It’s been about 2 years since we decided to put QuickRake, a product for DJs to collect song requests, in a low-burn state and shift into a software consultancy. It’s a good time to reflect on what we could’ve done better and what we learned.

What We Didn’t do Well

The Name

We didn’t think about the repercussions of the name. The name obviously didn’t pass the bar test because every time we said the name people would need clarification. We realized this wasn’t the best name choice afterall.

If we proceeded to further build the product we would’ve definitely changed the name.

The Market

Ultimately, the DJ market was fragmented. People who called themselves DJs ranged from part times to a few who actually do it on a full time basis. We realized that charging people in the space was going to be difficult because margins are small.

Adjust Pricing and Value

We only have one plan for our customers to choose from. We didn’t spend time at all adjusting pricing and figuring out tiers based on the value that we are providing. As we became more knowledgeable about the market we should’ve created different plans for different types of DJs.

An example of different plans we could have tried would be:

• Basic
• Professional
• Full Service Entertainment Company

By introducing new plans we could provide a much clearer value proposition for each plan. These plans would force us to think about the market in a very different way.

We didn’t do this at all and if we did it would’ve contributed to understanding the entire space better and maybe opened up a new area for us to provide value in.

What We Did Do Well

We Launched

We launched and put a product out in the world. This might seem like a small feat but it’s amazing how many people don’t do that.

Made Sure Customers Were #1

We spent time taking care of our customers. Whenever they had an issue we tried to resolve them within 24 hours. If anything, we would provide an update to a customer about their issue, their comments, or feedback.

It was a privilege to even have one customer paying for our service and as more did we never took this for granted. Our respect for them was constant and made us grateful to help them with their issues.

In Summary

QuickRake was built in a couple months and what we achieved was commendable. There were certainly lessons that we learned throughout the process of building the product that will help us in the future.