Bye bye Kwiqq, start of the next chapter!

Posted on | November 10, 2009 | View Comments

Kwiqq has been an exciting opportunity for me and everyone. Firstly I want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who worked with us: our team, customers and all supporters/friends/family for being through the ups and downs. In short we have decided to close Kwiqq and work on other opportunities.

Below I have written a true account of building the business: success, failures and things we learned on the way.

Background

Kwiqq supplied social networking software to customers like Eurostar, British Council, East Hampshire District Council etc.

Typically working as a social networking software development house with focus on technical development. The company began in 2007 and came out of my work whilst finishing of my masters in computer science and artificial intelligence.

Why social networking

The fact was that I really enjoyed socialising and developing software. Although my main focus at university was developing video games actually what I was passionate about was how humans interacted with each other. That’s when someone told me (end of 2006) about Myspace phenomenon in the US. I thought to myself, surely this could be a fantastic product for brands looking to speak to their customers.

Pieces of the jigsaw

In 2006, I was working with Jon Markwell to get a team of entrepreneurial students together at Sussex University, Ilumus. He often referred to four cornerstones (originally from Beermat Entrepreneur). Board of directors from technical, delivery, finance and sales backgrounds to complete the team. Now I had a mission in life: to build a Myspace clone and then get four cornerstones, launch and conquer the world.

Well I had put myself in-charge of the technical side but knew no on the finance, sales or delivery. So my search began. I met someone who said I should speak to someone at BusinessLink, they further introduced me to a entrepreneurial team at Cranfield University, where they were organising the Upstart Programme. To cut a long story short, Prof Andrew Burke, Bettany Chair of Entrepreneurship at Cranfield University joined us as an advisor. Prior to which Sumner Makin joined us as an advisor on the strategy, legal and business development side.

Finally we had Jack Fairhall and David Hill as CEO and principle investor. That was it we began, we never looked back. We began and our first customer was First Choice Holidays, see 2wentysworld.

Success

We worked with First Choice Holidays, Eurostar, British Council, East Hampshire Council, Oxford University Press, Startups.co.uk, Highams PLC and various others as their technical partners. For our product, service and entrepreneurial ambitions we were covered in various publications like BusinessWeek, The Observer, Telegraph, Hindustan Times, New Media Age, TechCrunch, Revolution, Eastern Eye and various other magazines. What’s increadible is that we never used a PR company, we apparently generated £600,000 worth of PR without really spending a penny.

We also were one of the 20 promising start ups as recognised by HSBC and Oracle when we were awarded the Webmission 2008. In addition the founders were awarded with BusinessWeek Europe’s Young Entrepreneur, Courvoisier Future 500 (alongside The Observer), 50 most influential people in digital (Revolution magazine), Sussex Entrepreneur of the year (finalist).

Short comings

I will be the first person to admit that our strategy wasn’t perfect. The first year when we began, we were finding our feet in the industry. Trying to establish our USPs and what made us different from others. It was a steep learning curve although and enjoyable one and really quickly (ironically) we realised that we weren’t alone, we had established competitors.

Who is the client?

Year two we spent finding a good team, at one point we had six people full time at Kwiqq and we were working on 2 to 3 social networking projects at anyone time.

Our biggest shortcoming was that everyone was our customer, we weren’t targeting a vertical market. Instead we were a bit like the whole world is our target market. Perhaps the biggest mistake we ever made. Having a niche market segment would have meant that we would be targeted and were hence building a long term business.

Growth Strategy

If I’m honest, we weren’t clearly presenting the value of using social networks. If from day one we were showcasing the advantages of using social media i.e. to help increase sales, marketing, website traffic etc like we did Case Study 1, Case Study 2 and Case Study 3 we would be in a better position now.

Unfortunately we weren’t clear as to who would sign off the project: marketing, sales, business development or HR director. The value proposition wasn’t clear and that isn’t fantastic when one is trying to close a deal.

Non-recurring business model

This is probably the worst thing a business could do. Unfortunately we were too focused on delivery and really weren’t focusing on sustainability. As a matter of fact we weren’t working on long term recurring revenue models which actually made sense. We should have aligned our customer’s ambitions and tied it in with success they had from the site.

Other influential factors

Recession, drop of customers

Although there were short comings in our business plan we were actually doing well. We had a steady flow of clients coming in and generating enormous amount of leads from our website. It was incredible that we had built such a fantastic page rank for Kwiqq and no.1 position for relevant keywords that really we were generating a decent amount of traffic every month.

Once the recession came biting, the cracks in our business plan were visible and really we needed more than just a good Google rank to make this work. This coupled with the fact that we weren’t clearly showcasing our value proposition wasn’t great news.

Dominance of Facebook

I wouldn’t blame Facebook for us getting less business although what I would say is that actually over the last few years Facbeook has become venues for brands. When we opened doors in 2007, Facebook wasn’t very dominating, although Myspace was. Forming a community outside Myspace was necessary simply because not many people liked the website. The user experience was poor and for many brands Myspace didn’t have the target demographic.

With Facebook pages a small business really doesn’t need to invest in a full blown social media site. Big businesses need to start transforming their existing web offerings to social ones. Perhaps integrating with social networking channels. Either way this means that actually building custom social networks doesn’t really make sense. This is what we mainly did at Kwiqq and perhaps was a trend which was diminishing.

Outcome, was it worth it?

In short Yes. I have learnt so much from the experience. Essentially that things can look great on paper but implementation is a totally different ball game. As one executes an idea, one learns more about the industry, competitor, clients and demands. I invite everyone who hasn’t actually taken the step towards entrepreneurship, to actually get out there and do it. Yes it is challenging but totally worth it.

It has also been great for the profiles of the individuals involved. I felt once you have made something out of nothing it suddenly adds another feather to your hat ‘been there done that’.

What’s next?

I have decided to continue in the social media arena helping various industries get their heads around it. I have started to blog on RajAnand.biz. I’m contactable on +44 (0) 1273 251414 or email me <at> rajanand.biz. I’m sure you will hear me doing my thing in the industry, it is the start to the next chapter of my life.

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