Letter to our customers

Dear Valued Customer,

Why Bimotics? Because Bimotics is a small company just like yours, working tirelessly to produce a product that will improve your business and how you think about your business.   We firmly believe that we provide an easy-to-use tool that can help you analyze, refine, and grow your business in a way you never before thought possible.

How does Bimotics do it? In the same way that you have a special skill, be it making the best cupcakes in town, tailoring the finest suit, or running a high tech distribution network, we have a special skill as well.  Your business is unique, and Bimotics is the unique solution to help you unlock your full potential. We have spent our entire careers figuring out how to bring you the best analytics solution as possible.

We have removed all the challenges that small businesses face when dealing with data through our a la carte menu of analytics.  We have made the analysis of your business as simple as picking items off a restaurant menu.  We have created a true self-service product.

Measure, monitor, and forecast your business at a glance.

Our skills are at your service.  We look forward to your Good to Know! moment.

Sincerely,

The Bimotics Team

Arriving at the tag line, Good to Know

When we first started Bimotics, co-founder and I continuously refined our with the story and sought to find efficient ways to describe our business. We took the approach of talking to as many people as we can. Not just the target customer, but also potential investors and professionals. In all honesty, the task was amongst the most frustrating things we have had to do for Bimotics. To my defence, you try to explain what business intelligence is to a small business owner.  

Last year, I was traveling back from visiting my parents. I stopped at the Barnes & Noble to buy a paperback for my flight. (I generally travel with one tablet reader and one paperback; so that I can continue to read during takeoff and landing.) Since I was in the prime of my frustration, I bought, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank I. Luntz.  It turned out to be an amazing book that i couldn’t put down until arriving back in Miami.

Luntz tells us that a good tag line should be between three and four words. For business, it should conjure a positive emotion and be associated with what one could experience using your product. A good tag line could was also something that you could hear in everyday conversation.  

I sat through the flight listing different possible tag lines for Bimotics. I tried lines that would be associated with being empowered or becoming stronger and smarter. I tried clever and witty lines about digging through and using your data. Then there was an announcement on our flight saying that we were a little delayed a bit and what number our baggage carousel was going to be when we landed. The boy across the aisle me put down his iPad, took off his headset then leaned over to his mom and said, “Good to know.” IT WAS PERFECT!

Good to know is a common expression used when you learned something that will be particularly helpful to you. It is used to communicate appreciation, pleasure or relief about knowing something you previously did not. That is exactly the mission of this startup.  At Bimotics, our metrics, analytics and dashboards will point to revelations about a business’s operational health and financial performance. We want our customers to say “Good to Know!” when they use our software and learn something from their own analytics. Whether it is saving money, going after better markets or laying out a different operational strategy, our products can support these decisions.

Our tag line has been Good to know ever since.

Notes From the Road -- What We Learned at the Miami Small Business Expo

What a great week at Bimotics! The entire team got to update their pitching skills, but more importantly put faces and names to the businesses we work to serve each day. We spent two days traveling to small business exhibitions, talking to dozens of local and regional potential customers and fine-tuning our sense of what small businesses need.

Here are some key takeaways:

• People who understand the benefits of business metrics and analysis but “are not there yet” are great for validating our explanation of the value Bimotics brings, but most likely will not fit into the sales cycle we are targeting because it takes a while to set up and use standard business practices.
• Technology providers that cater to small business are asked quite often where to get analytics and business intelligence systems that fit a tight budget. Possible partnerships and cohort awareness will definitely help us generate leads and grow our business.
• Demand for business intelligence solutions significantly drops off when solutions reach the $10,000 price point.  Those with higher price tolerance tend to be service-type companies who use analysis as part of their main offering. Bimotics is pricing our service in line with other small business applications.  We also know that we can tap greater demand at a much lower price point.
• Although technical startups are interested in our analytical software, they tend to fall into the “innovator” rather than the “early adopter” bucket.  What this means is that if we focus on selling just to technical startups, we may not be able to get the critical mass of small businesses we need.  Our goal is to serve all businesses but word of mouth and trust will come easier from non-technical startups, or businesses that are slightly farther along in their development.

Ultimately we left the events with even greater focus on what we need to do to cater to different customer bases and understand how their needs differ.  Our first and immediate post-conventions actions are to schedule product demos with the businesses that expressed interest and continue building local relationships.

Of the dozens of people that we spoke with, all were inspiring.  They were happy to share their stories of success in surmounting challenges in their businesses. They did not complain about budget or about having assembled the perfect team before they figured out a solution.  We were left with a renewed sense of persistence and optimism towards entrepreneurship and providing analytics services that businesses will find invaluable.

Our 7 Whys of Bimotics

I am an avid follower of David Cumming's Blog on Startups. Any entrepreneur with a technology startup can benefit from a quick read of his posts, especially if you have a SaaS. The content that posts each week is both easy to read and often timely. Recently, there was a post on the questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves frequently. This is how Bimotics answered: 

1. Why are we doing this?

@Bimotics our mantra is shine a light on the path that leads to that "Good to know!" moment. We truly believe that we can strengthen and improve small and medium sized businesses by giving them real-time analytics and information about their activities and operations- what we in the industry call business intelligence software. Our developer tools enable big data analysis as well.

2. Why is now the right time to do this?

The time is now for Bimotics because non-technical people have begun accepting and using cloud technology in their daily lives. Cloud technology has finally evolved to the point where thousands of people can access extremely vast amounts of data at lightning fast speeds. These two conditions make it the right time.

3. Why are we going to win?

We built a solution that seasoned developers said was impossible. We now have a track record of proving our naysayers wrong. We have a growing list of businesses that are signing up for our service even when others said that it would never happen. We are listening to these customers and steadily improving our product line. With our persistence and support from a highly qualified team, we are going to win.

4. Why aren't we doing even better?

Fund raising has been slow; and we need to sharpen the way we communicate our offering. We are improving how we reach the right people but we can do it better.

5. Why do employees want to work here?

Our team is excited about our position on the leading edge of innovation. They are also good people who believe that a robust and profitable business can flourish while maintaining a positive mission statement and the highest standards of ethics.

6. Why is this the right product?

From the very beginning, our analytics software has been tailored for the small and medium sized business specifically. We didn't simplify a product that was built for enterprise needs.

7. Why do customers love us?

Our customers have said that Bimotics has become an invaluable tool to them in their day to day business. That's "Good to know!", and we couldn't be happier!

Bimotics looks forward to 2016

In our year end post, we revisited some of our big wins in 2014. The beginning of a new year means goal setting and planning for what is to come. A new season means new opportunities and we are full of optimism!  This blog entry focuses on those top goals for our startup. We are sure that the next 12 months will not be without pivots and turns, but this is just part of the journey we take and we are looking forward to the challenges ahead.

SMART Goal: 1 new product and brand launch this year 

After much debate, we are considering changing our name to something equally impactful but easier to pronounce. When we chose Bimotics years ago, we were lucky to get a service mark and .com domain fairly easily. Both items can be hard to come by for a startup, especially since our name has a  uniqueness of meaning.  As we began pitching  and discussing our company with people, we realized that “Bimotics” is tough for people to pronounce and read under pressure (especially while introducing our startup in front of a crowd). We are currently reviewing a short list of names and icons that meaningfully capture the essence of our core business as well as the name Bimotics does.

SMART Goal: Roll out to 2 core charting capabilities with ability to measure usage

At long last, we are excited to  roll out our end-user presentation layer. We have heard it time and again from both prospects and advisors that UI sells.  Our experiences show that people and customers expect a solid foundation and for the “plumbing to work” so to speak, but the way they differentiate the value of things is based heavily on visualizations. So while we consider the 2014 launch of our big data tool marvin. a great milestone, we need to take this robust foundation and plumbing for analytics solutions a step further. In 2015, we will be rolling out a visualization layer that allows non-technical users to interact with Big Data easily and affordably and peek into their data in a way that they never have before. We believe funneling more capital towards front end development is what is needed to demo our true value while increasing revenue.

SMART Goal: Participate in  2 tech community events a month

We are going to help grow our local tech community. Bimotics has attended key meetups within South Florida in the past but this year we aim to increase our involvement. By being participants, organizers, audience members, and sponsors over the past few years, we have increased our understanding of the value a community of tech entrepreneurs can bring. Whether it was introductions to angel investors or the identification of helpful resources for product development, each event benefitted us in some way. We also have something to give back in terms of experience, expertise, and lessons learned along the road and we look forward to sharing our knowledge with the community in 2015.

So it is going to be another busy year at Bimotics. Of course there are several other more tactical goals for the year, but from a company perspective, we look forward to working to meet these goals in particular. None of these will be easy nor can be done individually. Let’s get to work team!

Our 7 Whys

I am an avid follower of David Cumming’s Blog on Startups. Any entrepreneur with a technology startup can benefit from a quick read of his posts, especially if you have a SaaS.   The content that posts each week is both easy to read and often timely. Recently, there was a post on the questions entrepreneurs should ask themselves frequently. This is how Bimotics answered:

1. Why are we doing this?

@Bimotics our mantra is shine a light on the path that leads to that “Good to know!” moment.  We truly believe that we can strengthen and improve small and medium sized businesses by giving them real-time analytics and information about their activities and operations. Our developer tools enable big data analysis as well.

2. Why is now the right time to do this?

The time is now for Bimotics because non-technical people have begun accepting and using cloud technology in their daily lives. Cloud technology has finally evolved to the point where thousands of people can access extremely vast amounts of data at lightning fast speeds. These two conditions make it the right time.

3. Why are we going to win?

We built a solution that seasoned developers said was impossible.  We now have a track record of proving our naysayers wrong.  We have a growing list of businesses that are signing up for our service even when others said that it would never happen. We are listening to these customers and steadily improving our product line. With our persistence and support from a highly qualified team, we are going to win.

4. Why aren't we doing even better?

Fund raising has been slow; and we need to sharpen the way we communicate our offering. We are improving how we reach the right people but we can do it better.

5. Why do employees want to work here?

Our team is excited about our position on the leading edge of innovation. They are also good people who believe that a robust and profitable business can flourish while maintaining a positive mission statement and the highest standards of ethics.

6. Why is this the right product?

From the very beginning, our analytics software has been tailored for the small and medium sized business specifically. We didn’t simplify a product that was built for enterprise needs.

7. Why do customers love us?

Our customers have said that Bimotics has become an invaluable tool to them in their day to day business. That’s “Good to know!”, and we couldn’t be happier!

5 things we are looking for in our next employees

Since the beginning of the year, Bimotics has made significant progress towards catching the attention of people from different backgrounds and skills who would like to join our startup.  This is in stark contrast to just a year ago, when we were greeted with encouragement but far more skepticism. Since we are growing, we are looking for team members both on the business and marketing side as well as the technical developer side. Aside from the specific expertise desired, here five common themes we will be looking for in our next employees.

1. Passionate about innovation: our team members need to have a burning desire to learn new ways of doing things or new technologies that can propel Bimotics forward.
2. Good natured: we want teammates that are are not “jerks”.  We want people who are both nice and respectful inside the office and out.
3. Self-propelled: startup culture requires people to be extremely self-motivated while working to create something as a team that the world has never seen before.  Our new hires will always find active ways to be helpful and productive.
4. Fearless: being at the forefront often requires getting out of your comfort zone and expressing yourself.  Bimotics employees are never afraid to bounce ideas off one another.  We need you to be able to risk failing and learn from it when you do- we will get where we need to go faster. Fearlessness should not be mistaken for recklessness however.
5. Economical: Like other startups, we have a tight budget and need our team to be prudent and clever and achieve results in a cost-effective way. Treat the company’s money like you would your own.

Do you have these traits?  How would you apply them to our team?

Defining culture

There has been a lot of literature lately about creating and defining startup culture from the beginning.

Many seasoned entrepreneurs and famous founders talk of regret for not cultivating an organizational personna from the outset of the endeavor. As a startup, Bimotics is currently a handful of people that enjoying working together. As we grow, we are bound to face challenges to maintaining the productive and enjoyable atmosphere that we cherish.
What do you think?  I’m excited to find out and equally excited to be a part of a culture like this!

Looking ahead, Roberto and I set out to define the core principles and values that are the cornerstone of Bimotics. The following is our first attempt at a cultural policy.

0. Have fun!  You should enjoy doing your job!

1. No jerks allowed, be humble

2. Do no evil, business decisions should not bite us back

3. Don't spend money if there is a similar service for free

4. Teamwork, no decisions are made in a vacuum

5. Innovation, automation and ease of use are a priority

6. Business processes should not interfere with policy #2

7. Explore new concepts and actively share them

8. Bring your personal passions and interests, what drives you?

9. Don't be afraid to fail, take educated risks and learn from mistakes

10. Speak up!

What do you think?  I’m excited to find out and equally excited to be a part of a culture like this.

Notes From the Road -- What We Learned at the Miami Small Business Expo

What a great week at Bimotics! The entire team got to update their pitching skills, but more importantly put faces and names to the businesses we work to serve each day. We spent two days traveling to small business exhibitions, talking to dozens of local and regional potential customers and fine-tuning our sense of what small businesses need.

Here are some key takeaways:

• People who understand the benefits of business metrics and analysis but “are not there yet” are great for validating our explanation of the value Bimotics brings, but most likely will not fit into the sales cycle we are targeting because it takes a while to set up and use standard business practices.
• Technology providers that cater to small business are asked quite often where to get analytics and business intelligence systems that fit a tight budget. Possible partnerships and cohort awareness will definitely help us generate leads and grow our business.
• Demand for business intelligence solutions significantly drops off when solutions reach the $10,000 price point.  Those with higher price tolerance tend to be service-type companies who use analysis as part of their main offering. Bimotics is pricing our service in line with other small business applications.  We also know that we can tap greater demand at a much lower price point.
• Although technical startups are interested in our analytical software, they tend to fall into the “innovator” rather than the “early adopter” bucket.  What this means is that if we focus on selling just to technical startups, we may not be able to get the critical mass of small businesses we need.  Our goal is to serve all businesses but word of mouth and trust will come easier from non-technical startups, or businesses that are slightly farther along in their development.

Ultimately we left the events with even greater focus on what we need to do to cater to different customer bases and understand how their needs differ.  Our first and immediate post-conventions actions are to schedule product demos with the businesses that expressed interest and continue building local relationships.

Of the dozens of people that we spoke with, all were inspiring.  They were happy to share their stories of success in surmounting challenges in their businesses. They did not complain about budget or about having assembled the perfect team before they figured out a solution.  We were left with a renewed sense of persistence and optimism towards entrepreneurship and providing analytics services that businesses will find invaluable.

Letter to our customers

Dear Valued Customer,

Why Bimotics? Because Bimotics is a small company just like yours, working tirelessly to produce a product that will improve your business and how you think about your business.   We firmly believe that we provide an easy-to-use tool that can help you analyze, refine, and grow your business in a way you never before thought possible.

How does Bimotics do it? In the same way that you have a special skill, be it making the best cupcakes in town, tailoring the finest suit, or running a high tech distribution network, we have a special skill as well.  Your business is unique, and Bimotics is the unique solution to help you unlock your full potential. We have spent our entire careers figuring out how to bring you the best analytics solution as possible.

We have removed all the challenges that small businesses face when dealing with data through our a la carte menu of analytics.  We have made the analysis of your business as simple as picking items off a restaurant menu.  We have created a true self-service product.

Measure, monitor, and forecast your business at a glance.

Our skills are at your service.  We look forward to your Good to Know! moment.

Sincerely,

The Bimotics Team

Participating in a shark tank

Since it was recently Shark Week, I felt compelled to dedicate one blog post to my experience pitching Bimotics in a shark tank. Investment groups, entrepreneur clubs and academic programs have all jumped on this trend of hosting business shark tanks. Active entrepreneurs that seek funding from outside investors these days, most likely will find themselves preparing for our actually pitching in a shark tank.

It is especially important that an entrepreneur to have their startup story crisp and solid.  I have found that talking to individual investors will be a be more inquisitive and casual in talking about your business. But in the tank, the story needs to fact based and all the latest numbers and metrics rolling off your tongue effortlessly.  Although passion for your business is important, there is less time to convey it.

The sharks in the tank may not be evaluating your business under the same criteria.  Some may be looking for only early stage business. Others could be looking for strictly B2Cs. Others are looking for that one story that is missing from their portfolio. This makes it hard to because you cannot tailor your message just the one investor or topic of interest. If you have the luxury to know the background of each perspective shark, I would just tell the story targeting the very most one you want.

It is rare that your startup will get all the investors to be frenzied over you. The businesses that do are special enough to have their story told on business insider. Just like a shark attack on the beach, its uniqueness is why its news. However, it just takes the one right investor to make it all worth it.

Arriving at the tag line, Good to Know

When we first started Bimotics, co-founder and I continuously refined our with the story and sought to find efficient ways to describe our business. We took the approach of talking to as many people as we can. Not just the target customer, but also potential investors and professionals. In all honesty, the task was amongst the most frustrating things we have had to do for Bimotics. To my defence, you try to explain what business intelligence is to a small business owner.  

Last year, I was traveling back from visiting my parents. I stopped at the Barnes & Noble to buy a paperback for my flight. (I generally travel with one tablet reader and one paperback; so that I can continue to read during takeoff and landing.) Since I was in the prime of my frustration, I bought, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank I. Luntz.  It turned out to be an amazing book that i couldn’t put down until arriving back in Miami.

Luntz tells us that a good tag line should be between three and four words. For business, it should conjure a positive emotion and be associated with what one could experience using your product. A good tag line could was also something that you could hear in everyday conversation.  

I sat through the flight listing different possible tag lines for Bimotics. I tried lines that would be associated with being empowered or becoming stronger and smarter. I tried clever and witty lines about digging through and using your data. Then there was an announcement on our flight saying that we were a little delayed a bit and what number our baggage carousel was going to be when we landed. The boy across the aisle me put down his iPad, took off his headset then leaned over to his mom and said, “Good to know.” IT WAS PERFECT!

Good to know is a common expression used when you learned something that will be particularly helpful to you. It is used to communicate appreciation, pleasure or relief about knowing something you previously did not. That is exactly the mission of this startup.  At Bimotics, our metrics, analytics and dashboards will point to revelations about a business’s operational health and financial performance. We want our customers to say “Good to Know!” when they use our software and learn something from their own analytics. Whether it is saving money, going after better markets or laying out a different operational strategy, our products can support these decisions.

Our tag line has been Good to know ever since.