People who have successfully launched a product (or DP has) - any tips?

[Echobelly]

DH has been working on a software product in his spare time for about 18 months (he earns a lot freelancing, so he was able to take a few months off to work on it during lockdown and to take some p/t contracts to give it some more time). He has done research of speaking to mates in his field (both who understand the programming and people who might use the product) about it and is fairly sure he has something that does something a bit different to anything on the market. These are friends who will be frank and honest, so it sounds like he is on to something - it is boring and technical and addresses a problem he has noted in his professional experience.

I've said to him that at Christmas we should have a chat about where he goes next and when he tales the plunge to getting investment to finish it off. At a certain point, as far as I can tell, he'll want some capital behind him to get some others on board working on it to create a viable product. He's spoken to some contacts and has others in mind he might sell it to. A friend who knows a bit about development has said it's good that he's got it fairly developed as the more complete the product, the greater stake/control you have in it once investors come in.

I'd be interested to know what experience people might have of maybe getting investing in a product and launching it - or being the partner of someone who has!

I work for a tech start up. It has taken a HUGE amount of effort to get ours to market. Huge. We are a self funded start up because we have services contracts with massive organisations, that are effectively bank rolling us right now. Ive also worked at tech start ups that were seed funded - but I started there after the first round and wasn’t really part of the process.

Our company was founded for similar reasons - the founders were engineers on huge contracts in public orgs and kept seeing the same problems arise, so built something to solve it. One thing we have experienced is it’s a very different matter trying to sell something commerically

If I were him I would probably start reading a ton about starting a startup and what/ who he needs in place to get funding and get his product to market. I suppose it depends how much he wants to put into it / how big he wants to grow it. He could try creating open source projects on GitHub to test the market, perhaps.

From my perspective, in marketing tech, you either need a) a ton of capital to flood the market with creative advertising and the ability to have dev ambassadors to seed the market with your target audiences, or b) a ton of patience and willing to fail, but fail fast. I’ve been where I am for about 15 months and we have only just got our first couple of customers. It has taken blood, sweat and a lot of tears to get to this point. We KNOW we have a viable product from a ton of go to market research and the fact that when we get it in front of CTOs, IT directors etc, they love it. But it’s getting it in front of them that is crazy hard work.

Granted I am coming from the perspective of a year or two in, not the very beginning. I don’t really know what the getting started is like. Our CEO is young and extremely progressive, very smart and very willing to be patient. I would probably advise your DP to look into what he wants to do - start a company? Release it as open source? Is it SaaS or PaaS? I would probably start learning on what it means to be a CEO and take it from there.

Thanks, that's all helpful perspective @GorgeousLadyofWrestling. I think he will need to get some other people on board, even if only to get another pair of eyes on it. He has some good sources of advice and, as I said, some potential clients to test it with.

Getting the push to take the jump may be the difficult part - he is pretty technically brilliant but has rubbish executive function (possibly has ADHD like out DS!) - once he does something he fully commit, but he has to do it. I'm imagining that a sales type person might be really helpful for him.

I have angel invested in startups before. He either has to have traction, good IP or some sort of a clear competitive advantage. A business plan and go to market is a must too. I would suggest he speaks to some incubators (entrepreneurs first etc), they take some stake but might help him if he is a solo founder

Thanks, he has a few entrepreneur friends and contacts, some of whom he's already spoken to, but will be encouraging him to talk to them about next steps.

He will need far more capital than you think.
I have been involved in 2 software startups and am about to do a third ( we think we need about £500k). Please don’t underestimate how hard it will be to get it to market and the sales and marketing resource that will be needed. NO software, no matter how great will sell itself and getting in front of decision makers will be a far greater challenge than getting the code right.
PM me if you have any questions and I am happy to help

How exciting!

My ex dp has a successful business out of the software him and his mate invented. They are doing very well now. He started it jb about 13/14 and when we split in 15/16 it was v slow progress.

I recall there was the marketing side of things which he seemed to have zero budget for but gift of the gab and then there was the tech support to the agencies they had already sold to which seemed to suck the life out of let's call them dave and john. So the tech support is something to consider alongside the selling aspect. I think there was quite a long gap between selling a few packages which needed immediate tech support and maintenance and being able to employ someone full time to do this.
I assume now dave has sold it to half the uk and abroad that he has someone supporting with the bug fixes and blah.

Hope this is helpful

Morning. I run a consultancy that specialises in raising investment for startups - he’s welcome to have a chat about where he’s at, no obligation. He can also buy my book, Investor Ready, from Amazon (it’s a #1 best-seller in venture capital, and a finalist in the Business Book Awards 2021) - this will help him understand whether and when investment would be needed, and what preparation would need to be done before going out to talk to investors.

Thanks all, @ChilliWillies will look the book up.