The beginning of every new year gives pause for both retrospective and prospective thought. The platitude “hard work pays off” rang true this past year with the favorable exit of Bantam Live, a start-up which I contributed to as an early founding member. And with the ink just dry, I’m pleased to report that I’ve lost little momentum to publicly deliver a new and exciting product, Groove, which will be unveiled to consumers in the following months. So with much on the horizon and many new developments to share, I anticipate yet another great year of continued growth for Groove in 2012. 

Here is what we can look forward to this year:

Moving Up and Moving Out

As any of the distinguished business leaders and entrepreneurs of today will surely concede, building a team, a company culture, and having an identity is essential to growing a great business. I’ve reflected on the importance of “team” in previous notes, and I sustain that the success of Groove has not merely been the result of determination and leadership, but of shared vision, great execution and elevated collaboration as well. I feel that I’ve done well to create this synergy, and have done so by working with a great agency partner to deliver my vision for Groove. That said, I am proud to report that Groove has already begun to build it’s own team, and that in coming months we will be gradually downscaling our commitment with said agency and creating an internal culture of our own. 

New Capital Injection

This Spring, Groove will be released to the public with pricing and an estimated 500 paying customers. To supplement this newly founded revenue stream we’ve closed an additional 1mm of financing to accelerate the aforementioned team build out. Of the great many VC’s and Angels who’ve contacted me in recent months I couldn’t be happier with the investors that Groove will be working with throughout this next growth period.

Pricing Launch

When it comes to pricing, I believe strongly in real value, and honest value-based price-tiering. We will be revealing our pricing structure this Spring, coinciding with our public release. Pricing will be competitive with Zendesk and Assistly.

Product Maturation

How can I even begin to say it all? We’ve got an overflowing list of amazing enhancements in our pipeline for 2012. With new integration, feature and UX items already in queue, and new ones being spec’d weekly, I’m thrilled to report that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Here’s a snapshot of what’s to come in the near future: a beautifully designed native Mac app, the addition of visualized analytics to our already elevated real-time chat support, and all variety of back-end automation features for ticketing, including but not limited to, Groups, Rules, Macros, Custom Filters, Custom Fields, Forums and Facebook integration.

Support, Support, Support

Offering superior customer support is our touchstone at Groove. With new companies choosing Groove every day, our customer support volume continues to grow. Look out for an increasingly robust Knowledge Base (self help library) to partner with our already effective, and highly user-friendly chat and ticketing support features.  

Design

It’s no secret that I appreciate beautiful design. We’ve received many flattering compliments on the design of the Groove public-facing site (www.groovehq.com), and I’m absolutely appreciative of all the kind words. However, as our product evolves so must our public-facing communications! Many surprises yet to come per the visual design overhaul of www.groovehq.com. Stay tuned. 

Profit Forecast

Until a product can be shopped in the open market - until its truly in the wild, its difficult to exact what the bottom line will look like. The day your product is priced and launched is surely a highly stressful moment, and one that most all product authors anticipate with some degree of relative uncertainty. That said, for those who come prepared it is also a moment that is exciting, and one you welcome. So while I don’t yet have the answers to many of these critical line items such as cost of user acquisition, Free Trial allotment, marketing buys or the like, this next problem set is one that I’m truly looking forward to addressing.

                                                                 • • • 

2011 was a great year. I couldn’t be more elated to share the upcoming milestones for 2012. From glowing reviews in TheNextWeb (TNW), surging Sign Up interest, an ever exuberant user base and a whole mess of VC and Angel solicitation, I’m delighted and humbled to share all that Groove has accomplished in 2011 and what new and exciting developments are in store for 2012.  I look forward to introducing the new Groove internal team in the months to come. 

Thank you for your continued support and interest. 

Sincerely,

Alex Turnbull