Mike Raybman is the co-founder of WaySavvy. WaySavvy is an online travel service that analyzes thousands of hotels and flights for each trip and deliver the optimal “Savvy Choice” in one quick search. Users can visually compare our top picks with the rest of the inventory and book the whole trip in one click.
Mike Shares his story and lessons leaned before and after the launch of WaySavvy.
Alltopstartups: What are the lessons you learned as an entrepreneur before the launch of WaySavvy.
Mike:
-Don’t waste time talking to investors. Talk to users, and build your product!
-Don’t be afraid to reach out – people are willing to help if you ask nicely.
-Constructive negative feedback is just as helpful as positive one – it helps you assess and address your weak points.
Alltopstartups: What are the lessons you have learned after the launch of WaySavvy.
Mike:
-Listen to users carefully. What you thought they need, and what they think the need may be different. Both may be different from what they actually need ;)
-You can’t cater everyone – people will shower you with opposing feedback. You have to pick and choose. Pick the market niche that’s most receptive to your earliest most minimal product and refine the product until they pay you. Then expand to other market segments from there.
-A/B/C… testing works if you have a LOT of data, and concrete options. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to “design-by-committee” with your team or you might get stuck in horizontally incremental changes. Then get a lot of data.
Alltopstartups: What are the biggest challenges you have faced and how did you solve them.
Mike:
-Overcoming market inertia is tough. If people are too used to an old, big competitor they might go back to it even if they don’t like it. We came up with a way to monetize that behavior and collect lead-gen revenue from our competitors every time we lost a user to them.
Alltopstartups: What advice do you have for entrepreneurs chasing the startup dream.
Mike:
-From what we learned so far, a great team + a lot of persistence = awesome things happening.
