AFTER EIGHT MONTHS, THE APP WAS READY.
Bungii’s first week with the app was supposed to be a rocket hurtling past the clouds. But what actually happened was much different. We couldn’t even get off the ground.
We spent almost two years planning, building and preparing the app for launch. But when the time came, no one seemed to notice. It was devastating.
We believed once the app was released, users would be flocking to us and we’d be overrun by the demand for our service. We braced ourselves for the droves of customers, hoping our shiny new app would be able to handle all the trip requests without crashing. We were ready for the masses.
What we weren’t ready for was the near silence that came during our first week.
In seven days we completed a grand total of four trips. That meant we were newly minted forty-nine dollar-aires. We managed to pocket less than fifty bucks our first week with the app.
After months of work and thousands of dollars of software development, we were crushed. The alarm bells began going off loud and clear. What went wrong? What do we do now? Did we even have a viable business? The immediate signs were pointing towards no. Our expectations crashed to an all time low. We were in a new city with no money and the most disappointing week of our lives barely behind us.
We had two options: we could complain, whine, and give excuses, saying it wasn’t meant to be. OR we could put our heads down, get to work and figure it out.
When the odds were against us in the past our best instinct was always to continue the work. We followed that instinct again and refocused our efforts, spending the next six months with a singular goal: acquiring customers.
For us, that meant phone calls to local businesses, building relationships with store owners, growing our Facebook page, more phone calls, passing out promo codes and flyers at events, finding a phone– any phone– and using it to call someone. It was an all out pursuit to find anyone and everyone in Kansas City who would use Bungii.
Slowly but steadily it began to show dividends. Our shiny new app was finally getting a few miles on it.
It’s been a back-and-forth battle since day one but we are proud of the way Bungii pushed through difficult times. Our trial-by-errors and growing pains have led us to a healthy monthly growth rate, a few awards including Silicon Prairie’s New Startup of the Year, expansion to Atlanta and the close of a solid funding round last week.
Major change happens because of major consistency.
That is by far the greatest lesson we have learned during the process of turning Bungii around. There are no tricks to pull, there is no secret sauce, there is no quick fix. It just comes down to grinding, patient work. Commitment to work is what brings the positive changes.
