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How we survived in the Red Ocean: Interview with the co-founder of Getscreen startup

Building your own product from scratch is always an exciting process. But it is also quite complex: you must research the competitors, think through the concept, create a roadmap and MVP, conduct research and initial product testing. And, of course, to find funding.

According to Forbes, 9 out of 10 start-ups fail and close in the first year. Today we talk to Farid - the co-founder of Getscreen.me, whose team managed to create a start-up that has survived and become successful.

Launch Idea

  • Farid, tell us about your product and how you came up with the idea of creating a remote access service from a browser.

Our story is quite ordinary, it started in 2018. Together with my business partner we were working for a large software company in Cyprus. I did the frontend in JavaScript and some marketing, my colleague was a C++ backend developer. At some point, we hit the corporate ceiling — we became senior developers and there was nowhere else to grow. My partner showed me his experiments with WebRTC technology and I liked it immediately. We decided to join forces and started the MVP.

The idea was to create a cloud-based SaaS for remote access from the browser — this allowed for faster connection speeds and allowed for integration with a variety of customer-facing systems. We decided to use the mechanics of connection by link, not just by code. And since many other customer-facing systems also work in a browser, it is easy to integrate them into the operation of our software.

  • Weren't you afraid of high competition? After all, we all know about Teamviewer and Anydesk remote access programs, and more than 100 such services!

Yes, it was quite difficult. We came to an existing market, the so-called 'Red Ocean'. On the one hand, this is an advantage — there is no need to analyze market demand. But there are really a lot of competitors: both old heavyweights and fairly young companies. The global market for remote access is now $2.02 billion, and it’s growing at 15% annually. By 2027, it is projected to reach 4.6 billion.

When analyzing competitors, we used two factors: the number of actions to establish a connection and the ability to integrate. And we found free space for growth in this segment.

First Customers And Promotion

  • How did you get your first clients, and what sites did you work within the initial stage?

At first, we developed the product at night, as we were employed in the office during the day. Already at this stage, we had our first users with positive feedback and interest from an American venture fund Vertica Capital, which was a strong driver for us. After a while, we realized that it was time to get on with our business and left our full-time job.

After about a year, we introduced monetization and the first paying users appeared. Then we submitted Getscreen on Product Hunt and started getting calls from major venture capital funds such as S21 Capital, Apax Capital, and Insight Partners. All this instilled confidence in the need for our solution in the market.

But at the beginning there was no targeted promotion, people found out about our product from acquaintances. We began to engage fully in marketing and promotion in 2021. Now we have clients from America, Brazil, Europe, India, and other countries.

  • So you first gave the product to users on a non-commercial basis?

Yes, of course. It was a hypothesis to be tested. We tried to see if it would sell, if we could get out of a full-time job and do our own business. Already in the early stages, the hypothesis began to be confirmed. After monetization, some users switched to paid plans, but we kept the free plan and added a trial. We are now working on the Freemium model.

Development And Prospects

  • How many people are on your team now, and what techniques do you use to communicate and structure your work?

The team has grown: it now employs 8 people on a permanent basis: developers, a marketer, and an executive director. There are also freelance translators and one designer. We only plan to grow and expand in the future.

  • How do you improve the product? Tell us about the roadmap and the interaction with customer requests.

We have a Feature Requests page on our website where users can submit their requests and ideas. We study them carefully and take the most critical or in-demand ones to work on. We break down the tasks for development and technological functions by quarters and allocate them to actors within the team.

  • What advice would you give to start-ups and small IT companies?

In fact, we ourselves are still a small team to hand out advice. But I would highlight three things:

  1. Rejecting formulaic thinking, stereotypes, and imposed opinions all get in the way a lot. You have to think with your head and look for ways the competition hasn't gone before. More hypotheses, more experiments.
  2. Networking - has to be built as early as possible and it is also a lot of work. If you want to get something, you have to give something back. Help people and they will help you to build your business.
  3. Patience. Because you have to work very hard, both at night and at weekends, and in your sleep. You sacrifice absolutely everything — holidays, friends, family. It makes you very tired. And the most important thing is not to give up!
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