in German (it's my third language - I don't have a second one) but I can read quite a bit of it without noticing that I am seeing actually foreign words.

We both need to keep aware of this risk.

Process

While I wait for the Crazy Chicken to find us some beta testers (she has better German than me so it makes sense for her to focus on this) I have been updating the apps on Google Play (we are still in private beta mode).

I'm now getting more into a process: I use Trello to store changes needed and track their progress (Kanban styleeee).

I am also developing a test sheet (which includes functionalities of the apps) and a release process.

Hmm, just like old days when I worked for corporates.

Progressed

So after three wasted weeks (almost four actually) because of flu both apps and the backend work.

At least sufficient for beta testing. The apps are even on Google Play albeit in beta only mode.

Now to find some more potential businesses who can test the apps - this is actually for the Crazy Chicken to do.

Less mush

Today I felt much better, though not fully recovered.

Appery.io had sent some advice to the last problem I was having and strangely everything seemed to work now.

It's like for the last three weeks I haven't been able to think with sufficient rigour and have missed obvious things.

Bit lesson learnt - sometimes when ill just accept and don't try

Mush

Three weeks ago, on the Sunday I started getting things wrong with the final bit of one of the apps I've been writing.

Around 8pm I gave up and went to a local bar which has a good selection of real ales.

I have a couple there, maybe three.

The next day I felt awful. Not from the beer but fever and sore throat etc. and generally very week. I think the problems I had with the app were crypto symptoms of the virus that was infecting me.

I worsened and worsened. The next week I was able to go to the doctor who confirmed my fever and told me there was an epidemic in Munich and that expecting it to take a week to recover was a bit optimistic.

During this time I couldn't even look at the app. In fact, getting to the sofa was an achievement.

By the end of the second week I sent a support request to Appery.io who gently advised me of the flipping obvious problem.

On Monday of this week, the third week of this malaise, I was able to go into the centre of Munich and do some shopping. There's a quite good basement supermarket in one of the department stores.

I didn't buy anything there but found myself taking the escalator up to the ground floor and exit. Whilst carrying a shopping basket. I realised just in time: it was close but I narrowly avoided shop lifting an empty shopping basket.

So even this week I haven't been switched on.

I did carefully play around with the app in the last couple of days but got quite into a tizz about it. Although Appery had solved one problem for me there is now another one.

Today has been the only day I have felt up to writing a full support ticket to them (or indeed update this blog). So that is basically three weeks wasted due to influenza.

Meanwhile my business partner has also been ill. And so has another associate who has been helping out on the business plan.

And the business who was very keen to beta test our app has closed down. No doubt we will find others.

Chart your dev progress

In retrospect I wish I kept more of the old versions of the two apps I've been developing.

It would have reminded me of the progress made in quite a short time (for a n00b).

Meetups

Yesterday I went to a pitch event.

I had a few take-aways but the only one I can remember (because I wrote it down) was that there are about 1000 apps  produced per minute in the world.

Actually there were some others such as:

• need to have a very solid business model
• (once again) if your business can be global say so
• (once again) it's the solution not the technology
• have a robust capitalisation plan - don't take more than is needed as that will dilute your ownership more than needed ...
• ... and don't be too blase about dilution because if you no longer have ownership of the business your investor may panic one day and tell you to take a course of action which you don't believe in. 
• It can take 5 or 7 years for investors to get a decent return (via IPO or whatever) and some of the mainstream hi tech companies that are around (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google etc.) were started 10 or more years ago.
• Once established companies, which are successful, don't really pivot.

This morning I went to a startup event covering the legals around data protection. The main takeaway was:

• learn more German.

This evening I want to a lean startup event about Concierge MVP and "don't think about scaling when starting".

No real takeaways - it was thought provoking not that I necessarily agreed with everything, oh wait, there was one:

• develop lean and incrementally (I won't say Agile because that is hipster bull shit) but don't spend 10 months getting a system implemented and then immediately realise that it is hopelessly wrong.

Listen to this now

This being a TechCrunch podcast with Fred Destin.

Bit of a pattern

It seems that as I develop the app, as one feature is added another stops working.

Good link

Spent the whole day, and quite a bit of yesterday, recreating the app from what I have learnt from the Appery.io tutorials.

Also found this link to 50+ And Counting Websites To Post Your Product Or Your Startup  hat tip to the Startups Traction & Funding group on Facebook.

Don't actually have time to go through all of these fifty sites and am a bit surprised that this site isn't on the list.

Coding, coding, coding

Well, using Appery's visual builder.

Earlier today I went to an extremely helpful and friendly bureaucrat to talk about a founder's course run by the Bavarian government.

She helped me select the appropriate modules and didn't say - I think - that my German is so poor that I wouldn't understand what was being said.

I need to go on this course so I can convince the authorities that they should pay me benefit while I develop this business.

For some reason, although I was very tired, not mentally but physically.

After lunch I looked at the app I'm developing with Appery.

I restarted the app, copying what I had written before. My thinking about the app and building it is improving but there are some things I can't just hack and tomorrow will go through Appery's database tutorials.

Not good

Yesterday I read an interesting article from TechCrunch about the possible bubble we are in.

It was titled "Too private to fail" and "A bubble by any other name". I would link to it but it has disappeared from their site.

They had made reference to Good which was finally purchased by Blackberry after turning down higher offers and this action has left the employees high and dry (owing lots of tax). In contrast the execs have been left high and well paid off.

The answers are there

Christmas was spent in England.

A bit boring but there was some eating out and drinking Sussex ales - a nice Holiday from Helles (which is the local name for lager).

There was also quite a bit of development work and I made good progress.

Back in Germany for the New Year and continuation with the development. The Crazy Chicken is working on the business plan while I get my geek on ... the only thing is I'm more used to telling people to tell people to do technical stuff. This time, however, there is no one else. Just me.

The last couple of days were spent trying to get authorisation working for the app.

I decided upon Auth0 as it will work across platforms quite nicely (I think).

But I couldn't get it to work following the Appery tutorial. After a break where I watched The Machete I revisited the problem.

The answer was just about hidden in plane sight ... the clues were in the error messages referring to frames. Also there was a short but effective answer in Apery's own database of problems.

I need to go into more authentication work tomorrow.