MONTH NO. 2 OF CREATING FORMTA; Angel investor, interviews with creative professionals, my thoughts on investor-industry match and much more…

Mar 31, 2023

FEEDBACK FROM POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

The most important thing for me in building a company is to solve an actual problem. That's why I'm happy with the reactions I'm getting from potential customers. Like, when strangers share Formta’s content without being asked to do so or comment that they "Love this 🙌" on a screenshot of the software. That's really nice of them✨

INTERVIEWS WITH CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS

Last week I went to Copenhagen. Both for CPH Townhall and to have some interviews with creative professionals. It's insightful to listen to other people's experiences.

e.g. I had a meeting with a graphic designer, that were supposed to be a 20-30 min. meeting, which turned into a 1.5 hour meeting instead. So I definitely feel like I have a much better understanding of the challenges they have.

It was especially interesting to hear the person's view on, how they think the role as graphic designers is going to change because of AI. I think that's an important thing to consider, when building a software product for the future.

The same person also offered to be a reference in my marketing for free, without me even asking about it. So it's worth spending time talking with potential customers and actually caring about solving a problem of theirs.

FIRST INVESTOR MEETING

The month started with my first (ever) meeting with an international angel investor, who reached out to me. I can't really say much more about it at the moment.

INVESTOR-INDUSTRY MATCH

At CPH Townhall I had an interesting conversation with another investor, who shared some industry insights and thoughts related to my startup. Which was really kind of him to do, since it gave me a much better understanding of the investor's perspective and expectations, when considering investing in a startup.

I think one of the things that really stuck with me was, how important it is to find investors who really understand the problem, you're trying to solve and the industry surrounding it. (Also figuring out how to communicate it to people for whom it's not an obvious problem – Which I'm still working on figuring out.)

In my experience a lot of people in the general public don't consider creative work or a job within a creative industry being a "real" job. They simply don't understand that a creative company is a company.

The business side of a company is more or less the same, no matter the industry. Of course that’s simplified, and there's specific industry related things within everything etc. etc. But understanding how to manage expenses and creating an income basically requires the same way of thinking no matter the industry.

I think most people would be surprised by how much of working (behind the scenes) with performing arts are about finance; fundraising, creating strategic partnerships, creating budgets and more importantly - revising them, when you can’t fundraise enough money to create a project...

I think that could be one of the biggest challenges of Formta (and possible a reason for failure, if that happens): Not being able to find investors, who really understand the problem I'm trying to solve. Simply because they don't understand the industry and the business side of the industry. I think the key is to find the right people. I'm still pretty optimistic about that though.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS / ADVISORY BOARD

I also had the first person reaching out to me offering their support and knowledge on the board of directors or in an advisory board. I have some people in mind already, that I'll contact when it's time for setting it up. But there's room for more people, so don't hesitate to reach out, if it's something you have an interest in. It's good to know what the options are, before I decide who to go with. I think it depends on the combination of knowledge that people have. I haven't figured out exactly what knowledge I'll be searching for yet. That's on my to-do-at-a-later-time-list.

MARKETING NUMBERS

I thought I’d share some numbers behind my Instagram ads experiments. It shows the development of the results from first ad to last ad:

For both ads I’ve used 98 DKK / 13 € / 12 £ / 14 US$ to run the ad for 7 days.

What I’m continuously experimenting with, is the location and the exact target group. My goal is to find where the best segmented target group is located, and how best to reach them. I’m also experimenting with the colours and style of the content, to figure out what content works best. I’ll use that information to create the best strategy and the best branding.