Road to the Moon — Part 1
I am at the beginning of my career and have been a software engineer at Datadog Paris for two years. While I am content in my current job, I aspire to explore new opportunities and embark on my own start-up adventure.
I aim to document the process of gradually finding a product-market fit, growing revenue, and eventually transitioning out of my current job. I’ve noticed that there is a scarcity of literature specifically for aspiring entrepreneurs, and I hope these articles can be of help. However, to be completely transparent, I am primarily doing this for personal reflection and to articulate the ideas swirling in my mind.
I. Finding the Idea
The initial step revolves around discovering an idea that leads to a product-market fit, essentially meaning that your product or service genuinely interests someone.
It all began with a discussion with my roommates on where to hang out tonight. We realized there were few options/apps promoting local events that we were unaware of at the time. Here is a non-exhaustive list of competitors: EventBrite, Dice, Meetups, SortirAParis, and others.
II. Damn it’s not easy
At that moment, we neglected to conduct research (a rookie mistake, I admit) and dove straight into coding without consulting any event organizers. The first Minimum Viable Product (MVP) was a Snapchat-like app displaying open-source local events (you can try it here if you want). Anyone could download the app and easily see what was happening around them.
Soon, we understood the need for a business model, a value proposition document, and so on. B2C apps, it seems, do not generate substantial revenue. Our solution was to have event organizers pay to upload their events on our platform, a seemingly straightforward approach.
However, we recognized that this was the same model as Eventbrite. Trying their platform, we found they were good. Even though we identified some issues by speaking with event organizers and Eventbrite users (note that we started talking to potential customers relatively late):
- Eventbrite application lacked a map
- No ratings for event organizers
- Event organizers were primarily interested in the potential audience the platform brings (an obvious but important confirmation of our assumption)
Taking these factors into consideration, and acknowledging Eventbrite’s established presence and advantage due to the network effect, I am hesitant to adopt the exact same model.
Yet, there seems to be room for us in this market. Market penetration from Eventbrite and other alternatives is relatively low. From our experience, only around 1 in 20 people in Paris use Eventbrite. However, we need to inquire more to understand why people choose Eventbrite.
Is it for business events? Parties? …
Something still feels amiss. Especially considering their mediocre Instagram account, I believe that a simple and more conversational interface (like a chatbot) combined with efficient communication on social networks (using shorts, reels, …) can potentially compete with giants like Eventbrite and Meetups, at least on a local scale in Paris. Let’s see if we can prove that.
In case you want, to follow us. https://www.instagram.com/moonhq.paris/
