How a maker-led tech startup found its market fit

Less than 10 years ago, TalkJSco-founders Joshua Schoenaker and Egbert Teeselink worked on a new chat API solution. Schoenaker explains: “We felt like there was a need for super simple, low-threshold chat in a business context. In a personal context there was for example WhatsApp. But we noticed that the equivalent for a business context was sorely lacking.”

Working with a small team of developers and designers back in 2016, Schoenaker reminisces: “We started out hacking on a super simple chat app - quickly building a working minimum viable product (MVP). Initially developed for our own use, we soon realised we were not the only ones in need of this solution.”

In the early stages of developing the product, they were part of Rockstart, a startup accelerator based in Amsterdam. Speaking to fellow startup founders in the community, they gained traction: “A couple companies spotted our app in action, and then reached out to ask if they could embed the chat in their own platforms, to have users chat with each other directly. The first few companies that showed an interest were online marketplaces, such as Spacebase (formerly Deskbookers).”

“We then realized that user-to-user communication was actually a big problem for many platforms such as marketplaces and social apps - anywhere where users need to communicate with one another. Plug-and-play SaaS solutions didn’t solve this problem.” Schoenaker continues, “Once we spotted the need, we decided to pivot our chat app into this direction and make it a B2B product.”

TalkJS recognised that many online businesses want to connect their users in an efficient way, but don’t want to lose them to third-party branded platforms, such as Whatsapp, or even email. Instead, they want to offer their users a coherent and smooth experience inside their own platform, website or app—including the chat. With TalkJS, businesses can now facilitate communication via chat and keep users on their own website or app.

Pivoting to delivering a SaaS B2B product

Pivoting is a buzzword that gets thrown around a lot in the startup world, as it’s where many new businesses fail if they are not able to quickly respond to industry changes. For TalkJS however, the pivot was a natural fit, Schoenaker explains: “Because we still only had a bare minimum viable product, we were able to quickly change tracks and successfully pivot to a B2B solution.”

“In addition, all the chat UX features we already built, so we could reuse those too. We just needed to provide a way to embed everything in a different app or website, and allow our customers to connect their own users.”

Working from this initial MVP meant that there was no need to retrofit the product into the SaaS model, but instead create a custom-built and scalable product that could provide value to customers around the world.

Schoenaker continues: “In the first week, we called 10 marketplace companies to ask if they’d be interested in this and would be willing to pay. Over half were interested, which meant we could start generating revenue immediately.”

“From that first week onward, we started growing and continuously improving the product with customer feedback.”

Created by developers, for developers

According to Schoenaker, no amount of market research can beat genuine experience when it comes to product-market-fit and UX: “Because we started out building the chat for our own use, we were fully focused on providing a chat we’d love to use ourselves as well.”

Upon switching to a B2B product, we kept that complete attention to both the end-user experience, as well as the developer experience, making it simple for our customers to integrate the chat into their platforms.”

This agile way of working continues to improve the product, says Schoenaker: “We have a live support chat — built with TalkJS! — where we interact with our customers on a daily basis, help them integrate the chat, and source ideas for new features to add. From adding features such as file transfers, group chats, or location sharing, to customizing the UI, since we launched and got our first 10 customers, our roadmap has been largely dictated by customer requests, where these fit the general direction we want to go in.”