The "Windup" Strategy

Interesting Links
#1

@ian questions why we in the software industry feel the need to grow fast:

Why does your software company have to grow fast?

Why is building fast assumed when discussing a new software company, regardless of if it’s bootstrapped or VC backed?

Sure, the idea of not growing “VC” levels of fast has been baked into bootstrapping software companies from the start. But can we push it further?

Read the whole article here: https://thermostat.io/the-windup-strategy

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#2

@ian 's approach is interesting. However he doesn’t write about one very important thing: In order to use the term NPS (trademarked), you need to pay a yearly fee of $2000 ($5000 from 2020). Only a couple of NPS providers (like thermostat.io) pay this fee, and many others don’t.
So bootstrapping a NPS is expensive if you play by the rules. And pricewise, you can be undercut by the NPS services who don’t pay the license fee.

#3

Yeah, I didn’t really get into the details of running an NPS survey software business in particular. I consider the license fee a relatively minor expense. They do maintain it pretty well so I’m not that worried about people using it who shouldn’t be. I suspect anyone building NPS survey tool who isn’t licensed gets contacted by them if they reach any sort of size.

I always try and do things by the book though and have been paying the license fee for a few years now even though we only recently started generating revenue.

#4

Do people outside the startup ecosystem really understand, or want, NPS?

I think Rahul’s series of questions seen in this article make more sense. He repeated this presentation on stage at LAUNCH 2019 last month in Sydney. In particular, his process provides a guide for what to do about the numbers.

NPS polls are annoying and becoming more frequent. I donated plasma yesterday (it’s a volunteer thing) and by evening had an NPS question about my experience!

I think they are becoming like any form of content marketing - the good being overwhelmed by the noise of frequent polling from every organisation you have touch with.

Back to Ian’s article, maybe this is a British/Australian idiom but “windup” here means either:

  1. You are closing down the business, “winding it up” like winding up a thread, or
  2. A “Windup” is fooling someone for fun, like “pulling their leg”, telling them a “tall tale”.

Is Windup some kind of US sporting analogy?