Local entrepreneurs Donna Bonello, Stefan Debattista, Krista Decesare and Gege Gatt tell Tech Sunday about building a tech business in four steps.

Tech start-ups – whether a new division inside a larger company or a company that blossoms out of a bedroom – tend to follow a series of steps which can eliminate a lot of twiddling of thumbs. Following these steps can help anyone start a business.

The customer development model, as explained by Steven G Blank in his study The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Cafepress 2010) separates all the customer-related activities in the early stage of a company into four processes: customer discovery, customer validation, customer creation, and company building.

Customer discovery is about finding out how good your idea really is by going out and consulting potential customers. Donna Bonello from Winit.com.mt talks about this first stage.

“As with all the products we develop at Untangled Media, Winit was born because we had identified a gap in the market we believed needed filling,” Bonello says. “After researching the potential of the idea, we developed the site and quickly launched it, getting an immediate and positive response from the public.

“As soon as we started our marketing, we were inundated with subscribers at levels that far exceeded our predictions. Along with the subscriptions came unique visits in their thousands – the key to any successful site. Companies also realised that using Winit to promote themselves and their products was quick, powerful and highly cost-effective.

“You realise you are on to a good thing when a site starts to sell itself and that is exactly what has happened with Winit. Once you get there, the next step is customer validation,” adds Bonello.

“At 8am.com.mt we are knee deep in the customer validation stage,” says Stefan Debattista. “In the one month since launch, we have attracted top Maltese employers such as HSBC, Panta Lesco, Icon, Farsons and 6pm who are all advertising their jobs in Malta on our site. By successfully selling, we are validating our product hypothesis. Talking to our customers helps us improve our product to make sure it is beautiful to use, as well as solve our customers’ problems as much as possible,” says Debattista.

“Should there ever be parts of the business plan that we realise are not correct, then we refine our assumptions and revisit the first step, that is, customer discovery.

“Completing the first two steps verifies our market, locates our customers, tests the perceived value of our product, identifies the decision makers, establishes our pricing strategy, sales cycle and process.

“Once we are satisfied that we have found a group of repeatable customers with a repeatable sales process, and then find that those customers yield a profitable business model, we will move to the next step – customer creation,” says Debattista.

Customer creation is about creating end-user demand and driving that demand by ramping up marketing spending.

For Krista Decesare at Ooii.com.mt, the customer creation stage is about creating awareness and establishing a powerful brand.

“If it is not a totally new concept, then you are likely to face stiff competition,” says Decesare. “You need to understand who your competition is and how to differentiate yourself.

“Ooii’s main advantage is that it not only offers a wide variety of products but also offers free next day delivery on all orders. Furthermore, our 24/7 customer support service reduces the lack of interpersonal contact that is normally negatively associated with online shopping. Once you establish your competitive advantage, you need to focus on how you are going to get that message across,” says Decesare.

“First, you need to come up with a set of realistic and measurable objectives determining what you wish to accomplish. Then develop a strategy to achieve those objectives – your main aim here is to drive traffic to your website and eventually capture registrations.

“Establish who your target audience is and how you are going to reach them.

“Ooii’s launch mainly consisted of digital billboards, Facebook, events and radio ads. Nowadays you can gain a high level of awareness through social media. Facebook was one of the most effective mediums through which we gained a lot of exposure – today, our Facebook page has over 9,000 likes. Once your audience is following, company building is your next priority,” adds Decesare.

For Gege Gatt at Icon, company building is where the company transitions from learning and discovery into formal divisions to exploit the company’s early success.

“Once the organisation is driving profit, the next strategic thrust is growth-funding, either internal by utilising shareholder assets or by seeking external investment,” says Gatt.

“At company-building stage you will necessarily gravitate around two central obsessions: sales and effective delivery. These two themes will remain pivotal to ensuring success and all other initiatives – such as innovation or measurement – will fuel and deepen such themes further.

“One thing Icon understood early on is that although most customers say they care about price, what they really want is a great sales experience followed by superb delivery. At Icon, this translates into getting the basics right very early on. This means gauging the right level of contact, thorough understanding of our products and our industry, and determining the key reason why our products are superior to our competitors’. We regularly frame this within a context our clients understand well: that is, how our products help in driving revenue and cutting costs.

“‘Execution’ has become the new buzzword,” adds Gatt. “We understand that our clients are facing increasing market pressure and our mission is to quickly translate key strategic and operational directions from our clients into actions. This quick response, often in the form of development of e-campaigns, mobile-apps, portals or bespoke software, points towards an organisation that is flexible enough to adapt quickly to external market changes. This delivery is framed within the context of a positive experience: we want our clients to enjoy the roll-out process.

“The recurring theme beneath the sales and execution framework is rooted in talent.

“Icon has constantly looking out for the best talent to join its ranks and has consistently invested in the improvement of its staff,” adds Gatt.

Step by step

Donna Bonello, Stefan Debattista, Krista Decesare and Gege Gatt on doing e-business.

Q: What does your ­company do?

Donna: Winit.com.mt is a unique, subscriber-based website that gives everybody who signs up the opportunity to enter all our competitions for free. We also give companies the opportunity to cost-effectively promote their products and services.

Stefan: 8am.com.mt showcases employers and candidates and allows out users to permanently connect to employers, jobs and candidates in Malta.

Krista: Ooii.com.mt is a local online superstore offering a selection of over 20,000 products across a wide variety of categories and brands including event tickets for concerts, parties and festivals.

Gege: Icon’s solutions range from mobile-app development and e-marketing solutions to web-portal development and social media engagement programs.

Q: How did you start?

Donna: We researched the idea for Winit in the same way we research all our ideas before we turn them into realities. Good planning is the key and generally takes up most of the preparation phase – much more than actual development.

Stefan: I’ve had other ideas in the past, but the reaction from people to this one was different. “A social network for jobs” is the term that I used to describe the vision, and it clicked with people.

Krista: Online shopping in Malta has been on the increase and there was nothing like it on the local market, so we thought why not launch the very first online superstore here in Malta.

Gege: Web is at the cutting edge of technology, business strategy and innovation. These three elements drive me as a person and facilitate international business opportunities.

Q: What was your very first task?

Donna: Speaking to the public and determining if the concept of Winit was one which they would take to. If you don’t have public support for a website, you don’t have a viable business.

Stefan: I formulated my thoughts as a three-page hypothesis which I sent to a bunch of people I knew. Then I got down to building a good team. Putting lots of time into a start-up is imperative.

Krista: To create a brand identity for the company and come up with a domain name and basically determine what image we were going for in terms of logo and web design.

Gege: From the word ‘go’ you need to have the best people on the bus. My first task was to find the right brains for the execution of our products.

Q: What advice would you give?

Donna: You have to believe in your product for others to believe in it too.

Stefan: Make your initial offering as simple and straightforward as possible for it to work like clockwork.

Krista: Learn from your competitors.

Gege: With an increasingly alienated market place, the ­winners will be those organisations that can design products or services that function or ­roll-out in a beautifully simple way.

Q: What is the next big thing for your company?

Donna: We have numerous projects lined up for 2012, all pretty exciting, although I can’t give too much away.

Stefan: We are looking forward to continuing to grow in Malta, and then to launch internationally.

Krista: We currently have over 12,000 registered users and 20,000 products. Our goal is to reach 50,000 of each.

Gege: Icon is on a strong growth path and is rolling-out new mobile and cloud-based products. The next challenge will be internationalising these effectively.

To learn more about starting a tech business in Malta and to network with other like-minded people, ‘like’ the Brainspotting Business Startup Malta Facebook page at:

www.facebook.com/BrainspottingMalta