Last week I had an amazing mentoring session with Stavriana Kofteros. During that mentoring session I asked Stavriana “What is the one thing that you would advise me to do/not do”. Without blinking an eye, she said “Let me reverse the question for you. What is the one thing that you are most unhappy with?” Ugh… I hate it when people do that to me, I thought. But it was really an amazing question. I was of course unable to provide a serious answer at that point, and we ended the mentoring session with the promise that I will return until Friday with an answer. Well, it’s Friday :) The question has been stuck in my head for the last full week and I am now happy to say I have an answer. Growth. Really? That’s actually one of the areas that AtYourService is doing great. We have a 15% Month to Month Growth rate in all our Important KPI’s since launch – which is a great for a period of 24 months. If that’s the case, then why the hell am I saying growth? Let me take a step back and try to explain my thought Process. Reaching an answer to this question was not easy at all. As soon as Stavriana asked the question 20 different things game to mind – I`d love to have XYZ features, or that new site and Process redesign we have been working on for so long, but the truth is that these are merely “features” And Features do not make Happy Users, Increase KPI’s or lead to revenue (at least in our case). We have been building AtYourService long enough to realize that so many times you are sure that a feature (which has been requested like a million times) will significantly improve your KPI’s, only to check that it had a minor effect. AtYourService is a Marketplace – which is kinda different than most Startups. What are Users looking for when they enter AtYourService? To figure that out we have to break down our users into two groups, Users and Professionals. Users want to enter the site, have a pleasant experience and find the Service they are looking for without getting lost in the way. Professionals want to enter the site, have a pleasant experience and find new Customers without getting lost in the way. What are the common elements between Users and Professionals? Making your site easy to work with so that they don’t get lost (Working on that 50% there)Help them have a pleasant experience (Working on this also, I can say that we have very high levels of User Satisfaction like 90%)Users, want more Professionals to choose from, Professionals want more Customers to be happier. More Users, bring more Professionals in, and more Professionals are a great reason for new Users to join.Now really I can’t complain about this. We already have 7500 Professionals and Companies who signed up to submit Offers on AtYourService, and over €200,000 in requests for services every month. So really, I can’t complain about growth – it’s been much better than our (or anyone else’s) estimates. See more here