Reduce Time Spent in Meetings

[christian9]

Hello Everyone!

Second time posting so please forgive me if I am doing this wrong.

I am a co-founder of a startup which developed an application to reduce time spent in meetings using async audio messages in a short podcast like fashion. Turns out, a huge portion of the workforce has too many meetings and its only getting worse as they become more distributed. We have talked to over 50 companies and almost all agree it would be beneficial but getting them to actually pilot as an early user is blocking us. Our goal is to reduce time spent in meetings, by eliminating redundant meetings and making the remaining much more effective through our application.

I would love some feedback around suggestions on how you can get early users to pilot an application within their companies and teams.

Thank you!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

We have talked to over 50 companies and almost all agree it would be beneficial but getting them to actually pilot as an early user is blocking us.

Why won't these 50 companies help? How did they get on your radar originally? Can't you apply the same process?

Also, per my own guidelines, if you have an awesome product but have no easy way to reach your target audience, the idea generally shouldn't be pursued.

 

[christian9]

Why won't these 50 companies help? How did they get on your radar originally? Can't you apply the same process?

Also, per my own guidelines, if you have an awesome product but have no easy way to reach your target audience, the idea generally shouldn't be pursued.

So far it has been through LinkedIn connection/messaging. We have only been at the pilot user on-boarding process for the last 1.5 - 2 months. Most companies just say it's not a good time right now, maybe in a few months. I know the B2B process generally takes a decent amount of time before you start to get traction. We also have been trying a Land & Expand model targeting DIR/VP+ level execs which might not be the most effective at this early of a stage.

I am looking for advice that other founders have used in the past to get B2B companies to sign on or find alot of the users.

I am thinking of experimenting with some paid shout outs with some of the Linkedin gurus that are executive level trainers around CIOs/CTOs etc.

 

[BigRomeDawg]

What's your offer and what does your messaging look like?

 

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[christian9]

What's your offer and what does your messaging look like?

Our messaging is around, meetings suck, they are overtaking calendars, crushing employee morale and killing productivity. We provide a time-zone independent collaborative async solution that allows you to use audio-centric technology to frictionlessly communicate without having to be in meetings. Our goal is to take a 30-minute meetings and reduce it down to a 4-min sync update which can be put into a podcast like playlist and listened to hands-free.

Our offer.... perhaps where we are lacking. Right now its around, "we are still an early-stage company and looking to find where our application works best (which team types and use-cases). For example, is this something that adds the most value to a HR team for communicating amongst the direct team on weekly updates, assisting with onboarding new employees by creating audio informational series, passing around executive communications, new and star employee highlights, policy news/updates, etc. We are in the process of doing this with multiple other teams such as Engineering, Product, Sales, Marketing, Operations, etc at other companies so that our final application is truly something that brings massive value to our users!"

 

[BigRomeDawg]

Our messaging is around, meetings suck, they are overtaking calendars, crushing employee morale and killing productivity. We provide a time-zone independent collaborative async solution that allows you to use audio-centric technology to frictionlessly communicate without having to be in meetings. Our goal is to take a 30-minute meetings and reduce it down to a 4-min sync update which can be put into a podcast like playlist and listened to hands-free.

Our offer.... perhaps where we are lacking. Right now its around, "we are still an early-stage company and looking to find where our application works best (which team types and use-cases). For example, is this something that adds the most value to a HR team for communicating amongst the direct team on weekly updates, assisting with onboarding new employees by creating audio informational series, passing around executive communications, new and star employee highlights, policy news/updates, etc. We are in the process of doing this with multiple other teams such as Engineering, Product, Sales, Marketing, Operations, etc at other companies so that our final application is truly something that brings massive value to our users!"

Offer needs to be simple (they get 100s of offers per month) and a no-brainer (they would be stupid if they said no)

"I created an app so you can spend less time in meetings. I need feedback, so I want to give it to your team for free, and if it doesn't provide any value I'll send you $100 as an apology for wasting your time. Can I show it to you Tues 2 pm?"

Another opener I like is asking for referrals rather than pitching them, even though you are really seeing if they're interested.

"Do you know anyone who spends too much time in meetings? I'm looking for free testers for our new app.." etc.

Have you tapped your network for referrals before working on cold outreach?

 

[christian9]

Offer needs to be simple (they get 100s of offers per month) and a no-brainer (they would be stupid if they said no)

"I created an app so you can spend less time in meetings. I need feedback, so I want to give it to your team for free, and if it doesn't provide any value I'll send you $100 as an apology for wasting your time. Can I show it to you Tues 2 pm?"

Another opener I like is asking for referrals rather than pitching them, even though you are really seeing if they're interested.

"Do you know anyone who spends too much time in meetings? I'm looking for free testers for our new app.." etc.

Have you tapped your network for referrals before working on cold outreach?

Excellent feedback! I will certainly incorporate this.

I have tapped a large portion of my network as potential users, I can probably go back now and harp on the second note you had around asking for anyone they know who spends too much time in meetings.

Thank you!

 

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[TheJon]

So far it has been through LinkedIn connection/messaging. We have only been at the pilot user on-boarding process for the last 1.5 - 2 months. Most companies just say it's not a good time right now, maybe in a few months. I know the B2B process generally takes a decent amount of time before you start to get traction. We also have been trying a Land & Expand model targeting DIR/VP+ level execs which might not be the most effective at this early of a stage.

I am looking for advice that other founders have used in the past to get B2B companies to sign on or find alot of the users.

I am thinking of experimenting with some paid shout outs with some of the Linkedin gurus that are executive level trainers around CIOs/CTOs etc.

Interesting problem to try to solve

I will tell you that in business land "not a good time" = "no and I hope you forget to come back"

But don't let that frustrate you too much, that's a pretty soft no

 

[Johnny boy]

Start with being here ^

Then here...



And here too...


And leave your two cents here



There's 9 quadrillion business podcasts, why aren't you on all of them discussing how people can shorten their meetings and why it's good for their business?

PPC, content in all the places I mentioned, collect info on your site, call everyone personally based on if they are a decision maker in their organization, retarget people with ads.

 

[christian9]

Interesting problem to try to solve

I will tell you that in business land "not a good time" = "no and I hope you forget to come back"

But don't let that frustrate you too much, that's a pretty soft no

I was taught until they tell you "NO", keep circling back every couple of weeks.

 

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[christian9]

View attachment 45207

Start with being here ^

Then here...

View attachment 45208

And here too...
View attachment 45209

And leave your two cents here

View attachment 45210

There's 9 quadrillion business podcasts, why aren't you on all of them discussing how people can shorten their meetings and why it's good for their business?

PPC, content in all the places I mentioned, collect info on your site, call everyone personally based on if they are a decision maker in their organization, retarget people with ads.

Love it. Great advice.

 

[Luthien]

Our messaging is around, meetings suck, they are overtaking calendars, crushing employee morale and killing productivity. We provide a time-zone independent collaborative async solution that allows you to use audio-centric technology to frictionlessly communicate without having to be in meetings. Our goal is to take a 30-minute meetings and reduce it down to a 4-min sync update which can be put into a podcast like playlist and listened to hands-free.

Our offer.... perhaps where we are lacking. Right now its around, "we are still an early-stage company and looking to find where our application works best (which team types and use-cases). For example, is this something that adds the most value to a HR team for communicating amongst the direct team on weekly updates, assisting with onboarding new employees by creating audio informational series, passing around executive communications, new and star employee highlights, policy news/updates, etc. We are in the process of doing this with multiple other teams such as Engineering, Product, Sales, Marketing, Operations, etc at other companies so that our final application is truly something that brings massive value to our users!"

Have you considered branding it as an “agile” thing and focusing on targeting developers in tech companies? I’d say tech startups, but startups are usually so chaotic with everyone just trying to get the product off the ground, they’d be too busy to try it out. But in my experience, companies that are just one maturity level past startup, have lots of developers who *constantly* complain about how many meetings they have. Jr devs aren’t usually in a lot, but senior devs, at companies who have just passed the startup phase are likely to be swamped with meetings.

You could go on meetup.com and present your product at a bunch of dev meetups as a “cool new tech tool you can try for free”. (You may want to target silicon valley for this-plenty of tech companies and everyone is very agile-focused) If you can get the devs on board, it’s easier to get the business on board, because in software companies the devs are the tail that wags the dog. (If they are convinced this tool will make them productive and enable them to write more code, then they’ll go to the business and echo your sales pitch and companies are desperate to keep devs productive so they’ll be likely to at least buy a few months of product licensing to give it a try).