Maciej Książek is the founder of Krakow based lunchmaster.pl as well as co-author of popular cinema site kino.krakow.pl (also known as repertuary.pl).
He’s been a regular attendee at Hive53 meetings when he’s in the city, and recently took the time to tell us more about his latest venture, and why doing a startup is so satisfying, despite problems he’s faced along the way. He’s currently helping fund the continuing development of lunchmaster.pl by working at Berlin based startup Wimdu whilst Emilia, his first employee, looks after the business in Kraków. Apart from the financial need that this solves, he’s also keen to learn from Wimdu about scaling a startup, as he has ambitious plans for lunchmaster.pl
He’s been a regular attendee at Hive53 meetings when he’s in the city, and recently took the time to tell us more about his latest venture, and why doing a startup is so satisfying, despite problems he’s faced along the way. He’s currently helping fund the continuing development of lunchmaster.pl by working at Berlin based startup Wimdu whilst Emilia, his first employee, looks after the business in Kraków. Apart from the financial need that this solves, he’s also keen to learn from Wimdu about scaling a startup, as he has ambitious plans for lunchmaster.pl
1) Pitch us your startup in a sentence!
www.lunchmaster.pl : food delivery to your office or home from your favourite restaurants.
2) What inspired you to get started?
The need ! I used to order lunches to the office with my friends a lot (I was working at this time for Lunar Logic Polska). Ordering food via phone seemed to me not only old-school, but it is often less comfortable, less reliable and takes much more time.
3) What have the best/worst moments been so far?
Best moments... There were a lot of them! Every new order or user registered is always very exciting, even after few months of operation. But the best moment was probably when a user coming from a search engine made an order for the first time. We almost could not believe, that he is not a friend of any of us or our friends ;) Even better moment was when he repeated the order few days after. Then we knew, that the product is good and this gave us additional energy to act.
The worst moments.... let me think... Probably running out of money. For Lunchmaster we’ve managed without any investor, EU, angels, and kept 100% of shares. We’ve ran out of money three times so far ;) Every time I needed to decide how to solve it. Every time I tried different approach: going abroad for a contract, doing remote freelance projects etc.
4) What advice would you give someone thinking of a new startup?
In my opinion, anyone thinking about a startup should make it in the area they like, then the pleasure is even higher and you can understand users better. Try to think about an idea where users won't be limited anyhow. For example do not build a product for geeks only, or which is limited geographically etc. Think about the global market. Think about adding value to a process or product which people are used to paying for.
It is also very important to not try to build perfect solution from day one, but release a Minimum Viable Product with minimum efforts and from then on improve constantly based on users’ feedback. Use a Lean approach for software development, be in touch with users, listen to their needs, be one of them, but also try to implement ideas they will be surprised about.
5) The best way to promote a startup is...?
It depends on the project. Each kind of project might require a different approach. First of all, before investing money or effort in promotion make sure the product is good and people will like it. Many companies forget about this. Those with big investments can afford this and improve the product based on feedback given by first users before running out of investment ;)
In general, in my opinion, any startup needs to work on improving just 2 KPIs. Namely: growing average lifetime value (LTV) of users and minimizing the average cost of user acquisition (CUA). The goal of each startup should be getting into a moment when LTV/CUA > 1.
Promotion of course influences CUA (directly when it costs money, but also indirectly when it requires effort to prepare it). So we should focus on methods of promotion where we can acquire users for a price which is lower than the average life time value of the user (or the LTV we are assuming to reach some time later). Of course it is not always very simple to measure it, so I personally prefer methods of promotion where performance can be checked more precisely.
My preferred methods of promotion are:
- SEO (any effort here is long lasting),
- any viral marketing (inviting friends, connecting via FB/twitter, sharing etc)
- vouchers (this manages the cost of acquiring users - you then need to make sure they return!)
- paid ads online: like SEM, Facebook, ad networks etc (only if CUA is acceptable for us).
Do not forget also about any "offline" methods of promotion like telemarketing, PR, flyers, vouchers, conferences etc.
As I said before, it all depends on the project type and there is no golden rule which can be applied to every project.
6) It’s worth doing a startup because...?
It is very exciting to invent and build something which is then used by a lot of people and makes them happy. Having influence on the product and making someone's life easier or happier is probably the best thing a human can do ;)
www.lunchmaster.pl : food delivery to your office or home from your favourite restaurants.
2) What inspired you to get started?
The need ! I used to order lunches to the office with my friends a lot (I was working at this time for Lunar Logic Polska). Ordering food via phone seemed to me not only old-school, but it is often less comfortable, less reliable and takes much more time.
3) What have the best/worst moments been so far?
Best moments... There were a lot of them! Every new order or user registered is always very exciting, even after few months of operation. But the best moment was probably when a user coming from a search engine made an order for the first time. We almost could not believe, that he is not a friend of any of us or our friends ;) Even better moment was when he repeated the order few days after. Then we knew, that the product is good and this gave us additional energy to act.
The worst moments.... let me think... Probably running out of money. For Lunchmaster we’ve managed without any investor, EU, angels, and kept 100% of shares. We’ve ran out of money three times so far ;) Every time I needed to decide how to solve it. Every time I tried different approach: going abroad for a contract, doing remote freelance projects etc.
4) What advice would you give someone thinking of a new startup?
In my opinion, anyone thinking about a startup should make it in the area they like, then the pleasure is even higher and you can understand users better. Try to think about an idea where users won't be limited anyhow. For example do not build a product for geeks only, or which is limited geographically etc. Think about the global market. Think about adding value to a process or product which people are used to paying for.
It is also very important to not try to build perfect solution from day one, but release a Minimum Viable Product with minimum efforts and from then on improve constantly based on users’ feedback. Use a Lean approach for software development, be in touch with users, listen to their needs, be one of them, but also try to implement ideas they will be surprised about.
5) The best way to promote a startup is...?
It depends on the project. Each kind of project might require a different approach. First of all, before investing money or effort in promotion make sure the product is good and people will like it. Many companies forget about this. Those with big investments can afford this and improve the product based on feedback given by first users before running out of investment ;)
In general, in my opinion, any startup needs to work on improving just 2 KPIs. Namely: growing average lifetime value (LTV) of users and minimizing the average cost of user acquisition (CUA). The goal of each startup should be getting into a moment when LTV/CUA > 1.
Promotion of course influences CUA (directly when it costs money, but also indirectly when it requires effort to prepare it). So we should focus on methods of promotion where we can acquire users for a price which is lower than the average life time value of the user (or the LTV we are assuming to reach some time later). Of course it is not always very simple to measure it, so I personally prefer methods of promotion where performance can be checked more precisely.
My preferred methods of promotion are:
- SEO (any effort here is long lasting),
- any viral marketing (inviting friends, connecting via FB/twitter, sharing etc)
- vouchers (this manages the cost of acquiring users - you then need to make sure they return!)
- paid ads online: like SEM, Facebook, ad networks etc (only if CUA is acceptable for us).
Do not forget also about any "offline" methods of promotion like telemarketing, PR, flyers, vouchers, conferences etc.
As I said before, it all depends on the project type and there is no golden rule which can be applied to every project.
6) It’s worth doing a startup because...?
It is very exciting to invent and build something which is then used by a lot of people and makes them happy. Having influence on the product and making someone's life easier or happier is probably the best thing a human can do ;)
