It is now some months that we are working on the last version of Stamplay, and I would like to share some information about our work. We started in August 2012 with the aim of solving a problem that we’ve experienced in the first person as consultants: the creation of an online communication campaign often requires the development of custom software. Most advertising agencies outsource these activities supporting additional costs, delaying delivery to the client and increasing the risk due to software malfunctions.
The first solution we identified was to build a marketplace of pre-packaged applications for communication and marketing campaigns. Anyway, during customer development process, we realized that we would have struggled to quickly scale the business model, so we began to study alternative approaches.
In December, we have identified the right solution and we have decided to make a radical pivot. Today, our vision is to help web designers to create web application without the support of programmers, without knowing a programming language or know how to configure a server. Our solution allows agencies to reduce the time of delivery to the client, the cost and risks of failures of software built in a hurry and not adequately tested.
Last week we put online a new version of the site and posted some videos. Check it out and tell us what you think.
We have defined a work plan for the next 18 months with three major milestones:
1. first semester: put online the public beta version (private beta already on its way);
2. second semester: put online the commercial version;
3. third semester: reach the breakeven point and prepare to scale massively.
We started to collect the first reservations to use the beta version of the service and in three days and no pr activity we have already collected more than 550 contacts of web designer and some nice compliments. We really like this one from @guiseiz, a London designer:
HOLY. SHIT. @Stamplay is probably the best thing I’ve seen in a long time – http://stamplay.com/ #IFTTTforWebApps
We agree… Stamplay will revolutionize the way communication agencies work and will open up a new world of opportunities to engage consumers 😉
My partner Giuliano Iacobelli haw written a very good post (in Italian) on our experience so far: Pianificando i lancio della vostra startup: le basi.