Foore
Marketing for SMBs - Google reviews, SMS , FB automation
This is 2nd time I'm applying to YC. Last time I got invited for interview but did not get through :(
Adora and Eric were great in the interview last time and I could not convince them about Facebook automation being important problem for local businesses. Guess what, they were right! I struggled to acquire and retain customers for facebook automation product for long time ,before launching Google review and now WhatsApp integration :)
This time i believe we have a better story, product and growth! Fingers crossed.
I sent out a case study about a Gym in Bangalore improving Google reviews and rating in 1 month by using Foore. The email was read by another gym owner and he ended up creating new account.
He visited Foore 3 days for short 10 minutes session, fiddling with the product before he asked a few questions about product features on Intercom. We responded quickly and today around 9AM he asked if we could setup a meeting for onboarding. I met him today, he was happy with the product and is moving to paid plan at $8/month.
He owns 3 F45 fitness studios in Bangalore and the brand owns 30+ in India.
Just a few days back i met one our customer who runs a salon and she insisted that we should try gyms and fitness and today this new user!
To target micro SMEs, we started working on mobile app. Mobile app will have a faction of features compared to WebApp. We are targeting to get the app out in 12 days and spend next 7 days talking to users and getting feedback.
We have decided to use flutter to make it faster to have app ready for both Android and iOS.
So we had customers asking for adding support for more communication channels and today we added support for Facebook messenger.
Businesses will be able to automate communication, feedback and appointment on Facebook messenger as well as broadcast on Facebook along with SMS.
Chantilly - A really small pastry shop will use Foore to collect feedback.
After feedback, customers will see nearby offers (there are none for now) and also will receive a SMS to write a feedback for Chantilly.
It took 45 minutes to convince the owner and mostly she took a leap of faith to support a startup. It's cool that people are looking forward to support startups :)
Foore started as a feedback generation tool for local businesses. Businesses will get feedback and customers will see nearby offers after giving feedback.
Building an App for businesses, this will run on Tablets. Also a webapp to see customer info and send out SMS campaigns.
19 Comments
I don't think you will convince them either. You're building on someone's else platform. They want you to build your own platform. Anytime you work with someone's platform, your business hinges on them not changing the rules. If you can make lots of money from WhatsApp integration, at some point, they might decide to offer that and cut out all the middlemen. Facebook, Twitter, Google and tons of other platform have repeatedly demonstrated these behaviors. For an indie hacker it's fine to sit on top of an eagle to soar high, but once you're taking VC money, you gotta be the eagle.
Well, I don't agree completely. Podium (https://www.podium.com/) does Google review management and is a YC funded company.
I do agree that it is harder to convince VCs when you are building on top of other platforms.
Good luck with your YC application.
I had a business in your target market, and work with several more. Here is some actionable feedback along 3 directives: landing page, product, sales.
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[1] Landing Page
a) Change your hero text
Change this to be static:
"More google reviews means more customers"
Shop owners care most about sales and customers. Focus on what your end users want as the key benefit. Visibility is a distant second after customers, so you are decreasing the value of your message.
Your users don't really care about this. They want more customers
I would write something like:
"Businesses that use foore get x% more customers in just x months. Setup takes 10 minutes."
If that isn't true, then your value proposition isn't enough. Sure, it's just $8/month, but it also takes my time. I only want to spend time to get more customers and to improve my current customer experience. So focus on those outcomes and make sure they are true -- that's how you will get product/market fit.
b) Don't show a picture of your dashboard.
That just tells me "more work" or "one more thing to manage/do".
Either show a list of customers currently using your service (social proof) or additional benefits that your customers get. Focus on per customer numbers that I can apply to my own business and would get me to take the next step.
C) Clarify your offering
After that, you can show exactly how the software works. I don't really understand how the software knows who my customer is, or how they activate them to get the review? What do you actually do?
What does it mean for my business specifically?
I would separate this by industry type. Who are your current customers? Which markets is your solution working best for? Focus on those industries, and show how your product works in those markets.
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[2] Product/Market Fit
Focus on your core activity and the job that the business owner is trying to do (get more customers). Google reviews are okay, but if you have this power to activate my customers to get them to do google reviews, can you get them to do other things too?
Key question : is the biggest value of an activated customer in writing a google review?
Generally as a SMB owner, I want to have one tool as my CMS. Unless you are that thing, I would not be interested. So I think you need to think again about how you fit into an overall tool-set for SMB owners and how to expand the value you provide for them.
Have you talked to your current customers about their needs?
What do you know about your users that gives you a unique insight or point of view? How can you get that information from them?
Especially when I have multiple locations, I want to keep it easy for training, onboarding, and keep my staff working on the most important tasks. How does Foore fit into that? Does this just give me one more thing that I need to hound my employees about?
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[3] Sales
I would focus on targeting larger clients so that you have more social proof. Who is your largest client? What industry are they in?
Get more traction by focusing on getting a large keystone client in each industry, and then using that in your sales copy. All sales content should be focused by industry.
Focus on the benefits you provide for customers. Get the data to back up your hypothesis that more google reviews means more customers. Worki with customers that are willing to share their data with you so that you have clear numbers on the value you provide businesses.
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Hey! Thanks for spending time to do this, really helpful.
Loved the "Businesses that use Foore get x% more customers in just x months. Setup takes 10 minutes" , this is certainly going in!
Around Sales, Foore's focus is on smaller customers, we are not sure how we will monetize them. Would love your thoughts on this. Any suggestions how can we look at monetizing this from smaller customers?
For the larger customers, we do have few such customers.. but there are many similar tools available in market already focusing on larger ones.
I would need to know more about your current model, market, and how you are getting sales. Feel free to email me, sobbuh@plusplus.ventures. If you can share some more info on your current traction, how you are closing customers, and any customer discovery you've done, that would be useful as a start.
Good luck man, I applied to YC for my first time this batch!
Good luck. I applied for the first time this year
Good luck man!
Thanks!
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Good luck!
@mahoriR the best. Let us know how you go with your interview.
Would love to do that!
Good luck! Foore looks great and really useful!
Hey, Thank you so much!
What is required to apply/get interview apart being part of startup school?
Hey! The process involves submission of an application to YC. The application is straight forward with ~40 questions.
Attending startup school is not a requirement to submit this application.
I think watching the SS videos is a great way to get a feel for how to approach your application. Maybe view the forum conversations, too, even if not enrolled.
Cool, thanks both! Will take a deeper look :)