Rapid Experimentation and Product Market Fit with Ayopop & Fave

Introduction

Several products come into existence every day. Analysing these products and deciding the product-market fit is extremely important regardless of the product itself. The fireside chat features Mr Chirag Kirpalani – founder of Ayopop; Mr Chen Chow Yeoh – Co-founder of Fave and Mr Raviteja Dodda, the CEO and Co-Founder of MoEngage. Fave and Ayopop have been the early adopters in the industry.

Fave started in the year 2016. It also acquired Groupon Indonesia and then made Fave a merchant super app that provides multiple services on one platform. Fave focuses on simplifying all the services provided by the corporate giants into a singular condensed app. The app also makes use of data to help small businesses finance their operations.

Ayopop is a bill payment app that came into existence in the year 2016. The focus of this app is around tier 2 and tier 3 cities which helps the audience figure out an XYZ store or an offline pay station. The app is reaping the benefits of the increasing mobile penetration in Indonesia.

Why do Entrepreneurs go with ideas that drive apps like Fave and Ayopop?

When you acquire a company, you want to make the best out of the available resources. Consumer data is highly crucial for a growing company. Fave made use of these resources when it acquired Groupon Asia. With the data, rebuild a business and implement cutting edge new technology to bring data to some practical use.

A new player needs to scan the industry and look at what other players are doing. It is essential to avoid the crowded space and play on other areas which are still untapped. A new player should develop something unique and partner with a giant who is already excelling in the crowded space.

Choosing a personal pain point and then analysing the market potential is a great way to develop new ideas for ventures.

Scaling of new business ideas

Every business should have a go-to-market strategy in place. You can decide your target community like Ayopop. They decided to go after the student community and give them vouchers for transactions performed on the app. As they started operating, they realised that their product offerings were not sufficient to cater to the audience. The company failed initially, but Mr Chirag took it as a learning and tried to understand what the audience wants.

Segmentation of your audience is vital. Ayopop decided on the segment and the age of their target focus before going ahead with their product changes. As soon as a business starts getting signals of achieving a product-market fit, it receives validation of sorts.

Scaling a business can be challenging. However, your business needs to pivot and start reaping the fruit of your efforts. As you go along, you must bring relevant and impactful iterations in your business model like Fave. Business pivots lie on the foundation of making tough decisions. The tough choices will create a more substantial impact if you have the finances to back them up. Make sure that your business has raised enough capital that it can afford to pivot.

With any percentage of increase in the pricing of your business offerings, there are chances that your churn rate will increase. However, to make your model successful, you can incentivise your customer in any form to make him stay. Incentivisation is known to reduce the churn rate to a great extent. So, it would be best if you never shied away from a challenge. Give your best and perform to the best of your own, as well as your team’s ability to capture new markets.

Important growth metrics to look at

Tracking the customer acquisition cost is extremely important. For a business, calculating margins has great relevance in terms of revenue and profitability. Companies that drive their model via an app also consider churn rate and the number of transacting users as a critical metric for growth.

Creating a growth culture is imperative for companies that are looking forward to growing. Come up with a set of experiments and decide where to try them out. Several metrics drive the growth of an organisation.

How can entrepreneurs make their employees data-driven?

Data has now become the life and blood of all organisations. All product managers, as well as sales managers, should have numbers at their fingertips. It is crucial to quantify the definition of success. Data metrics are influential in improving business performance. Businesses today are making use of data to improve their products and then to analyse their results. Ensure that you research and find out some key data metrics on the problem your business is trying to solve.