Discovering the precise product market match to your startup or small enterprise typically appears like attempting to find the holy grail. However I’ve discovered that market match is much less of a magical second and extra a couple of journey of readability.
Life After Me is a brand new Dutch startup that I launched in September 2020. We have now the mission to allow individuals to depart behind all that issues. A couple of years in the past, I attended my uncle’s funeral which was not on par with the character of my uncle who out of the blue handed away.
The wake after the funeral was very unhappy and quick and I’m positive he wouldn’t have wished it. Whereas talking about my wrestle, I came upon that many individuals have skilled comparable moments and actually like the concept of a secure and intuitive digital resolution to get ready when the time comes.
Our cofounder Vasileios Papadopoulos began sending an SMS from the aircraft on a enterprise journey to his spouse when he skilled main turbulence. Ed Scutt, our chief know-how officer, witnessed an unpleasant combat in his household about who ought to get the letter from Queen Elizabeth II that his grandmother obtained when she turned 100.
The three of us began engaged on a minimal viable product (MVP) that permits individuals to add essential paperwork and create notes that can be shareable with their family members (so-called Buddies) after they go away. We raised cash from family and friends and launched the service in September 2021 with a social media marketing campaign that acquired a whole lot of likes and followers.
Why Our Product Didn’t Match
Guess what? No person subscribed.
We thought that it couldn’t be can’t be the product (naively), so it should absolutely be the market that doesn’t perceive the worth but. Due to this fact, we intensified our advertising marketing campaign and made modifications based mostly on the learnings from social media. Personas have been created from intel derived from digital campaigns and advertising brainstorm periods. However after a brand new and improved marketing campaign, the variety of subscribers was nonetheless subsequent to zero.
Within the meantime, we joined the Birdhouse startup accelerator program in Belgium, and through our four-month intensive program with a particular growing older and longevity vertical, led by Dirk Schyvink, the questions requested made us lastly return to the drafting board. Additionally, did we not study sufficient from Eric Ries (The Lean Startup)—the market tells you whether or not your product is correct.
Discovering a Marketplace for Our Product
We labored relentlessly to finetune the service and made the pivot to concentrate on B2B2C partnerships. We strategy life Insurance coverage corporations, funeral companies, and healthcare organizations as a substitute of a common shopper.
Our mission stayed the identical, however the product and advertising strategy modified. Our funds, time, and vitality shifted to approaching organizations and exhibiting how we might add worth to their buyer base.
Our technique labored. We’re piloting Life After Me with life insurance coverage and healthcare insurance coverage suppliers in Belgium and The Netherlands. Luckily, extra capital was raised from angel buyers, which additionally enabled us to extend the staff and conduct market analysis.
Our analysis confirmed that there’s a wholesome urge for food for the Life After Me resolution, however there are issues surrounding belief, safety, and the idea that individuals will reasonably manually gather their autopsy treasures reasonably than pay for an app. Due to this fact, cooperation with trusted companions equivalent to banks and insurance coverage corporations was the precise course to observe. Monetary companies suppliers are in search of digital innovation and enhancing their prospects’ journey, making a partnership with Life After Me a win-win.
With the additional capital, we upgraded our IT safety highest ranges and certifications. We additionally approached charities like Alzheimer Netherlands, Coronary heart Basis, and Most cancers Basis and plant a tree for each new member through Plant-for-the-Planet, a United Nations initiative.
We as a staff genuinely wish to do good for society and nature, however this additionally works within the enterprise’ favor when it comes to including further trustworthiness. With these partnerships and extra inventive advertising the social media technique, subscriptions are considerably rising and assets for advertising, gross sales, and IT are growing.
The best way to Discover the Proper Product Market Match
The important thing lesson from Life After Me’s seek for a product market match is to hearken to the market and do your market analysis by way of surveys and calls/conferences together with your early adopters. Moreover, consider in your mission and imaginative and prescient and work relentlessly to make it occur. Most significantly, nonetheless, keep agile and study from suggestions and innovate and enhance. Persistence is a advantage, in life and in enterprise.
Create an advisory board with seasoned professionals and dare to ask individuals to change into a part of your journey and ask them for help the place wanted. Plenty of persons are keen to assist new entrepreneurs with revolutionary concepts that make a distinction. There’s no holy grail to discovering the proper product market match. However by listening, asking for assist, and delivering outcomes you’ll find one thing even better—a product that makes a distinction.
