Launching a new online solution

I am gearing up to launch our first own web solution into the world. And it is opening my eyes to a whole new world of promoting a web site. This is going to be a rocky ride simply because I am new to this whole thing. All this time I’ve left this aspect of running a web site to the clients. Once we deliver a web application it was upto the clients to promote them, gain traction and stand out. I just had to worry about delivering a slick, bug free and fast web application.

Now reading up on promoting a new web site, I am learning new things. I am not talking about things like SEO alone. I think SEO is just a part of the solution. SEO would only bring the customer to the front door. It takes a whole different ball game to entice a user to sign up to your application and in the long run, to convert them to paying customers (hopefully)!

I am reading up on things like Minimum viable product (MVP), and lean start ups, customer development process. I am also planning to pick up my copy of ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried and DHH soon and skim through that again. I will also need to use all my social media connections and networks. And hopefully drive some traffic into the site.

One of the factors that will make me work hard promoting the application is the fact that it is not a general purpose application that everyone will find a use for. It is geared towards a niche market and hopefully if I can find ways to reach these niches, the site will enjoy success.

One of the things that made me ready before I hoped I would be is getting exposed to the MVP concept. I had tons of features that I wanted to build before I launched. But getting exposed to MVP made me realize that there is no guarantee that those features will find adoption. More and more features were going to complicate the product as well as the development effort, but I had never tried them in the real world. So I ended up cutting down my feature list and ended up with a feature list which I think is what is needed at a minimum. Well a little bit more than the minimum because by the time I came across MVP, I had developed a few more features beyond the MVP. But instead of working on more and more features and complicating my product I concentrated on finishing up the nearly finished features, testing and fixing issues and slight improvements to workflows. And fix the holes around the system.

Earlier I was concentrating a lot on building subscription plans to the system. But it was one of the first things that I decided to scrap. I had some functionality that was built in. But instead of concentrating on payment gateway integrations, little nitty grities on the subscription plans, I just concentrated on the features.

So I am looking forward to launching this product and developing it along with the people who will use it. Rather than conjure up features my self, develop features that users will ask for (I think that is a bit against Rework lessons).

Cash flow can kill a business

The cash flow woes of my sole client seems to be continuing. More than that, he is now running out of projects. So we are heading towards a permanent death of cash flow and it seems that with that my business might also wind up! My client hasn’t landed any new projects and the ones we are working on are coming to an end. This puts him in a position of no work in a couple of months and even now I have only a 50% utilization of my resources.

I’ve spent a significant time this month going through the accounts and figuring out where I stand. My main worry is I have some outstanding statutory payments pending which may put me in a legal quandary. And I don’t have enough cash in the bank to meet them. I’ve been pestering my client for the payment at least to cover these statutory payments but that payment also keeps getting postponed. As of now, I have two and half months full operating expense invoices pending for the company and three and a half months worth of my salary pending.

Thankfully I received a partial payment a week ago that enabled me to pay my staff’s salaries. Maybe I am being a bit unrealistic by not sharing the actual financial situation of the company with them. I’ve thought long and hard about being frank with them, but being the optimist I am, I am hoping for some good luck that will keep us going and at the same time I have started my search for other clients and projects. I do not wish to see my enterprise fail. If only I had some cash in the bank, I would have used this as an opportunity to build some of the application ideas I’ve been toying with. But due to the cash flow situation, I am forced to sell the services of my team.

On a personal front I was also asked to cut down the hours I was billing him. It was imperative but hearing it was hard. Less hours means less pay for me so I had to find a way to supplement my income. Luckily I managed to find a short term gig that I can do on the side. Hopefully it will last a couple of months.

I have also been actively bidding on work for the team as well. The rate I am bidding for is a very competitive rate for the clients and at the same time a more profitable rate for the company than the fixed rates that my developers are being paid for currently. It’s just that on the risk vs. profit equation I preferred to take less risk and less profit at that time. When I agreed for the terms with my current client, I declined the option of working on project basis as I feared that in such an arrangement he would simply have to pay us only if there is work. My assumption that he will take on the burden of paying the team when the work becomes low, was simply an incorrect assumption.

Because lately, we’ve had discussions about preparing for the worst, which means that when the projects run out, we are simply going to get cut out. So in this light, had I opted to work on project basis I would have earned better margins and would even be in a position today to sustain the team for a while.

So now, if I do manage to find work on better terms, I am simply going to give priority to such projects. That should increase the profitability of the company. I can simply pull the people from the payroll of the my current client and place them on more profitable projects. But I will have to manage this pretty openly and diplomatically as it was he (my client) who paid for them all this time including the infrastructure costs. But I don’t see an issue in doing what I am hoping to be doing as it was made pretty clear to me that it is me who is responsible for the staff and will have to face the consequences of letting them go (in the view of outstanding statutory payments). And it is my company and as the director, I , will be left to sort them up. So I will have to look after the interest of the company and my self personally, before I look after the interest of the client.

I am pretty emotionally charged and tensed right now as I write this. It is hard to watch your dream and desires (in this case my company) going down. So I am not going to watch idling. I am going to do whatever it takes, to survive this storm. This storm of cash flow woes. And the risk I knew I was running all along. Being dependent on a single client. So these woes should result in my business becoming more robust and vibrant.