#3. How we launched the Overtracking MVP in 24h

On June 9 of this year, Overtracking was born. We created the MVP in 24 hours, I “validated” it in 4 days, and on the 5th I published this video on my YouTube channel (in spanish).

It seems the Genesis but no, it is just the beginning of the story that I want to tell you here today, seen 4 months later.

Because, what a priori seemed like an easy and simple challenge, the reality is that it has not been. The MVP is just the beginning (which is no small thing).

But I won’t get ahead of myself yet, let’s get to the beginning… 👇👇👇

First step: the business idea

When the first simple web analytics tools with zero-cookies were born, I thought few people would pay for them. Why would anyone pay for a tool when they could use Google Analytics for free?

👉 Shortly after, in October 2020, Google released GA4. I began to see how more than one switched to paid tools and, not only that, but they also boasted of having done it #fuckGA4. The sudden changes and difficulty of using GA4 accelerated the adoption of other tools, even paid ones.

👉Another big catalyst was concerns about privacy and compliance. The new tools were adapting perfectly to the main data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, PECR…), something that Google Analytics was not doing and that could have a negative and direct impact on the companies that used it:

These two points have been and are key for online businesses to consider paying to avoid future problems, comply with the laws of each country, and be owners of their own data. This last one is very important. That no one uses or transfers data that belongs to the user himself and, by right, belongs to him.

These have been and are the keys for more and more online businesses to leave Google Analytics and switch to paid tools: avoiding privacy problems and being the exclusive owners of their data. Especially the latter; that no one other than them does business with data that, by right, belongs to them. And this is only possible if the tool bases its business model on paid subscriptions.

You know what they say “When a product is free, the product is you.”

Second step: development

On July 7, 2022, I published a video on my channel where I talked about the business opportunity that existed around web analytics tools. The need to have alternatives to GA4 was real and there was a solution that, for around €600, you could buy to start setting up that business. This solution was called 66analytics.

👉 Since no one listened to me, a year later I bought the domain Overtracking.com and set it up myself.

✅ I did it in 24 hours and invested €748.95. I bought the script and hired Julio Rodríguez to configure a scalable server in OVH Cloud and the rest of the things needed to set up a SaaS.

Third step: my first 50 users

To test that everything was working well I needed my first users. The objective was to recruit the first 50 people to:

1. Check that the server was holding up and that everything was going well.
2. See if the tool seemed enough to them as it came prefabricated (spoiler: it wasn’t enough).
3. Write down all the feedback and start improving the tool.

👉 And to do all this I made a pre-opening. I opened Overtracking privately to just a few. I published this tweet and also published a post on my Telegram channel.

✅ In this way, I got 50 people to sign up to try Overtracking.

Fourth step: feedback and validation of the idea

I proposed a deal to all the users I invited: their feedback in exchange for 90 days free 🔥. 50 accepted, although later only 24 sent it to me (things happen).

In addition, I took advantage of the survey to inform them of our affiliation program with which we pay a recurring 25% for life for each client brought to Overtracking.

⚡ It’s a good idea to use surveys to pursue other objectives at the same time😜

You can see the complete survey I did here (in spanish): https://tally.so/r/n0711Q

4 months later…

When you start a business you only know where you start and you imagine where you want to end up, but you don’t know what will happen along the way.

In my case, and as I conveyed in my videos, it seemed easy to set up the GA4 competition with a script, but the reality is that it is not like that.

In order to do this we have had and are having to make many improvements:

1. We added an anti-adblock so that it analyzes 100% of the visits and that nothing blocks Overtracking.
2. I invested €350 in some premium graphs because by default data could not be compared.
3. We improved the objectives to be able to track almost everything: https://docs.overtracking.com/es/docs/objetivos-personalizados/
4. We added all the sources to know where the traffic is coming from in real-time.
5. We fixed the API so that any premium user can use Overtracking in their projects.
6. Zero-cookies mode had no filters, so I added them and now you can filter all web traffic without cookies…
7. We included the option to share publicly, with a link or iframe, real-time dashboards, heat maps, screen recordings… everything. This is how Wevendy uses it for its #buildinpublic 👇👇👇

📈400 páginas vistas de media tenemos al día en wevendy.

Hoy hemos hecho público nuestro dashboard de @overtracking_es

¿Qué te parece? 👉 https://t.co/e1w0tSKc2a#buildinginpublic

— wevendy (@wevendy_com) August 2, 2023

€5000 later…

With investment in marketing, tool improvements, server expansion… The business idea that started for less than €1,000 and 24 hours, has now become an almost full-time job and more than €5,000 in investment to date. date. And the best is yet to come 🙌

🎁 Next Monday, in the fourth chapter “From Zero to a Million”, Elsa will tell you how we are getting leads through X.