39 - Progress, Problems, Plans - F18

Good couple of weeks. Excellent progress on some key fronts. Here’s the latest progress, problems, plans (PPP) post. It covers progress and problems from building Mayday over the last two weeks. And plans for the coming two.

Goals For the Last Two Weeks

These were the goals set in the previous PPP post:

• Start fundraising. Get investment deck finalised along with target list of investors - met;

• Be on track for our Xerocon (20 July) product development roadmap - met;

• Be on track for our preparation for both Xerocon UK and our Australian trip - met;

• Outbound reach out to at least 100 targets for Mayday Recharger for intercompany recharges - not met.

Progress

• We had a series of great research calls to flesh out our strategy around month end accounting automation. We’ve got a clear vision of the product suite and the order in which we’ll build it;

• We’ve got our investment deck ready to raise our investment round. This is such a valuable exercise to succinctly articulate our vision. It required us to get clear on our roadmap for the next 18 months and how we’d want to deploy the money raised. We concluded that, subject to being able to raise money at a valuation we’re comfortable with (i.e. a level of ownership dilution we’re comfortable with), we want to raise at least £400k. I couldn’t find a way to embed the deck on here. But if anyone would like to see it (we’d welcome any feedback), I’m very happy to share it. Please drop me an email by replying to this (if you’re receiving as an email). Or emailing me at davidtuck1983@gmail.com ;

• Everything’s on track for exhibiting at Xerocon in London on 20-21 July. We’ve booked our flights to go out for Xerocon Australia. We leave on 1 September and return on the 16th. Still lots to do to finalise preparation, particular Australia. But I’m comfortable we’re on track;

• We’re thrilled with how it’s going working with Grace, the recent uni graduate we’re working with part-time whilst she is travelling in Mexico. She’s doing great work, displaying a great hunger to learn and a brilliant ability to stand apart from her work to see opportunities to learn and improve. Everythings moving really well towards the aspired outcome of her joining as our first full-time commercial team member post investment;

• Product development is going well. We’re maybe a touch behind on our 20 July product roadmap with work on the investment deck. But now that’s done, Griff can hopefully have some productive unfettered weeks of product development focus;

• We’re starting to see more demos come through from the book a demo option on our website (two last week and two again this).

Problems

• We had planned to do Mayday branded sleeping masks as our giveaway for Xerocon - playing on the recharge theme. But we couldn’t find a quality supplier at reasonable cost. We decided to shift to doing branded stressballs. Grace had the great idea of doing heart shaped ones playing on our #lovemonthend messaging. We’re finding a supplier for those and will get ordered;

• I was planning to have a big push on outbound (target of 100 reach outs) for Mayday Recharger. But I’ve let that be crowded out over the last couple of weeks.

Plans

Goals for the next two weeks are:

• Run through the investment deck with a few friends first to get their feedback. Refine accordingly. Then get all initial target list calls booked in to present the deck prior to Xerocon on 20 July. It will likely be tight to get the investment round closed by then but we can hopefully at least have made a good dent in it;

• Be on track for our Xerocon (20 July) product development roadmap;

• Be on track for our preparation for both Xerocon UK and our Australian trip;

• Outbound reach out to at least 100 targets for Mayday Recharger for intercompany recharges.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Progress, Problems, Plans post!