Poked

Have you ever felt like now is your one shot, your one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted? Over the last 7 years, I’ve tried building multiple SaaS projects. I made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot, but nothing really stuck.

Building Poked feels different.

That’s probably because this time I have co-founders. And great ones for that matter: Jean is killing it with his SaaS, Mailmeteor, and François is a coding machine, disguised as a human being and a great dad.

Or because this time I have internalized a lot of the lessons from my previous 5 other SaaS attempts and 1 full-time job.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve been on governement allowances for the last 2 years and will lose run out on the 15th of March 2023, in 22 days exactly. The prospect of being in the street, worst, back to being an employee, is putting fire under my ass and I have no other option but making Poked a success.

This blog series will end up a glorious I TOLD YOU SO, or vanish as a fart in the wind. Future will tell. But until then, what is Poked, and why do I believe in it?

Why I believe in Poked

First, to succeed, I think you have to believe in what you’re doing like hell. And when I say believe, I mean be borderline delusional about it: I believe Poked as the potential of becoming as mainstream as Google Calendar.

But until then, I think Poked, as a Product, checks multiple boxes of a successfull product:

Poked addresses a painful problem

For anyone depending partially on LinkedIn for selling, marketing, or hiring, the picture is clear: Managing a large network sucks. It’s hard to browse, can’t be organized, interface is slow and clumsy. The price for this is clear: Missed opportunities, failed follow-ups, and good sales wasted.

I’ll write a detailed article about why this issue isn’t going away anytime soon, but the point is: There is a clear pain, and existing solutions don’t address it as well as we think they could.

For which there is demand

Poked is a direct copy-cat of Lead Delta, a CRM for LinkedIn started in 2020. If I’m almost proud to say this, it’s because after building 5 “new concepts” with limited success, I’m looking forward to building something people want. Lead Delta has proven there’s a market, and we’re confident there’s enough room in that market for the two of us.

On top of that, I’ve talked to 50+ potential users before starting Poked who confirmed their pain. And I was already made aware of this from talking to 100s of customers from my days at Phantombuster.

And we have the team for the job

I think that we make for an interesting team. We’re experienced, with a decent track record of building SaaS, as well as a real advantages over the competition in terms of market insights and LinkedIn-related technical knowledge.

On the other hand we’re not perfect: Jean is part-time on Poked, François just had a baby, and I don’t know how I’ll pay next month’s rent. And to that’s what make us interesting: We’re flawed, yet likeable. I like us!

These 3 points don’t cover the entire business model canvas, but in an effort to not make this post too long, I’ll address these topics another time.

Poked this week

Oh, not much, we just finally freaking LAUNCHED! 🎉

Going from our initial 3-way handshake in August ‘22 to having the first user on Poked took about 6 months. I could write a few articles just about that waiting/prepping period, and I will, but to keep it short, and deliver a blog post by the end od this week #1 I’ll give you 3 take-aways from that launch.

Launch doesn’t mean climax

Launch feels like this huge party where everyone’s invited, we cut a ribbon, champagne, the ship goes off in the sunset… This launch didn’t feet like that at all: Tons of features are missing, you barely can use it to do the basic stuff the LinkedIn inbox does, and as of right now, we have 10 users signed up, that’s including Jean, François, and I.

“You should be ashamed of the first version of your product” as the saying goes. Well, my look at Poked this week was more that of a Dad with teary eyes and a confident smile, seeing only potential, overwhelmed with pride… But if I were a salesdude in the team, tasked of selling it in its current state, I certainly would feel much more embarassed.

So why launch if it’s not ready?

Having Poked out helps with the fuel of your startup: Moral. After 6 months working what felt like underground, being able to get people on it was a massive milestone. I got to show it to my friends, my Mom. It made these last 6 months more concrete: This is not a “project” anymore, it’s a live app!

And with people trying it out, you start noticing things that had become invisible from having your nose in the grindstone: Bugs, typos, behaviours, inconsistencies, bad design, etc. The most memorable bug we discovered this week? The chat pop-up appearing over the “Send message” button. That takes the cake for a tool where messaging is central…

And that leads us to item #3: Working on this feedback was actually super climactic!

Healthy pressure.

Working on a localhost project is like playing poker with Monopoly money. You’re not really involved, or at least, not as much than with actual money. Going live makes the stakes more real: The potential reward of money for one. The ego that’s invested in a work that people will judge you upon too, or the anger or praises that a (dis)-satisfied user will give you privately or publicly.

Launching your app puts pressure on you to deliver bug fices, feature, or articles like this one I’m writing on a Sunday morning. You make sure to keep that level healthy to not burn yourself out too fast.

That's it for today

To be continued