alek_m

Diary of a CEO

Hello freelancers, developers and entrepreneurs!

For the past 10 years, we have been running a development and design agency, completed more than 100 projects and most of them involved developing a mobile app or website with an API in the background.

While developing APIs we noticed that a lot of time is “wasted” on non-development-related tasks like: writing and maintaining documentation, providing support to other developers, debugging user reports, trying to recreate user steps and similar.

Because of this, we build Treblle, an API management and monitoring tool that helps you understand what’s going on with your APIs from development to post-production.

5 months since we got funded we are officially launching.

Tnx

I think deepfakes will become a cat-and-mouse games. Deepfake text/images/videos will get more realistic, people will figure ways to "expose" fake deepfakes, and the wheel will keep turning.

Because the ride-hailing companies don't know how to treat their employees.

I just watched "Generation Startup" it's a really cool story around the struggles of young tech entrepreneurs.

It's a documentary. Worth the time.

This looks cool, i will give it a try.

joke of the day

Are they trying to steal facebook's strategy?

How come the new MacBook Pros are available for order all around the world, but in SG the website says ‘Check back later for availability’

What's happening with the Cyber attacks in Iran. Their transport ministry and railways got hit back in June, now this.

Shameless plug:

Try https://treblle.com/how-it-works

Treblle allows you to test API requests with one click. Because Treblle knows what data was sent and what was returned it can replicate any call that the user has made and quickly allow you to re-run specific requests. Treblle also provides you with a way of running manual tests from our platform.

It also has an auto-generated documentation feature. Treblle can generate the required documentation for each endpoint just after 1 API call. It understands your JSON responses, can detect various authentication methods, group variable URLs in a single endpoint, support different documentation versions, and similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_W7zHrsM7E&ab_channel=Trebl... Here is a quick overview.

Let me know what you think.

It's not agency per-se; it's one agency managing multiple clients and seeing the same pattern across all of them.

" (although it has been starting to feel like a bit of a grind)"

Working in a startup also requires a lot of grind, just be aware of that. But if you want jump to something new i would take the opportunity.

I'm currently working on a new tool called Launch Torch.

The idea is to ease the domain search of any company and get their activity on different launch platforms. We offer information like where and when they launched, how many upvotes, comments, and reviews they got. We would be grateful if you devote a few minutes to check our product and tell us if you find it useful in a comment.

Link your project in the comment section and I will give you feedback.

Looks good, congrats on the funding. I would love to see being implemented in more languages.

I'm building a log management platform priced lower than hosting your own open source stack. In our books it saves up to 80% in log spend.

Website: https://www.wrble.com/

The product:

I’ve build a log management platform out of frustration at the lack of competitive pricing and stagnant feature sets of existing logs management companies.

Target Customer:

Developers, System administrators, Devops, CTO’s , or who ever needs a log management platform.

Wrble at the moment is being used by a number of early adopters and teams in our community. We have also been using Wrble internally for the past few months as well.

I would love to hear your comments, feedbacks and thoughts.

I'm gonna use your disasfaction of your log management tool for a little self-promotion. I'm working as part of the Wrble.com team its a fast logging platform that is priced way lower than hosting your open source stack. We are based on Lucene technology. I believe we provide the same service that existing players do for an 80% reduction in spending. Give it a shot let me know what you think.

Every time I'm starting a new service to run internally or reviewing something we have going, I find myself struggling to find the right instance type for the needs.

For instance, there are three families (r, x, z) that optimize RAM in various ways in various combinations and I always forget about the x and z variants.

So I put together this "cheat sheet" for us internally and thought I'd share it for anyone interested.

Pull requests welcome for updates: https://github.com/wrble/public/blob/main/aws-instance-types...

Did I miss anything?

For the last few days, I’ve been scouring the web for “SaaS” founder interviews. The goal was to find insights on which acquisition channels worked for them on getting new users.

You might find this useful.

https://www.solveo.co/no-code-saas-acquisition-channels/

7 questions to ask before launching a startup in 2021:

1. What has changed?

Opportunities always come from change. Sometimes, there is suddenly a lack of a certain type of resource, or people’s needs evolve and are no longer met with existing solutions. This creates space for new innovations in the market, ones that have the potential of changing the way we do things on an everyday basis.

By examining the current situation you will clearly see the opportunities you can take advantage of and launch a successful new business.

So, what has changed during the Covid-19 pandemic?

For one, a large percentage of people now work remotely, which means fewer commutes and more demands for standing desks. Online shopping is the no.1 way to shop (literally anything), and there is growing interest in contactless tech, right Alexa?

Those that lost their jobs are looking for a new digital way to make money, improve their skills, or start their own business – just like you.

People need physical products too. We have more time to stare ourselves in the mirror so perhaps that explains why workout equipment and skincare sales have gone up. People are also looking up ingredients more than ever, and actively scrutinizing companies that discriminate against employees, and don’t hinder the spread of misinformation (looking at you Facebook).

There is business potential in all of these shifts. Some of them have been gradually building up for a while and you might have seen coming. Some are just beginning to develop as a result of the new circumstances. Either way, in every industry there is a new wave and your business should be on one of those surfboards riding it.

2. What can you do better?

Keep in mind that the customers are the core of every business. A business without customers is just an idea. In order to get their attention and keep it you need to offer something new, or do it in a unique way.

Maybe you can lower the price of an existing product by using a better way of production, or you can be unique in the way you market your services online. Figure out what matters most to your customers and find a way to do it better than the competition.

3. How can you make it happen – faster?

Even the pandemic has not slowed down our very fast-moving world. If you have an idea, you can bet that about 1000 other people have it too. It’s likely at least a few of them will try to make something out of it. Don’t view this as a problem tho. It means you are on the right path. But this is where speed really becomes key. Launching first has its perks.

But launching is only a single moment in your company’s story. Growth comes from consistency, and this is why you need to think about how you will help your idea spread. Great products still need marketing so don’t think for a second that you can do without it. Lastly, meeting demand is also key, and this is where a lack of investment can really slow you down.

4. How can you get the money?

Maybe you already have money saved up or are one of those lucky few that have a wealthy uncle. Or maybe, you are planning on bootstrapping your way to the top, reinvesting everywhere you can. Either way, you need a solid business plan. Whether it’s to pitch to investors or plan profits to reinvest, this will help you move in the right direction and grow the business faster.

And if you are looking for investors you are in luck. People are looking to invest during economic downturns. Entrepreneurs that made money during the last one knew the potential this one has too. But first, you need to get your plan together and validate the idea.

5. How to validate your idea?

Validation is not only something you look for in your partner when you feel down. Whether it’s your money or someone else’s, you need to know with relative certainty that your idea has the potential you think it has. And while the pandemic has made us feel less certain just about everything, the best way to validate the idea is still to do it with real users.

Don’t ask hypothetical questions. Instead, run a $50 Facebook ad for the product you are planning to sell, or make a prototype and ask real users to test it.

6. How to launch (and stay relevant)?

The pandemic has created a unique opportunity for most businesses. People are now online more hours of the day. It’s very likely that your target group is there too.

What you need to do is find the right channels to reach them. Are they spending their time scrolling on LinkedIn or laughing out loud at Trump’s tweets? Finding the right channel is often a challenge but also the key to the successful launch of any business

7. Can you prepare for the worst-case scenario?

Nothing is ever certain, but in normal circumstances, you can have fairly accurate projections for the upcoming year. Right now, certainty is a commodity that no one has. Large corporations are preparing for the worst with crisis management plans. But they have board members who have relatively little to do besides discussing the future.

While you might not have that kind of resources at your disposal, it’s good to have a plan B and C. It will enable you to move forward with more confidence, and help you survive the next tsunami.

Launching a business in 2020 is a big feat. It’s important to answer these questions before setting out to launch a business. But what’s even more important is action.

Taking action and actually starting to work on your business. You might be holding the idea for the next Netflix, Slack of Amazon in your head. Unfortunately, ideas don’t change lives – actions do. So just start. Some answers will unveil themselves as you go.

I will be talking with the co-founder of IndieHackers Channing Allen on the biggest Startup channel on ClubHouse (Startup Club 280k members) at 3:30 PST today February 19. We will be covering User Acquisition and Growth for Tech Startups make sure you tune in we’ve got some really cool insights.

In the pannels discussion, I will be joined with Soumeya Benghanem and my other partner Darko from ZeroToUsers.

Feel free to join.

One way that really worked for us in the beginnings was through participating to a local startup weekend or an event of that nature. This is a slightly less traditional approach, but one you should definitely take to your advantage. I’ve been a participant myself and now, as an organizer, I’ve seen many ides fully blossom and set sale to becoming a full-blown business.

You will find people you could bring on in your team, develop the idea further and have the chance to present it in front of established entrepreneurs who could fund it, or help you find someone who can.

1.Solve everyday problems

2.Find something you are passionate about and think of how you can make it better.

3.Create a need for something, or create a problem that people "don't know it exists".

As someone who grew a startup to a successful innovation consultancy, i can give you few tips.

1.Network as much as u can Networking is the core of every successful career and essential activity for every startup CEO. Your company is probably young and unknown, so every new contact can contribute to spreading the word. There’s no point in leading a company if you don’t have a network of people from the industry.

LinkedIn is probably the most common way to do it. Follow people from your industry, engage with them, and share details about your product. Invite them to give you critics and opinions that will help you lead the business and improve your product.

2.Don’t quit after the first failure Having a startup means taking risks. And taking risks means being prepared to fail. And you’ll fail many times before you finally find the right recipe for success. What’s important is to believe in your product and don’t quit after the first obstacle.

For example, in the beginning, Instagram was nothing like what it is today. It wasn’t even called Instagram, it was called Burbn. Burbn was an app where people could check-in where they were at. However, Foursquare, an app that was doing pretty much the same thing, was pretty popular at the time, so the founders realized this product wasn’t going to work. That’s when they saw that people liked Burbn’s photo-sharing option, so they decided to focus on it, which was the real idea for success.

3.Co-create You might think your product idea is great, but you’re not your customer. Your customers might have different needs than yours. To find out what are their needs, use co-creation. Co-creation is a model that allows companies to engage with their customers in order to create a product that will meet their needs. You could use crowdsourcing techniques, like hackathons and makeathons to collect fresh ideas, or design thinking – a method that solves complex problems by understanding human needs. Using co-creation will result in reduced costs, better market insights, and better product design.

As a co-founder of an innovation consulting agency,

In the early days of my startup journey after we established and got a few customers, I was always trying to find different ways to grow it.

Scalability is probably one of the biggest problems startups have to face and that’s why a lot of them shut down.

In order to make your startup grow, you need to make sure you have the right resources by your side like people, systems, mindset, etc.

However, you should keep in mind that not every startup it’s meant to make it big. Of course, you would say sure but that’s not mine, mine will make it. Don’t be stupid.

So, for this to happen you should be prepared, make sure you’re on the right track, the business is in the right phase and the people have embraced that mindset.

Here are my tips on how you can prepare:

Before you started, you should make your fundamentals as strong as possible, this means that your product/service reaches market fit and you can make small but significant improvements based on the feedback and user data from your customers.

Next, you should define the largest core customers- these are the ones that not only spent the most but also are the engine for your business, the largest part of your revenue comes from their spending.

Discover marketing channels with the biggest ROI potential and start testing them with a small budget.

Make sure you have the funds you need to scale. Don’t run out of money when you’re planning to scale your business.

Something else you should pay attention to is automation. Automate everything you can from setting up cloud storage and organization, training processes of new hires, marketing automation, payroll for rapid processing, etc.

This may take a long time in the beginning but it will pay off at the end, since you’ll be able to access data faster, hire faster, market better, and pay easier.

You’re in a marathon, but it includes many sprints. Start winning the little races and you’ll create momentum! —Grand Cordone

When it comes to marketing, it’s definitely something that you should spend extra time and effort on. Because the business can’t scale if nobody knows about it.

Define what marketing channels and tactics work for your business at which of them will provide scalability.

Experts say that word-of-mouth and direct marketing don’t provide scalability like content marketing.

Content marketing has viral potential and that’s the reason why most startups choose it as a grow-hack method. Another thing startups can do is outsourcing.

Nowadays big companies tend to do this as well, but startups are leaner to it since they can’t afford a lot of services to be “in-house” like corporates. Lawyers, graphic designers, developers, etc, don't have to be in-house.

Keep an eye on social media. Every startup especially the ones that are new on the market, is watched and examined by the world.

Maybe you don’t have the power like a big corporation to influence the social media presence, but with the right content showing to the right audience, you can provide not only growing but also surviving to your business

I’ve recently come across this sentence “ If you really want your business to be scalable, it must run fine by itself.”

Let me know if you find this useful, maybe we can help you even further.

As an innovation consultant, Branding for me is the soul of the product.

Robinhood is officially a case study in the fragility of brand.

It took them 7 years to build up confidence in their platform.

It took them 1 day to switch from "by the people" to "against the people"

Welcome to the future