Lessons From The Failure of Vinay Patankars First Startup Could Make Process.St The Next Killer SaaS

Summary: Vinay Patankar, the founder of Process Street, a new SaaS startup, discusses the lessons learnt from his first startup failure, why Process Street solves a big itch for any business that needs to scale.  We discuss why its important to focus on product feedback and validation, get traction (new customers) and focus on the user experience long before you attempt to get funding. Todays' Podcast Highlights [2.10 - being in San Francisco really helps your networking] [3.16 – Build your product and get customers before talking to investors] [4.49 - Mistakes to learn from – not getting traction, team too expensive to scale, no UX testing] [8.25 - Balsamiq is a great tool for building wireframes] [9.20 - UX (User experience) is more important than screen design] [11.22 – Used a pitch deck to get Tech co-founder on board] [12.44 – Get a tech partner who believes in the vision] [13.56 - Outsource Wordpress site build, recruiting a content marketer and mobile developer] [15.49 – Scratched my own itch with outsourcers] [16.29 – Wanted a rich experience with creating SOPs] [17.31 – Could not find another solution] [18.16 – We want to make it amazing] [20.00 - Step by step checklist with Rich content to support it] [20.25 – Helps remove yourself from being the bottleneck in your business] [21.35 – The Lean Startup should be at the top of your reading list] [21.57 – Make decisions based on real user data] [22.17] - Your startup is proven when you’ve proved your product market fit and your growth hypothesis] [25.20 – We see Process Street going a lot bigger than just outsourcing market] [26.53 – Master one niche first, then expand] [31.40 – Using a lot of great tools gives you insight into good user experience] [34:00 – Only put in features that are essential] [36.18 – Never promise a feature timeframe] [36.40 – Technical Platform] [38.00 – For $125 per month we have an infinitely scalable platform that’s super lean]   Disruptware is building the largest community of software entrepreneurs on the planet.  Make sure you are on the list.   Full Transcript Paul:               Okay. I'm really keen to introduce you guys to Vinay Patankar from Process Street. Now Vinay is just in the process of launching his MVP. He's in beta phase and Process Street is a tool to manage basically teams tasks as a productivity tool. So if you think of standard operating procedures and outsourcing, then he's really come out with an ideal solution for a real market need. Vinay, welcome to the show. Vinay:             Thanks for having me Paul. Paul:               Excellent. First of all, tell me a bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you do with Process Street? Vinay:             Sure. My background is a bit of a mixed bag. I'm originally from Australia. I've got a background in IT and sales, marketing business. I worked with software recruiter for a while as well as worked in technology and for the last four years I've been traveling as a digital nomad running an online lead generation company, launched two startups. Process Street being my second one and I've been working building Process Street products for about the last six months. Paul:               Wow! You're not actually based in the U.S, are you? You're based in Argentina, Buenos Aires? Vinay:             Yeah, we're currently in Buenos Aires. Basically the last startup that I ran I was in San Francisco and we went through an accelerator and didn't get the traction we wanted so kind of ended up shutting that down. When building Process Street, we thought, okay, we could stay in San Francisco or go to another U.S city or we could just go to somewhere that is cheaper and having a new experience of living in a different city, kind of like a semi-holiday if you will. But because we were just building the product, we didn't really need to be near any of our customers or anything at that current stage of the company.