What a Journey…
The amazing thing about a startup is the speed at which things change, evolve and grow. We had a team meeting yesterday summarizing the challenges we faced and our accomplishments throughout 2009.
Funny thing, as an entrepreneur, when you are right in the middle of the start-up phase, it always feels like things are not moving fast enough. When you are in the middle of it, it is very hard to see the successes as clearly as you do the challenges or issues. The beauty of hindsight is that you can see the entire picture and track the actual progress against the goals and milestones.
When you get a chance to take a breath, look back, and appreciate the magic of what just took place it is really the juice that fuels an entrepreneur.
Here is our TOP TEN list of company accomplishments that happened throughout this past year:
1) We set out to develop an incredible advisory board to guide us in all aspects of our companies’ growth and development.
Starting Number of Advisors: 3 Projected Number: 10 Actual Number: 13
2) We set out to establish letters of intent to partner with a number of major Sites and Site Platforms that would agree to install our tools as core functionality for their community members to take advantage of.
Starting Number of Partners: 0 Projected number: 15 Actual Number Signed: 9
3) We began the year with an objective of bringing 3 core engines that enable us to achieve our vision:
a. A Recommendation Engine that works inside social media;
b. An Offers/Advertising Engines that presents relevant and real-time offers in conversations throughout social media platforms;
c. A Mobile Offers API that is designed to extend our offers engine to existing mobile apps.
ACTUAL: We brought all three to market and are now growing and expanding the feature sets of each platform and partnering with numerous large organizations on implementing and licensing our solutions.
4) We set out to integrate our platforms inside a number of major social networks and begin growing our platform of partners that are connected through our systems.
Beginning of the Year: 0 Projected #: 4 Actual Number: 2
5) We set out to expand our team to handle the partnership growth and technology expansion that was necessary for us to fulfill on our targets:
Starting # of Team Members: 7 Projected Number: 25 Actual Number: 24
6) We set out to add some world class talent to our executive team particularly in the area of Technology Development and Marketing and Advertising.
Actual:
a. We now have Dale Borland – Former 16 year Microsoft Managing Director leading the technology.
b. We now have Rob Whittle – Former 10 year President of DDB Canada leading our Marketing and Advertising Division.
7) We set out to raise additional capital required for our expansion and growth.
Beginning $: $ 1.2M Projected Raise: $ 5.0M Actual Raise: $ 4.2M
8: We set out at the beginning of the year to have 500 small and medium sized businesses engaged and advertising with us through our platform.
Beginning of Year: 0 Projected #: 500 Actual Number: 70
We were faced with the proverbial “chicken & egg” scenario that confronts most start- ups and though conventional wisdom might dictate that we should focus only on gaining and keeping traffic, we have some good ideas on how to grow both chicken & egg simultaneously that we’ll be exploring this year.
9) We set out to prove that social network members would take the following actions in exchange for a personal or community oriented benefit:
a. Purchase Products
b. Sign up for Events
c. Fill our Customer Surveys
d. Fill out Polls
e. Print out Coupons
f. Book Reservations
g. Accept Advertising Endorsements
Actual Result: We have now developed and launched the functionality to deliver the above types of offers. Now, it is time for wantsa to grow and scale our infrastructure to support larger partners and generate substantial revenue flow.
10) We set out with a mission to connect businesses, causes and consumers in a mutually beneficial system that would forever alter how the world gets connected to the things they want.
Beginning of the Year: Just a Dream Projected: The Company will be well recognized throughout Vancouver and Silicon Valley.
Actual: This one is not for me to report… you will know when we do
To Summarize:
-The Wantsa team is now 3.4 times the size it was the previous year.
-Wantsa now has 3 viable and scalable technologies to market, all with very substantial and viable revenue models.
-Wantsa raised 84% of the $5.0 Million dollar target we had over the course of a year that included one of the largest downturns in economic history.
-Wantsa attracted world class executives from Microsoft and DDB to join and lead our Technology and Advertising divisions.
-Wantsa attracted a spectacular Board and Advisory board with a strong track record and history of successes.
Now to those of you who are reading this and have never built a business… This is HUGE growth for a small startup company. While we did not hit every target we set out to hit, the fact is, if you start the year setting goals that seem impossible to hit and then you hit or come close to any of them, when you look back at the year in the rear view mirror and acknowledge where you came from and where you got to, it takes your breath away.
We brought on new people, developed new products, proved out our business model and began setting the foundation required for the future. The life of a startup is one riddled with challenges and opportunities and it is based on how we choose to take on those challenges and opportunities that creates the path for the results we attain. This is the juice that fuels entrepreneurs and allows us to set the sites on targets that seem completely unattainable when you start the year.
As we move forward into the year to come I want everyone to appreciate where they came from and what was accomplished and I challenge you to set goals that go well beyond what is reasonable and comfortable.
To have an extraordinary company we must first set extraordinary goals, then we set out on a path to achieve what others may perceive as impossible. Stay focused on those goals, then look back a year later through the rear view mirror, you too will get your breath taken away…
Thanks, Love, and Appreciation to everyone who helped to make this past year a success and I look forward to seeing 2010’s rear view mirror.
To be Continued in 2010…
David Strebinger
