John Savignano is an enterpreneur , investor, and co-founder of Snip Snap. John is a graduate of MIT with degrees in Computer Science and Engineering. John use to be a reporter for the Boston Globe Newspaper but decided to leave journalism to explore his passion in the app industry. The following is a recap on how John went from journalist to entrepreneur with an app called Snip Snap.
Achievements
In 2012, John and his team came up with an idea for a new app called SnipSnap. This app allows users to take pictures of items that they like and send them to friends or vendors. The vendor can then send the item directly to the customer, who can pay for it using their phone.
John was able to raise $300,000 in seed funding from private investors with the help of Tech Stars. He also raised another $150,000 on Kickstarter with 700 backers.
In 2013, John become part of 500 Startups accelerator program in Mountain View California .
John was able to raise $2.5 million from private investors with the help of Techstars and 500 Startups. In 2014, SnipSnap had their first acquisition from Scoutmob. John was also able to get a new office in Kendall Square, Cambridge and hire 9 new employees for the company .
John says that his biggest lesson from this experience was that you need to do more talking and less listening. When people are putting money into your project, you need to ask a lot of questions about what they think about the product and how it can be improved . If a person does not have an answer for your question then you know that there is something that needs to be changed .
He has learned that the best way to get new user is to have a beta version of your product ready and make it available to a small group of people first . This will get you valuable feedback from the users and allow you to make changes before you release the product to more users.
READ: https://www.bbntimes.com/companies/john-savignano-values-the-human-element-in-accounting-success