- Joined
- May 8, 2024
- Messages
- 18
I don't know if this actually belongs to the "IDEA" prefix but...
Some background, I had made a post awhile back on a new business we had started with a friend on providing roadside assistance service as brokers - connecting drivers with roadside assistance service providers.
Fast forward to now, and we somehow (I use this word very lightly) made it into an accelerator program (can provide details if required). This was a double-edged sword in that - yes, it's an accelerator and it'll climax with a funding round (that is, if investors find your startup worth investing in), but also being in the accelerator kind of made us complacent with working on the business as actively because we kind of relied on TL;DR being spoonfed (if you're lost, I'll explain).
Currently, our business model is a subscription/membership business model. We offer memberships (billed annually) to drivers and companies (various, that have their fleet on the road). Ashamedly, we have zero, and I mean nada customers and this is because of a lot of reasons... we (my co-founder and I) suck at marketing, like big-time but also we don't know or there's this inherent fear to put ourselves out there AND we're also not giving the business the time it needs. Another big reason is we don't know if this is the right business model, our biggest concern is recurring revenue. Hypothetically, if we do onboard a customer, even though it's a subscription it's more like a one-time sale and this is annual revenue and not monthly (I don't know if this makes sense).
Anyway, we're working with too many hypotheticals and the inaction makes it worse. To be honest, we feel stranded (and we're not doing anything about it). Is there a "right" business model? Is our business model wrong? Sometimes we lose heart/don't believe in our own business/startup... the idea is validated though, roadside assistance sucks in this country, and this is both observed feedback (hopefully not an observation fallacy) as well as feedback from prospects. The problem is, our solution is interesting to prospects but not interesting enough to close a prospect ("there's no hook in our 'pitch'" to quote one prospect's feedback), that is, our solution isn't interesting enough to onboard customers (yes, it's a given we've reached very few prospects)
So what am I doing wrong? Also, what's a good business model for such a business? I forgot to mention that our service is a 24-hr service but I feel like this will come to bite me back. What do I do?
I acknowledge up till now we might've made some pretty bad decisions (not making a decision is also a bad decision) and I'm literally clutching at any straws to save me from sinking. Help?!
P.S. The accelerator did give us 4 freelancers - 2 sales people and 2 digital marketers. We also have one month to get some traction at least before demo day (pitching). And if I'm being honest I don't know how exactly to use the freelancers, so how can I use them to test product-market fit as well as onboard customers (our target is 100).
I'll appreciate any feedback/insight
Some background, I had made a post awhile back on a new business we had started with a friend on providing roadside assistance service as brokers - connecting drivers with roadside assistance service providers.
Fast forward to now, and we somehow (I use this word very lightly) made it into an accelerator program (can provide details if required). This was a double-edged sword in that - yes, it's an accelerator and it'll climax with a funding round (that is, if investors find your startup worth investing in), but also being in the accelerator kind of made us complacent with working on the business as actively because we kind of relied on TL;DR being spoonfed (if you're lost, I'll explain).
Currently, our business model is a subscription/membership business model. We offer memberships (billed annually) to drivers and companies (various, that have their fleet on the road). Ashamedly, we have zero, and I mean nada customers and this is because of a lot of reasons... we (my co-founder and I) suck at marketing, like big-time but also we don't know or there's this inherent fear to put ourselves out there AND we're also not giving the business the time it needs. Another big reason is we don't know if this is the right business model, our biggest concern is recurring revenue. Hypothetically, if we do onboard a customer, even though it's a subscription it's more like a one-time sale and this is annual revenue and not monthly (I don't know if this makes sense).
Anyway, we're working with too many hypotheticals and the inaction makes it worse. To be honest, we feel stranded (and we're not doing anything about it). Is there a "right" business model? Is our business model wrong? Sometimes we lose heart/don't believe in our own business/startup... the idea is validated though, roadside assistance sucks in this country, and this is both observed feedback (hopefully not an observation fallacy) as well as feedback from prospects. The problem is, our solution is interesting to prospects but not interesting enough to close a prospect ("there's no hook in our 'pitch'" to quote one prospect's feedback), that is, our solution isn't interesting enough to onboard customers (yes, it's a given we've reached very few prospects)
So what am I doing wrong? Also, what's a good business model for such a business? I forgot to mention that our service is a 24-hr service but I feel like this will come to bite me back. What do I do?
I acknowledge up till now we might've made some pretty bad decisions (not making a decision is also a bad decision) and I'm literally clutching at any straws to save me from sinking. Help?!
P.S. The accelerator did give us 4 freelancers - 2 sales people and 2 digital marketers. We also have one month to get some traction at least before demo day (pitching). And if I'm being honest I don't know how exactly to use the freelancers, so how can I use them to test product-market fit as well as onboard customers (our target is 100).
I'll appreciate any feedback/insight
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