Lessons learned in our first month of beta testing our business idea
We have just ticked over four weeks of beta testing our business idea, My Business Engine, and already there’s been a few lessons to learn.
Number one: Everything takes longer than you thought it would when you were doing your estimates. The truth is you can’t really estimate how long something takes until you actually do it. We now have 5 Clients to look after. Some have an existing website that needs migrating and some need a complete setup from scratch. We initially thought we’d look for 10 beta testers but we’ve temporarily closed the books at five simply so we don’t get too bogged down. Our plan was always to aim for around two or three new clients per month once we get going so trying to set ten up was far too ambitious. That’s why you test your ideas in the real World. You need to get your business idea out of the realm of idea and into the real World as soon as you can.
The next thing we’ve learned is an extension of “everything takes longer than you thought it would”. If it’s going to take longer to set up a really nice website with valuable content then we will have to charge more in the future. It’s as simple as that. The only other choice is to absorb the cost and hope to make it back later but I want to be realistic about the amount of work needed for our Client to achieve some meaningful results. At the end of the day they will only keep paying our bill each month if we help them market their business better so it’s important that we keep our setup estimates accurate and charge accordingly.
We are still only a month into our new Business but already we’ve experienced the pleasure of seeing the lightbulb go on above a number of our new Client’s heads when they heard what we were proposing to do with our new business. Just like we figured, there are a good number of people and businesses out there who know they need to be marketing their wares online but they just have no idea how to get started. The idea that we would take on the whole deal was very appealing to them which confirms that there is a market for our business idea. How big that market is is yet to be seen but the beginning has been encouraging.
The journey continues…