Bootstrapped: Get Out of the Building!

BitCash: A Startup's Journey - Week 4 

6/24/16

“Get out of the building” is Steve Blank's mantra and it's a good one.   Blank is the mentor whom Eric Ries often mentions in his best-selling book The Lean Startup.  Blank wrote about his experience working as a marketer for a hardware tech startup and being chewed out by his boss for having an opinion about what type of graphics card customers wanted without ever talking to the customers.  It was then when he understood the importance of getting outside to meet with customers.   To Blank, opinions reside inside the building.  Facts reside outside.  Makes sense to me.

The only way I'll really know how people interact with our product is to observe people use it.  I'll be able to get feedback right there and then too.  That's where the learning & understanding happens.  It'll also probably be the only way I can achieve my goal of 1,000 alpha testers by July 31st.  I've already exhausted much of my email lists.

Lesson From Email Outreach  

Keep email messages short.  My earlier emails were not direct enough and had a lot extraneous conversational comments so I didn't get a good response rate until I shortened the email. Remove the small talk.  Right now I use a personalized intro, ask for 5-10 minutes to check out the app and end with a 'thank you for helping'.  That's it.  Seems to be working fine.  My email lists are large, but a large portion aren't close acquaintances and quite a few aren't relevant.  Once I exhaust the list of people I know, I'll have to create another outreach email for those that I barely know.  I'll probably send a few educational emails before asking that group to check out our web app.     

Productivity, Routine and Focus?  Not Yet.

I haven't been faithful to the routine I scheduled for the last couple weeks.  I've done things out of order and late at night to catch up.  I'm probably getting 20-25% of my daily routine done.  I've been unproductive for the most part hanging out with relatives for a few days last week.  I also end up contemplating metaphysical & existential thoughts for hours because of all the posts on Steemit.  I mean if our reality is just a simulation as a few posts on this forum suggest..

Anyways back to 'reality'.. here are the tallies for alpha users: 

Week 3 – 11 signups.  Total: 122 

Week 4 – 8 signups.  Total: 130

Next steps:    I have a Bitcoin meetup talk I'm doing in SF next Wednesday that I have to prepare for.  I'm going to be discussing decentralized exchanges and introducing ours that is powered by Bitshares.  I also have to adjust my routine to include two days of outreach 'outside the building.' I'll schedule some outreach at college campuses and possibly outside some cannabis dispensaries.  I'll also have to continue to expand my outreach for industry advisors.  Til next week!

The "Bootstrapped" Blog Series
Why Blog?
Background
6/2/16 - Growth & Goals - From 100 to 1000
6/9/16 - Productivity, Routine and Focus