Got an idea but no clue how to turn it into a startup? Get started with this presentation from Oyvind Henriksen of Poq Studio

1. Turning Your Idea
Into a Startup
Øyvind Henriksen
Founder, Poq Studio

2. Before we begin
How many here have an idea?

3. Idea
• It’s a thing buzzing in your head. You know a
product that should be built, a technology you want
to use, a problem you want to solve
• The idea is usually not very well defined, and
cannot easily be communicated to others.
• Communicating your idea is the main challenge for
ideas

4. Startup
• A temporary organisation designed to discover a
scalable and repeatable business model
• A group of people, working full time
• First phase: Exploration – looking for something
people would want
• Second phase: Validation – making sure you can
turn it into a business
• When you have proven the business model, you
“scale” the startup into a “big company“

5. Contents
• About me
• 3 simple tools to define your idea
• 3 requirements for a startup
• 3 things to focus on in the beginning
• Questions
Presentation can be downloaded at poqstudio.com/ga

6. Øyvind Henriksen
• Professional web designer and developer since
1998
• Tech lead at InCreo for 10 years, Norway’s leading
e-commerce agency
• Started programming at 12, made my first money
building & reselling computers at 14
• Moved to London to do a Master’s degree in
Technology Entrepreneurship at UCL
• Founded Poq Studio after my studies

7. Poq Studio’s idea
• I worked in e-commerce for 10 years, and I saw the
big trend of mobile shopping
• I made e-commerce software and page builders, so
I wanted to do something similar, for mobile
• Getting Michael on board made it easier to craft a
business case of target customers, how we are
different etc.

9. MOBILE APPS FOR
FASHION BRANDS
Poq Studio makes it easy for
fashion brands to get
branded mobile apps and
websites.
Our unique mobile platform
is proven to help you sell
more online and engage
your customers on mobile.

11. Poq Studio
• Started in September 2011 together with Michael
Langguth, worked from the UCL incubator
• Joined Seedcamp, Europe’s best accelerator
programme in August 2012
• Raised seed investment from Venrex, UK’s top
fashion VC
• Made apps for 17 brands so far
• Office in Shoreditch with 9 employees

12. 3 simple tools to
define your idea

13. 1. Positioning statement
• The positioning statement summarises your idea
in an (almost) short statement.
• It should be maximum 30 seconds long, 15
seconds is better
• If you can rehearse and deliver this statement and
make people actually understand what you are
doing, you are doing better than most!

14. Template
• For (target customers) who need (reason to buy
your product), the (your product name) is a
(category) that provides (your key benefit).
• Unlike (your main competitor), the (your product
name) is (your key differentiator).

15. Example
• For fashion brands and retailers who wants to
increase sales on mobile, Poq Studio is a mobile
shopping platform which provides shopping apps
and websites.
• Unlike hand-coded apps by digital agencies, apps
and websites on our platform are automatically
kept up-to-date with the latest technologies.

16. Exercise
Make a pitch for your idea using this template:
• For (target customers) who need (reason to buy
your product), the (your product name) is a
(category) that provides (your key benefit).
• Unlike (your main competitor), the (your product
name) is (your key differentiator).

17. 2. Business Model Canvas
• The business model explains how your startup’s
business works.
• When and how money flows in and out of your
startup
• Who is the customer?
• What is the benefit for the customer?
• How to reach the customer?
• Available for free, with instructions at
www.businessmodelgeneration.com

19. Canvas tips
• The canvas squares are related, so when
you change one, you often have to change
others.
• For example for Poq Studio, we changed our
target market from small boutiques to mid-
sized brands. That required us to change
almost all the other squares!

20. Exercise
• Grab your neighbour, and form groups of 2 or 3
people.
• Take a printout of the Business Model Canvas,
and fill it out with one business idea.
• Leave unknown squares empty, but try and fill out
more than half of the squares.
• Afterwards, make a significant change to one
aspect of the business, and see what else needs
to change to make it all work together.

21. - - - - -
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22. 3. Mock-up
• Showing a product is often the most effective
way to communicate what you do.
• Instead of talking about a product that should
exist, give people a glimpse.
• Mockups can be rough wireframes, sleek
screenshots, or (more or less) functional
websites and apps

23. FIRST MOCKUP

24. WIREFRAME

25. SCREENSHOTS

26. MVP APP VERSION 1.0

27. APP VERSION 2.0

28. FIRST WEBSITE

29. CURRENT WEBSITE

30. Wireframes
• Mockflow (free, easy) www.mockflow.com
• Mockingbird
• Pencil Project (download to your computer)
• BalsamicHQ (the classic)
• Powerpoint

31. Website Prototypes
• Unbounce.com – “Landing pages”
• Wix.com
• Wordpress (templates)

32. App Prototypes
• Photoshop (iOS PSD templates)
• Mockabilly (our first sale!)
• Mockapp (for Powerpoint!)

33. Homework
• Sign up to www.mockflow.com
• Make the first screen of your proposed app, website or
website advertising your product

34. 3 requirements
for a startup

35. Becoming a startup
1. Validated demand
2. Full team – full time
3. Some money

36. 1. Validated demand
• Before quitting your day job, prove that people
will want your product
• Direct conversations with your target market will
tell you if the thing you provide will be valuable
• The lean startup mantra: “Get out of the
building!”

37. Poq Studio demand
• Me and Michael’s master’s dissertations at UCL
were about determining if the idea could work
• We walked around to fashion shops, and had 24 in-
store interviews with employees.
• We walked around Debenhams, and talked to 30+
shoppers about their problems and preferences
when shopping online and in store
• Our most important finding was that 90% of stores
we visited had an online store. Almost none of them
were optimised for mobile. Only 1 had an app.

38. Long Interview
• My favourite demand technique is the Long
Interview
• First, 30 minutes to frame the discussion, talk about
potential problems you think your target customer
might have
• Then, talk through your mock-up and pitch your
product, and talk with the for 30 minutes about what
they think of it, and which direction you should
improve on it.
• Get 10 of these, and you will know roughly if you
have a product people understand and like

39. 2. Full team – full time
Classic model
• Developer
• Business person
• Domain expert
3xH model, for B2C internet companies
• Hipster
• Hacker
• Hustler

40. Poq Studio team
• I met Michael at UCL, and we decided to start a
company together.
• I met Jun, our third co-founder on a holiday trip to
India, we were the only developers in the group,
and got to talking about tech
• We had Developer and Business roles set, but not
having anyone in fashion retail was a big challenge
• Only after we raised funding did we manage to hire
sales and marketing people who knew the fashion
industry.

41. Recruiting a team
• Give the pitch
• Show the prototype
• Use the canvas to answer questions

42. Recruiting developers
• Your mock-up is essential!
• Don’t be creepy and annoying
• Don’t treat developers like monkeys
• Developers have good ideas, listen!
• Be excited about your big vision, but you must
develop your vision in collaboration with your core
team
• Hackathons and tech events are great, but you should
be able to contribute. Learn to code and design, so
you can communicate and be an insider

43. Full time
• Full time commitment is a LOT faster than part-
time commitment
• Gravity of 50% - Everyone doing something
less than half the time will be squeezed by
each person’s main commitment.
• Your startup becomes real work, not just a
hobby any more

44. Full time at Poq Studio
• In the beginning, we had no set start and end times,
and worked from wherever, at home, in cafes.
• Started coming in every morning at 9 and leaving at 7,
like a normal job! This made the company “real”.
• All employees are full time, all employees work in one
room.

45. 3. Early-stage money
• If you don’t have a job, you need money from
somewhere to pay the bills
• Prepare to cut down on lifestyle to save, or burn
through savings quick
• Remember that almost everyone is supportive of
startups, from friends to governments!
• Thankfully, there are many sources of money in the
early stages!

46. Poq Studio funding
• Friends Fools and Family money, 4 months rent!
• Bootstrapped without salary for 8 months, then
1k salary per month. Minimal other expenses
• May 2012: UCL Bright Ideas Awards
• Aug 2012: Seedcamp, Europe’s best accelerator
• Aug 2012: Venrex, UK’s leading fashion VC

47. Where to get funding
• Friends, Fools and Family
• Savings
• Business plan competitions, hackathons
• Grants and loans
• Early-stage accelerators (Springboard’s £5K per
founder)
• Business Angels (20-50k)
• Note: Early funding usually focus on team

48. Poq Studio office
• In the beginning, we worked from the UCL café,
random rooms at UCL. Finding a quiet room to code
and make calls from was a nightmare
• Eventually, we got free office space at UCL Advances
incubator.
• We now rent a 10-desk office in Shoreditch, had to
sign a 6-month lease. Furnished it ourselves, and it’s
amazing!

49. Where to work
• There are lots of initiatives for free space for teams
at universities etc.
• Ask friends in startups for desks, for free or cheap.
• Google Campus Café or other cafes in Shoreditch
• Kitchen Table, or Silicon Valley model were
founders rent an apartment together, and use it to
live and work.
• Co-working spaces can run up to £300 per person
in Shoreditch, but can be great for networking

50. 3 things to focus on
in the beginning

51. Do this
• Validate that people want it - sign up first customers
• Make sure it works - Launch a Minimum Viable Product
• Finish developing your first business model

52. First Customers
• Get out of your building
• Get customers in any way possible, be on every
event they would go to
• Don’t be afraid to ask favours in your network, this
is when you can gain the most from your network
• Use your MVP’, mockups and prototypes to sign
up customers. You don’t need a finished product!
• Poq Studio signed up our first customer using
screenshots on an app, and we still do today!

53. Minimum Viable Product
• A Minimum Viable Product is a version of your
product designed to learn something.
• You make many MVP’s over time, from landing
page to launched product
• Must be launched to convince people that it
actually works
• Read about MVP in “The Lean Startup” book

54. Evolve your Canvas
• In the idea stage, canvasses are often quite empty
or just guesswork.
• Talk to people or read up on the industry to figure
out each square of the canvas until you are
confident you have a plausible business model

55. Canvas tools
• At Poq Studio, we use yellow and green post-it
notes to separate what we know works, and what is
untested and uncertain.
• Evolving your canvas is usually done with
“Experiments” – test your business model in the
real world.
• Read businessmodelgeneration.com, “The Lean
Startup” and “Getting to Plan B” to learn about this
process.

56. Ready for seed funding
• When you have launched a product and seen it
with real users, and evolved your canvas, you
will see what your next step can be.
• The next step usually involves changing part of
the business, or evolving it in a certain direction
• This determines if you want funding or if you
can bootstrap
• If you are happy with progress and want to
grow it the way it is, then prepare an investor
pitch and start fundraising!

57. Ask me for help
• I enjoy helping entrepreneurs and startups whenever I
can
• If there is anything I can do for you, let me know on:
oyvind@poqstudio.com

58. Questions?