The idea was to create a market/audience before building a product around them, in the leanest, quickest, cheapest, low-effort way. Our Facebook page got 40,000 likes in 2 weeks. Now we have over 500,000 Facebook followers around the world, early on we crowd funded £10,000 from those fans to build our initial website and have now raised a £300,000 seed round to go 100% mobile / international. The long story of the talk walks through: How to create a brand through understanding your 'why' (the reason you exist) - this enables initial traction. How we started with an MVP (in this case what we would call a Minimum Viable Proposition: our Facebook page). How we took that MVP globally through social (across 100 cities by leveraging the community and power of an idea). How we developed an MVP (our initial blog to start taking data (e.g. user emails) and understanding our user preferences). How we crowd funded £10,000 for free to build our next MVP (Minimum Desirable Product): our website www.greatlittleplace.com. How we are going about building our mobile MVP (what we would call our Maximum Desirable Product). And how we're turned a simple Facebook page into a viable business.

1. Humble beginnings
Rossa Shanks
@rossashanks

2. Startwithwhy*
Why
How
What
*SimonSinek

3. Whyweexist:
Tohelppeople
discover
remarkableplaces
andunforgettable
experiences.

13. Startwithwhy*
Why
How
What
*SimonSinek

14. Thetraditionallongandhardroad…

15. Webuiltourstart-up alittlebackwards…

16. MinimumViableProposition

17. Glasgow 48k Amsterdam 46k Edinburgh 33k
Toronto 25k Melbourne 23kDublin 29k Newcastle 19k
Copenhagen 11k
London 248k
Utrecht 14k Manchester 11k Rotterdam 10k

18. Proposition/marketfit
500,000

19. MinimumViableProduct

22. MinimumDesirableProduct

24. Anidea,stillinsearchoftheperfectproduct…
Amaximumdesirableproduct.

25. Foursquare TimeOut Yelp

27. Amobile
matchmakerfor
theplacesyou’ll
loveandthings
you’lllovedoing.
MaximumDesirableProduct

28. We’retestingour
mobileMVPin
Dublin

29. UK & Ireland
Bath
Birmingham
Bournemouth
Bradford
Brighton
Bristol
Cambridge
Cardiff
Chester
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Lake District
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Manchester
Newcastle
Nottingham
Oxford
Sheffield
Southampton
York
Rest of Europe
Amsterdam
Barcelona
Berlin
Copenhagen
Madrid
Moscow
Rome
Rotterdam
Paris
Utretcht
North America
Austin
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Dallas
Denver
Houston
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Long Beach
Los Angeles
Memphis
Miami
Montreal
Nashville
New Orleans
New York
Ottawa
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Portland
San Antonio
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
Seattle
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington
Australia
Brisbane
Byron Bay
Calgary
Melbourne
Perth
Sydney
etc.

30. Howdowemakemoney?

31. Communityto
Commerce

32. Embracinglean…
Avoidstealthmode InvolveCustomers IterateTestassumptions

33. Thelastcityguide

34. Takeaways
Startwith‘why’.Findyourraisond’êtrebeforeyour
‘what’.Brandsarebuildonmissionsnotminutae.
ThinkLeaner.AnMVPdoesn’tneedtobeaproduct.
Greatideasknownobounds.
Beyourfirstcustomer.Buildsomethingyou’llloveand
stickbybrandprinciplesyourespect, andyourfirst
customerswillbecomeyourmarketingdepartment.

35. Thank you
Rossa Shanks
@rossashanks