Good Morning fellow Launchers. Today I will be kicking off a monthly update series called Behind the Launch. I am an avid product builder and I want you to see how I don’t just write about this stuff. I live it.
This series will give you insight into how I think and solve problems in realtime with my current project(s).
Trucking Project Background
Currently, my biggest project is building a trucking logistics app. Some quick background on this before I share the monthly update.
Why Go for the Trucking Industry?
Like we cover in this post, typically you want to sell into markets where people spend money. As well respected writer & entrepreneur
presciently points out that you want to sell to markets where you have big spenders:Women
High earning men
Businesses who see you can help boost profits
In the past, I’ve spun my wheels in companies trying to sell to Midwestern dads. Nothing against those guys but they’re cheapskates. Never again.
This time, I wanted to go for a market I knew would spend big. Trucking in is the lifeblood of my country (US) with around $1T in total revenue.
That’s a lotta dough.
If you can help an industry that big boost its bottom line even a modest amount, you’re looking at the possibility of unicorn status.
Enter My SaaS Application
In the interest of protecting myself from doxxing & company secrets, I can’t get into too many details.
But. I found a lane that can help trucking companies boost their bottom lines by a significant amount. If I can pull this off, I can help them avoid about $30k/year in losses per driver and recover $10k/year in lost productivity.
Some Additional Project Details
Launch Status - Alpha:
I went ahead and built this product from scratch mostly by myself. I was able to build an alpha for almost nothing using the skills I picked up over the years.
Thanks to my great partners in this project, I was also able to land a deal with a trucking company with 600+ trucks for alpha testing.
Partners
I try to surround myself with people that will complement my skills. I am a very tech focused executive that can wear a lot of hats but I always like to partner with people that are good at sales and can fill the parts of the product tech that I can’t cover myself. I’ve partnered with great people that help me in a few areas:
My advisor - an ops professional that has a wealth of experience in established companies & startups. He is someone I can trust who has overseen many successful launches & exits that helps our team save time & money by staying on course.
A salesperson that knows the trucking industry well. She is motivated, well connected and can even drive a rig! She was able to land us a deal with a trucking company with about 600 trucks for alpha testing. Partnering with industry experts pays dividends!
A junior engineer - someone I’ve worked with in the past and identified as a superb talent with tons of initiative. He complements my tech skills and helps me put a lot of nuts and bolts together. Adding him to the mix lets me keep a healthy balance of “nerd stuff” but also being able to turn my back and do CEO stuff without sleepless nights thinking about QA.
Notice anything? I don’t have a huge head count just to have it. As I’ve preached in other posts my focus is entirely on the product and selling that product.
February Takeaways
With the background out of the way, let’s get into the the Behind the Launch Takeaways from February.
Dealing With Network Effects
Like many other products, this product comes with some serious network effect benefits. In my case, regional density is critical to product success.
I have taken a page out of the Uber playbook: I am focusing on a very narrow geographic region in order to produce superb results.
I have seen many people fail to do this and try to “boil the ocean” by trying to attack a huge national market all at once. This happens because they copy the Uber technique without understanding the “why” behind it.
Never ever copy someone just to copy them. Understand the why. Uber was very focused on local network effects and took over the world 1 city at a time.
They put boots on the ground to handle the supply and demand side of the market and made it robust before moving on to a new city. That was the key to success. I have personally been there when someone applied this strategy but just sat on their ass and tried to do everything behind a screen.
Get off your ass and go shake hands. Seriously. It’s not rocket science.
“Why can’t I get traction with my product at a national scale right off the bat????”
Think big. Start small. I’d much rather have superb results for 20-30 individual truckers than half assed, barely noticeable results for every trucker in the country.
I am launching in two very specific regions where I know there is high user density and where I know I can easily add a lot of value.
Brevity & Simplicity is King
You may be wondering how the hell I built an MVP alpha by myself in about 3 months? The key is simplicity.
I identified the core problem I wanted to solve and I made no more than 3 major features. I always follow a simple test to make sure that I am focused enough with my product: I go to [COMPANY] for _______. Can’t be more than 8 words. I forced myself to stay so minimalistic that the answer to this is obvious and short.
Customer Feedback: Music to My Ears
Periodically we are checking in our customers. During our interview with the VP we are working with he told us “If you can help us save even 15 minutes, that’s a huge win”.
This is why I sell to other businesses. Time is money. If you can improve the situation even marginally but at scale, there’s a lot of money to be made for everyone involved.
The VP also made some feature requests. This is a *good* thing because it shows your users are engaged. It also alerts me to a possible new business opportunity.
At the same time, we need balance. We can’t be everything to everyone. And I can’t just become a soup of features.
Everything we ship will be high quality. At BowTiedLaunch we ship half a product not half-assed products.
I am taking his feedback onboard and figuring out how I can implement the ones that clearly have the best cost/benefit and fit into our overall strategy.
Wrapping Up
These posts will generally be stream of consciousness about how I’m actively applying the principles we preach in this SubStack into real world situations. Seeing how I work through problems and learn from success & failure is going to help you massively accelerate your learning curve too. Please drop a comment if you have questions or suggestions about topics you’d like me to go over!
What’s Next
I’ll put out a post about once a month talking about what I’m working on and how I’m approaching problems.
If you have any questions or need advice my DMs are open and I offer consultations.
As always, keep learning. Keep building. Keep growing. Get to launch.
Recommended Reading
Check out the full post here.
TLDR:
#1 - Rework by Jason Fried & DHH- Two Tech Startup GOATs & They’ll Teach You Their Minimalist, Practical Methods
#2 - Atomic Habits by James Clear - Learning the Ins and Outs of Human Behavior Formation Is an Incredibly Lucrative Talent
#3 - High Output Management by Andy Grove - Former Intel CEO Shows You How to Use Engineering Principles to Build a Strong Business
#4 - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink - Former Navy Seal Officer Teaches You How to Build a Team of Doers with Initiative
#5 - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Georgetown Professor Shows You How Connectivity is Massively Overrated, Focus is Underrated and How You’re Currently Fucking Up Your Productivity
#6 - Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou - Game Development Expert Teaches You How You Can Play 4D Chess with Incentives & Accelerate Growth on a Massive Scale