We always knew this week was going to be important. Ross and I had decided back in October that we were going impose a deadline upon ourselves for entering content. So we decided we would both clear this week of other work/activities and aim for 5 full days of working on the business.
I booked extra childcare for Luke, and Ross took holidays from work. So apart from a couple of hours here and there, with things that couldn’t be avoided, we have pretty much worked full time on the site. And what a difference it has made!
In terms of my emotional state, I just felt so much more relaxed in the evenings, feeling that I had really done a good day’s work. Unfortunately the house is a complete tip!
Content has been added apace. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning were very productive. However, things slowed down a bit from then on, because we were having trouble with the scanner. It just isn’t up to the job of scanning the volume we need to, and at the speed we want to go. So after a lot of messing about and time wasting, we’ve decided to invest in another one. We’re off to the shops this weekend to have a look at what’s around. In the meantime I’ve managed to get nearly all the content entered, that doesn’t require any attached scanned images, and I’ve just got a couple of categories left (arts/crafts, colouring/puzzles & kids parties). Ross has also made great progress with Days Out, and has nearly entered 1,000 venues now.
So the story of the second half of the week starts to unfold…
Besides the technology causing frustrations, we also had a couple of other major business issues to deal with.
Firstly, another website has launched doing exactly what we are doing, albeit to a much lesser degree and on a smaller scale. However it’s a bit disconcerting that it’s so like our offering, and I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have been so public about what we were doing. I thought we’d left it late enough, so that someone else couldn’t get in on the act before we launched, but I suppose if you already have the main requirements of a website (from an affiliated company) and an existing customer base, it doesn’t take long. This particular site is run by another trading company, who are of course advertising all over the place, so it is a bit distracting. This is exactly one of the things we are staying away from, it’s one of our Unique Selling Points (USPs) that we don’t have any advertising on the site that distracts you from the content, and also we don’t have links that take you completely away from our site.
Having looked at the site in some detail, I don’t think it’s going to pose us much of a threat. Technically it’s not great. Links are missing, search results are returning incorrect activities for the search parameters you have requested, and the content is absolutely minimal. They are relying on others providing content, which could take an awful long time to build up. Whereas we are putting the hard work and long hours in ourselves to ensure that there’s a minimum of 2,000 items already on our site when we launch. Then we will be adding more every week aswell. We believe we had to launch with a complete offering from the start, especially since we are charging our members. But every search will return at least 8 items that are relevant to those search parameters. Most will return a minimum of 25 items. This is something we are taking great care (& therefore time) over.
But at least it shows us that someone else also thinks there is a big gap in the market for our idea!
We had another blow on Thursday. We had got to final stages of agreeing the legal contracts with Fido, the company we had chosen to be our Public Relations advisors, and had a meeting to conclude the deal, one way or another, and the result is that unfortunately we’ve decided to walk away from them. The deal had just changed so much from the initial discussions we had with them, and what they wanted, compared to what we were willing to offer, were poles apart. They were quite adamant they weren’t going to budge one inch.
It’s a real shame, mainly because I think we have completely wasted three months of potential marketing time, which we’re never going to get back. I had sent over several press releases with themes of wizarding activities, and advent, and nothing has happened to them at all. But also because I think the relationship has just totally broken down now, and there’s no way Ross & I want them to be a part of our company. We just won’t be able to work with them in the future, even if we could thrash something out to resolve the deal.
This is something that I was concerned would happen once lawyers got involved. I have worked with lawyers on many deals (I have advised countless businesses on buy-outs, buy-ins, mergers, disposals & fundraising). It is always the case that lawyers advise you of the most risk that you could be facing. Don’t get me wrong, that’s great, that’s exactly what we pay them for. But then it’s up to the client to judge the commercial risk, and what they are prepared to accept in those particular circumstances.
The lawyers don’t always know the full story about the full strength of their client’s negotiating position. I had hoped that our lawyer and their’s would discuss this deal between them, which is the usual way things go. Things are normally much smoother that way, but is does mean that you incur more fees. When the clients negotiate the deal between themselves, it usually means things end up getting more heated, simply due to the inexperience of the parties who are doing the negotiating. In fact I felt that they made a couple of classic mistakes in our meeting.
Firstly, they completely misjudged the strength of their negotiating position. They thought they were invaluable to us, and we were worthless in the scheme of things. They totally missed the point that we don’t actually need a PR company at the start. Yes, it would be useful and we would certainly benefit. But we started the PR work ourselves before they were involved, and made huge strides forward. (getting on startups for instance!) Since they have been ‘on board’ (or not actually on board as it turns out) nothing has happened, because we took our foot off the pedal, thinking they were taking care of it, when actually they were waiting until the legals were signed.
Secondly, they stated at the beginning of the meeting that their offer was non-negotiable. They didn’t want to enter into negotiations (when in fact we already were, because it was nothing like the first offer we discussed!) and actually backed themselves into a corner. I asked them several times to clarify that this offer was ‘take it or leave it’ which they confirmed. Very foolish. I actually teach negotiating skills to accountants who are acting for clients, and this is one of those things you see inexperienced negotiators do. They didn’t leave us with any option or any alternative route to go. Their offer was certainly not acceptable, so after just 30 minutes in the meeting, we left it!
Oh dear, what a shame. However, Ross & I actually feel a sense of freedom again now. Not only have we regained part of the company’s shares that we thought we had handed over, we actually feel in control of the PR again. We had been getting a little concerned about how things had been going, and now we have more determination than ever to make a success of this business. We have a couple of other options with PR advisors, so we’ll investigate those. But it’s not the end of the world if we don’t use any external advisors for the moment.
So onwards & upwards! By the way, I’ll include the wizarding activities and the advent activities on the next blogpost, in case anyone who has children would like to use any of them! May as well make use of the work I’ve done!
Kirsty
entertainthekids.com
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