2. Mihir Garimella
BS CS ‘21
Nikhil Cheerla
BS CS ‘21
Prathik Naidu
BS CS ‘21
Rohan Suri
BS CS ‘21
Craig Seidel
Mentor
113
Interviews
Day One
Automatic
documentation
Status dashboards
for project managers
Today
New Market Niche Entrant

3. Chapter 1:
The Big Flop
Chapter 2:
The Turnaround
Chapter 3:
Sell, Sell, Sell

4. Chapter 1: The Big Flop
Weeks 0 – 4

5. Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions Customer Relationships Customer Segments
Key Resources Channels
Cost Structure Revenue Streams
Growing
companies
Remote workers
Large
enterprises
Product/engineering
teams (who rely on proper
documentation) and IT
teams (who help answer
questions for employees)
Reach out to VP Product,
VP IT, or CIO → individuals
with the most insights into
how company knowledge
and processes are used
Automatic
documentation
to make all
employees 10x
more
productive.
Design and develop new
features
Great onboarding
IP on core tech
Engineers, designers, etc.
TreeHacks (and other
clubs at Stanford) for
piloting an MVP of our
product
Applications that Surge
integrates with (Slack,
email clients, SaaS
platforms, etc.)
Engineers to develop and maintain product
Marketing/sales costs
Compute costs for hosting application and training models, storage
costs for company knowledge base data (AWS)
$5 per user per month → full access to automated document and
workflow creation, fast search on knowledge base, automated
resolution of nuanced product/IT questions, integration across many
SaaS applications.
Business Model Canvas — Week 0

6. Insight
Documentation is important for sharing
What we did: 25+ interviews with engineering managers/startup CEOs
Week 1 – 2

7. I would pay $500 a month for
a feed that shows everyone
the right updates from across
the company.
“
Dick Zhang
CEO @ Identified Technologies
Insight
Documentation is important for sharing
What we did: 25+ interviews with engineering managers/startup CEOs
Week 1 – 2

8. After hearing that Dick’s would pay for this,
we made an “enterprise news feed” MVP.
Week 3
MVP #1: Subscribe to topics, see news feed of relevant messages from entire team

9. We had the wrong solution
What we did: Talked to 15+ founders/engineers similar to Dick
Week 3 – 4

10. We had the wrong solution
What we did: Talked to 15+ founders/executives similar to Dick
I wouldn’t use this because I
already know what everyone
is doing on our team.
“ I don’t really see how I would
use this or how this would fit
into my existing workflow.
“
Week 3 – 4

11. Lesson Learned
Don’t let one customer design your solution
Week 3 – 4

12. MVP #2: Augmenting with engineering progress
So we looked at why Dick wanted this
and focused on bridging the sales-engineering gap.
Week 3 – 4

13. PMs control the information sharing between sales and engineering.
Much of what they do can’t be automated.
I think you misunderstand why PMs have meetings. It’s not just
to pass along information, it’s to align everyone on the current
priorities.
“
You never want salespeople directly talking with engineers –
they will misinterpret and make costly mistakes.“
No one wants direct communication
Week 3 – 4

14. Week 3 – 4
Insight
Product managers HATE project management
Managing project execution is the most boring part of my job and
keeping track of progress involves so much manual work.“ Frank Long
PM @ Schmidt Futures
What we did: Talked to 6 product managers

15. Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions Customer Relationships Customer Segments
Key Resources Channels
Cost Structure Revenue Streams
Project managers
(that focus on
execution)
PMs who do
project
management
work
Product/engineering
teams (who rely on proper
documentation) and IT
teams (who help answer
questions for employees)
Reach out to VP Product,
VP IT, or CIO → individuals
with the most insights into
how company knowledge
and processes are used
Reduce manual
work?
Make them
more efficient?
Design and develop new
features
Great onboarding
IP on core tech
Engineers, designers, etc.
TreeHacks (and other
clubs at Stanford) for
piloting an MVP of our
product
Applications that Surge
integrates with (Slack,
email clients, SaaS
platforms, etc.)
Engineers to develop and maintain product
Marketing/sales costs
Compute costs for hosting application and training models, storage
costs for company knowledge base data (AWS)
$5 per user per month → full access to automated document and
workflow creation, fast search on knowledge base, automated
resolution of nuanced product/IT questions, integration across many
SaaS applications.
Updated Business Model Canvas

16. Key Partners Key Activities Value Propositions Customer Relationships Customer Segments
Key Resources Channels
Cost Structure Revenue Streams
Project managers
(that focus on
execution)
PMs who do
project
management
work
Product/engineering
teams (who rely on proper
documentation) and IT
teams (who help answer
questions for employees)
Reach out to VP Product,
VP IT, or CIO → individuals
with the most insights into
how company knowledge
and processes are used
Reduce manual
work?
Make them
more efficient?
Design and develop new
features
Great onboarding
IP on core tech
Engineers, designers, etc.
TreeHacks (and other
clubs at Stanford) for
piloting an MVP of our
product
Applications that Surge
integrates with (Slack,
email clients, SaaS
platforms, etc.)
Engineers to develop and maintain product
Marketing/sales costs
Compute costs for hosting application and training models, storage
costs for company knowledge base data (AWS)
$5 per user per month → full access to automated document and
workflow creation, fast search on knowledge base, automated
resolution of nuanced product/IT questions, integration across many
SaaS applications.
Updated Business Model Canvas
But we still didn’t have a clear value prop!

17. Chapter 2: The Turnaround
Weeks 5 – 7

18. Week 3 – 4
Insight
Meeting project deadlines is a top priority
Across 12 interviews, 93% mentioned enabling their team
to meet deadlines as one of their top 3 priorities
Eric Ruetz
Program Manager @ Infinera
I need to deliver projects on time, and I need to deliver them with
high quality. Everything else is secondary.“

19. Week 5 – 6
Since we heard that avoiding deadline slip was so important,
we pivoted to using AI to predict project delays.
MVP #3: Overlaying forecasted delays on roadmap

20. Most delays weren’t predictable
Week 5 – 6
External Delays
Changing Requirements
Unreasonable Estimate
Engineers Blocked
External Bugs
Time Off
Overburdened Team
Bad Manager
When we push back the
timeline, it’s usually
because a vendor is
delayed.
“
Dimitry Melts
TPM @ Facebook

21. 90% use ad-hoc tools:
Insight
PMs don’t have a tool for high-level status
Week 5 – 6

22. 85%
say it goes
out of date
Insight
PMs don’t have a tool for high-level status
75%
spend time
copying data
55%
looking for
specialized tools
Week 5 – 6
90% use ad-hoc tools:

23. Week 6 – 7
We finally identified a clear market need,
so we pivoted to building a better tool for project status.

24. Value Propositions
Reduce manual
work with
automatic updates
Save time with
views that
summarize status
for stakeholders
Informed
decisions with
deep dives into
context around
features
Value Propositions
Reduce manual
work?
Make them
more efficient?
Week 7Week 4
Week 6 – 7
Nailed down the value prop

25. Found our ideal customer!
Oren Inditzky
Director of Product Management
@ Expedia
Keeping my Smartsheet up-to-date
with all the relevant context is a
huge problem and always top of
mind.
I would pay $1,000 a month for a
tool that automatically linked to
project context from my Smartsheet.
“
Week 6 – 7

26. But then sh*t hit the fan with our pilot
Week 6 – 7
I have to dedicate all my time to support my team in
this tough period and will not be able to help further.“
Oren Inditzky
Director of Product Management @ Expedia

27. Our pipeline was drying up
We had exhausted our personal networks —
how could we find another Oren? Week 6 – 7

28. Chapter 3: Sell, Sell, Sell
Weeks 7 – 10

29. Searching for a repeatable sales process
You are all engineers. I have
no doubt you can build the
product. Focus on what you’re
not good at.
“
Week 7 – 10

30. Lesson Learned
Even great products don’t sell themselves
Week 7 – 10

31. Building a scalable sales pipeline
Tested 6 different lead generation channels
Week 7 – 10

32. Building a scalable sales pipeline
Constructed process to qualify leads
Week 7 – 10
35% 80%
felt pain
points
felt pain
points

33. Building a scalable sales pipeline
A/B/C-tested sales pitch
Week 7 – 10

34. Building a scalable sales pipeline
Made landing page Week 7 – 10

35. Pipeline worked – people are interested!
5
website conversions
8
users willing to pilot
3
referrals
Week 7 – 10

36. Learning the ropes of enterprise sales
Top-down: higher willingness to pay,
quicker path to revenue
Bottom-up: quicker path to usage,
lower CAC, word-of-mouth spread
Week 7 – 10

37. Learning the ropes of enterprise sales
Top-down: higher willingness to pay,
quicker path to revenue
Bottom-up: quicker path to usage,
lower CAC, word-of-mouth spread
Heads of Product love this… but for
themselves (afraid of forcing tools
on their teams)
Week 7 – 10

38. Learning the ropes of enterprise sales
Top-down: higher willingness to pay,
quicker path to revenue
Bottom-up: quicker path to usage,
lower CAC, word-of-mouth spread
PMs love this… but need it to
provide value without their company
having to buy it (long process)
Week 7 – 10

39. Learning the ropes of enterprise sales
Top-down: higher willingness to pay,
quicker path to revenue
Bottom-up: quicker path to usage,
lower CAC, word-of-mouth spread
Get individual adoption, then upsell.
Let Heads of Product and PMs use individually,
then upsell to tie everything together. Week 7 – 10

40. Pipeline worked – people are interested!
5
website conversions
8
users willing to pilot
3
referrals
Week 7 – 10
3 pilots willing to pay!

41. What’s next?
Mihir Garimella
BS CS ‘21
Nikhil Cheerla
BS CS ‘21
Prathik Naidu
BS CS ‘21
Rohan Suri
BS CS ‘21
Exciting space — we think project
management software is ripe for change
given the explosion of SaaS tools.
But… we’re all juniors and we want to finish
school, so we won’t be pursuing this project.

42. Thanks to...
and all the other teams!