41 - Progress, Problems, Plans - F19
Another good couple of weeks. Product development is marching on. And we’re now ready to properly fire the starting gun on fundraising. 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:
Run through investment deck with friends to refine - 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
Got some invaluable feedback on the deck from three friends. Griff and I blitzed through the refinements on Monday. I’m thrilled with the job it does of articulating our vision to deliver real-time accounting on top of the initial strategy to mend month end for finance teams. We’re now set to commence fundraising proper and subject to being able to raise money at a valuation we’re comfortable with (i.e. a level of ownership dilution), raise at least £400k of angel investment;
We’ve released some great additions to the product in the last two weeks: the ability to set different ways of apportioning costs across your group (e.g. by headcount, floor space taken up) and the ability to break out salary information in Mayday Recharger so different peoples’ time costs can be recharged in different ways. These were both key items on our pre-Xerocon UK roadmap;
We’re set for Xerocon UK. We’ve ordered our lovemonthend heart shaped red stressballs, our t-shirts and one pagers for the stand. We’ve got free accommodation for the 9 nights we are in Syndey at my aunt and uncle’s house (who happen to be coming to the UK for an extended trip at exactly the same time we’re in Aus!) for Xerocon Aus, which is amazing;
A potential opportunity has arisen to work with my friend Bailey on an ongoing basis post raising investment. Really excited to explore this. She did some brilliant contract work with us a few months ago to define our go to market strategy.
Problems
We had an issue with load times in setting up a new user this week. The recharge calculation part of Mayday Recharger was extremely slow for them. The user was relaxed and patient about it, so no harm done there. But it brought to light that we need to expand our server capacity to deliver the user experience we want;
I have done a modest amount of outbound to c.20 targets but not the 100 I had set. Fundraising plus product development plus Xerocon the week after next mean the big push on this will likely be late July, early August.
Plans
Goals for the next two weeks are:
Prepare a financial model to support our fundraising;
Have our first committed investor;
Set targets and execute brilliantly to get the most out of Xerocon (20 & 21 July);
Have posting recharges one click back into Xero (the last big thing on our pre-Xerocon roadmap) live.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Progress, Problems, Plans post!