Ask HN: How would you take this business to the next level? (part 2)
Made every mistake that many YC videos tried to get me to avoid.
19 months to launch and then 100 days to sign 12 contracts, total worth between $50K to $100K annually! I think we have reached the “next level” that I had asked about i.e. take a pain point and turn it into a web product that brands actually pay us for. We have built a web product that brands can use to reach customers and do business with them via WhatsApp. Brands use us to provide loans, sell premium holidays and even help make babies via In vitro Fertilization - all without their customer leaving WhatsApp
Now the Ask HN part. The next level from here is to build a $100K a month business. We’re close to signing deals with massive CpaaS providers who have approached us to sort of “white label” our product and help them serve their clients. That would give us a steady pipeline of business fed from the nearly 1200 brands that these providers already work with. This appears to be so much quicker and efficient to $100K a month, than spending months converting individual brands. But, this would require us to take a different path – not a web product but build a more flexible API product. Think Twilio Flex or Moltin.
Any you fine folks here navigated this path? Decided between a Shopify vs. Moltin? Serve brands directly vs. go indirectly via providers who serve em brands? Would love to hear your comments. One specific question that's in our minds is, what if these providers are just using us an MVP and once the business is validated with their clients, wouldn’t they just kick us to the curb and build their own product?
Any you fine folks here, interested in joining us as a cofounder, we would love to hear from you. We promise you lots of paper money, loads of startup heartburn, sleepless nights and faster aging on the (long) way to product-market fit. (clue: we think like Vinod Khosla about equity ).