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Paying It Forward: Davy Kestens

June 7, 2014 - Posted in News Posted by:

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Flock Unlock meets Davy Kestens at Corda Campus

From left to right: Michiel Van de Veire, Davy Kestens, Magali Renard.

 

Young internet entrepreneur Davy Kestens, is back in Belgium for just one week.
He’s the founder of Sparkcentral (formerly TwitSpark) an enterprise level social media helpdesk platform, specifically built for high-volume and real-time engagement.

Thanks to Corda Campus (Corda INCubator) and KBC StartIt we had the opportunity to meet Davy in person, pitch Flock Unlock and get some great advice.

We are pleased to say that Davy already saw potential in Flock Unlock, even though we still have a long way to go. Our biggest task now, is choosing our target audience. We could either open up the Flock Unlock platform for everyone to use, start selling our service to marketing agencies or solely focus on bigger clients and offer customised Flock Unlock campaigns with excellent support. We’ll be talking to a lot of people in the upcoming weeks, do more user tests and from all the responses we get we’ll decide what’s the right way to go. We’ll keep you all updated!

We’d like to share some of Davy’s wise words with you.
If you’re just starting up, like us, take note!

 

“Don’t waste valuable time on writing a business model.” Tweet this

And here’s why… As a startup your business model will most likely change once, twice, three times maybe even more in the first few months. By the time you’ve got your business model all written out, it’ll be outdated. Especially for internet startups this is true.


 

“A hustler, a hacker and a designer” Tweet this

That’s what investors look for in a startup team. You need a hustler someone who can close the deals, a real salesperson. Of course the product has to be build so you need a solid developer and lately a designer is a must have too… Your product needs to look good to sell.


 

“Intelligence is overrated, you just need the balls to go for it!” Tweet this

Having brains obviously helps, but you don’t need to be a genius to start a company. You do however need the guts to actually go for it. Hit a problem? Find the solution! Just keep going.


 

“Increase the price until your customers start complaining.” Tweet this

Especially as a startup, it might seem tempting to keep prices low. Don’t!
Davy’s advice when setting a price for your product or service, is to ask as much as you can and to stop only when customers actually start complaining. That’s when you hit the right product market price.


 

“Don’t let big competitors scare you away.” Tweet this

There might already be big players with similar business models out there, don’t mind them. Do your thing, you’re small, you’re more focused and able to pick the details. The big guys probably won’t even notice you or care. You might be small, but you can make a difference or like Davy told us: “Just think of a mosquito bugging you at night. It might be small, but it’ll sure keep you up all night.”
 
And last but not least, Davy’s must read book for new startup entrepreneurs:
“The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss.
 
We’d like to thank Davy Kestens once again for “paying it forward” and helping young startups like ourselves succeed.

 

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