Last October we ran a story on MyGuestList as a service. Recently we were able to catch up with one of the co-founders, Damian Janeski (the other co-founder is Andy Marcus), for a more personal interview about his startup.

What are MyGuestList.com.au co-founders doing on their spare cycles?

MyGuestList engrosses the two of us on a full time basis now. It started off in the spare rooms in our houses, moved to a small office, and now moved to a larger office as we prepare for our first round of financing.

In our spare “social” time, we don’t mind a drink or 7 and talking a whole lot of baloney about MyGuestList innovation, other web services, tech and nightlife news.

Any secret events you would like the world to know about that only MyGuestList knows about?

Haha. We are aiming to take over the world. One guestlist at a time!

Haha. We are aiming to take over the world. One guestlist at a time!”

How did the MyGuestList.com.au idea start?

Andy and I met at uni where we both undertook internships under the computer science/software engineering degrees. We also both had club/bar management experience. Combining the two, we discovered a need for a technology solution to rectify the many tedious and laborious processes within the nightlife industry. And so, MyGuestList was born.

The idea came after realising that venues paying a staff member with a clipboard to ask for patron’ details was both innefective and outdated. So we created a completely new and innovative business scenario to automate guestlists online, allow venues to share content (SMS,emails, YouTube videos etc), have interactive web galleries with sharing/commenting abilities and much more.

The MyGuestList project was in development for approximately 18 months. Late nights, red eyes and take-away food were on the agenda most nights. Not to mention the fact that many of our family & friends forgot what we looked like during the whole ordeal.

(Boy did they get a shock of the aftermath visuals!)

How long has MyGuestList.com.au been around?

Development took about 18 months.

Became Public Beta about 2-3 months ago. Team started off as 5 members and is now growing.

What is MyGuestList.com.au in one sentence?

MyGuestList is an online tool that helps venues and promoters manage guestlists, database & marketing.

Describe the typical MyGuestList.com.au’s user?

Currently, nightclubs, bars, pubs, promoters, function venues are all utilising the system. The beauty about it all, is that the system undergoes a complete customisation to work in exactly the way the user requires it to for their operations.

We recognised right from the very beginning, that although we have a solid and much needed system, a restaurant, a nightclub, a sailing club and a golf club do not operate in exactly the same way.

Which is why we offer a very niche designed product. One that is aimed at the nightlife industry, and is customisable to every individual’s needs.

Which is why we offer a very niche designed product. One that is aimed at the nightlife industry, and is customisable to every individual’s needs.”

What did you use to build MyGuestList.com.au built on? Are any of the MyGuestList.com.au co-founders coders?

MyGuestList is written completely from scratch and has been built with php & ajax using in house frameworks, mysql for database and apache httpd web server.

Who are the other companies MyGuestList.com.au’s space? Would you consider this a vertical market?

Some of our competitors like to see the act of data management and marketing as a horizontal “one-size-fits-all” game. There is nothing that I could disagree with more.

MyGuestList was created as a niche product for the nightlife industry. It is because of this that we can strengthen and innovate the system with time, listen to feedback accurately, and provide the features and content that our users in this specific industry require.

Had we endeavoured for MyGuestList to also accomodate another industry, we would have quickly realised the vast differences and needs in the day to day operations of the businesses.

It is due to this, that we are able to grow and create an ongoing innovative environment which updates and reflects upon new emergences within social media and social interaction.

What is entrepreneurship for you?

And there it is. The magic question. Maybe this question is best answered by saying what I think ISN’T entrepreneurship.

* Having an idea and doing nothing about it

Everybody has ideas, do something about it. develop a prototype, speak to target customers before you begin development and ask them whether they would like to use what you are proposing.Ask them what they would like to see in it? What are their painpoints?

* Not telling people about your idea

Confidentiality agreements, fear of idea theft and any general stealth attitude towards your idea are completely useless.”

Confidentiality agreements, fear of idea theft and any general stealth attitude towards your idea are completely useless. The more you can chat to people, especially target users of your idea, the more you will be able to shape and mold it to the liking of these users. This will also save you spending months of development time implementing features which only you think are useful, but not those which your users want. In any case, investors will always want to see a proof of concept prior to even thinking about involvement in your business.

* Not giving 3000% to it.

Yes, we’ve all heard it before haven’t we. Hard work, no pay, crazyness, little sleep. They are all ingredients of the entrepreneurship recipe. You must have these. If not, have a think about whether you truly believe in your idea.

* Dwelling on creating a business plan, or aiming to seek investment.

I have seen ideas and set up businesses been destroyed by this waiting game. There is no need to waste days, weeks and months on this while that time could be spent speaking to customers/users and developing the features they want and need.

Here is a formula that many well known online and offline brands have gone through:

- Identify a need
- Think of a solution to satisfy the problem.
- Talk to users to see if this solution is something they favour
- Implement
- Keep talking to users to add more functionality in there
- Build user base
- Investors begin to get interested due to proof of concept and only now does the business plan become important.

Anything that you would like MyGuestList.com.au to do all over again?

Something I mentioned earlier actually. It would have been good if in the initial development phase, we implemented features that were desirable by our users in the industry and not just ones which we thought would be needed. This would have saved us a bit of time and we would have been able to release certain features earlier.

Any encouragement for would-be Aussie startuppers? Why is Australia an awesome place for a startup?

Australia serves as a great place to unleash your ideas out in the wild. It is ridiculously easy to create a bootstrapped business, develop it, test it and expose it. Creative viral and guerrilla marketing techniques are excellent to get you started in the beginning.

Australia serves as a great place to unleash your ideas out in the wild. It is ridiculously easy to create a bootstrapped business, develop it, test it and expose it.”

I encourage anyone that has vibrant passion and a mere idea, to stop delaying and making excuses to themselves, and begin speaking to their target audience today to flesh out the full requirements of their system. Once you have that and have proved that a large number of your target audience will in actual fact use such a tool, there is nothing else to do but leave that unfinished business plan and get started on development.

posted by Paul “The Pageman” Pajo