Birth of Twocial


Posted by superuser on Friday 3rd of February 2012 | 0 Comment(s)

I was privileged to be asked to join a brainstorming meeting held by the founders of a new techstartup called Twocial.

What's in a name?

Whilst I am not into original thinking (nothing against you Manchester Business School!), not having an original name for your startup is inexcusable. Most people, even branding experts get this wrong (e.g. Mike Perls' MC2 with mcmc.co.uk). I believe my own startup got a great name, but it is misspelled most of the time (eDocr, eDOCr, etc) by those who are cleverer than me!.

Who are the Nutters behind Twosocial?

In my book, there are three types of people who setup startups, these being

+ Commercially minded - these are the guys with significant capital behind them, who go after a well researched commercial opportunity with precision.
+ Nutters - these are the guys who want to change the world. In my case, it has been about liberating business documents from file servers. Not a very sexy subject like sharing your pictures with few buddies (yeah, I am talking about you, Mr. Instagr.am). By the way, our unwritten motto these days is "upload once make it available anywhere"
+ Fun lovers - these guys build products because they can. Some just give up and others become successful tech companies

Ok, so who are the nutters behind Twosocial? The techie in the team is "fun lover" turned "nutter" Martin Rue. The newbie behind the team is a chap called Shaf Choudry (he is alright except little bit too tall for my liking! - let's make shorties rule!).

I got an issue with Martin, as he did not finish Tweetdoc. But I managed to convince him to integrate with edocr.com to produce brand reports. Being a "Fun lover", Martin developed many products, but never spent enough time on one product to make it a success. So I am counting on Shaf to make sure the team deliver this time!

What's it all about?

Mmh! Something to do with brands..As we had the meeting at Tech Centre Manchester, I made sure they took notice of my thoughts. Here is what I think it ought to be:

- We all know about the growth of price comparison sites. People are no longer content with price. They value better service, and are prepared to pay a small premium for it. The next evolution of comparisons will be on sentiments. Take Klout and Peerindex for example. These startups give a rank people based on level of engagement and number of other criteria unique to them. Whilst I think its all crazy, people are taking them seriously (I'm gutted as my scores have dropped recently from highs of sixties to below fifties - no wonder no one listens to me!). I like to see Twocial build a highly visual product that focus on sentiment of brands.
- It ought to focus on large businesses. You need lot of tweets to understand the sentiment of brands. The team wants to focus on SMEs. I think this is a mistake.

What's the approach?

Twocial wants to share how they develop the product publicly. I think this is a great strategy. The founders of edocr.com also had the same idea, but we never managed to achieve it due to many reasons.

Take it or leave it advice

Here are my key suggestions:

1. Please complete it - you have no excuse. You have jobs to keep the money coming in. You are young and there is nothing to loose. Just go for it!
2. You already know about leanstartup methodology and all those who practice them - so keep engaging.
3. Listen to suggestions from everyone. Execute what you think is right! Don't try to satisfy everyone including me!
4. Release daily if you can. Maintain a status log on tumbler like us
5. List your startup on Angel.co, and let the investors follow you.

As you engage openly, you will build a fan club naturally. Happy to be of some help! Now go! Make it happen.