StartupReporter publishes a new article of the series “Startup Journey: from 0 to 1”. In this series of articles, we would like to show startuppers not only through their innovative projects but also by talking about their personality and the team.

JotURL is the all-in-one suite for your links.

Startup started working on the project with just one thing in mind – to get the most out of every link people share! 🚀. To promote your business, you usually use many acquisition sources and distribution channels (such as social media, newsletters, SMS, instant messaging, banner ads, PPC, mobile apps/ads, blog posting, PR, etc.). Each of these channels provides you with different reports (some actually do not provide them at all).

Hence tracking, comparing and understanding which sources and channels (up to individual content and products) work better in terms of generated value, becomes essential in order to avoid wasting your budget and your energy.

JotURL provides a user with the best solution to solve this problem and to get the most out of every touchpoint. All of that without installing any software or local code. Here’s more information about their features.

Some of their clients are big companies like Vodafone, Tim, Sky, Aruba, Zanichelli and as well as more than 7000 marketers.

Have a look at JotUrl’s product sheet, as well as a comparison table.

Stefano Pisoni and Janosch Lenzi, the CMO and the CEO of JotURL, answered on questions to know more information about startup, team, their vision, and launch on ProductHunt.

Oleksandr Komarevych (OK): – Hi, Stefano. On 29 June 2018, you went on ProductHunt and took the 1^st place of the day. How did it happen JotUrl went on ProductHunt?

Stefano Pisoni (SP): – It’s worth it, as long as you do not underestimate all the preparation behind the launch.

There are 5 main reasons:

1. Traffic – Launching on Product Hunt generates a large influx of visitors to your site, so be prepared.
2. Exposure – You will end up in the spotlight, you will receive lots of requests and lots of interest from other Product Hunt users.
3. Feedback – We have received a lot of interesting feedback from serial users of a digital product.
4. New users – At 10 days from the launch date, we registered 346 new members of JotURL, and this number is constantly growing.
5. The Experience – It was a fantastic experience, which I recommend to anyone who has a digital product or wants to give visibility to his start-up.

OK: – More than 550 votes brought you the 1^st place of the day. How did you prepare for it and what is the result of you winning?

Stefano: – I divided our launch experience into 3 steps: Pre-Launch/ Launch / Post Launch.

There is a full guide “How to launch on Product Hunt like a boss” by Stefano published on Medium. Where you can know more about the main lessons learned from Product Hunt Experience, advice how to launch, plan to do the best of that launch. Very useful.

OK: – What is your vision for the next 5 years in your field?

Stefano: – Provide users with a tool that allows anyone to approach the world of digital marketing without competent techniques, having at their disposal a high technological value at a low cost. This includes providing the right tools to act in advance: more automation, powerful data, real trends, and benchmarks, also based on Machine Learning technology (long-term roadmap).

OK: – Tell me more about your team as the team is vital for a startup at any stage. Who is in your team? Could you tell our readers about the uniqueness of each team member?

Stefano: Briefly, the highly skilled team of engineers, designers, developers, and marketers:

• Janosch Lenzi – CEO – Resilient, curious, dreamer.
• Massimo Poli – CTO – Ph.D. software engineer, unstoppable machine
• Stefano Pisoni – CGO – Resilient, dreamer, never satisfied.
• Andrea D’Aietti – COO – Resilient, curious, unstoppable networker
• Yari Muzzolon – CDO –  Resilient, dreamer, light-fast designer
• Federico Gaglio – Full Stack Dev, dreams to become better than his master (Massimo) some day in the future

OK: – How would you describe your team in one word?

Stefano: A-TEAM

OK: – Now, let’s go with a bit more in details about your personality. One of the questions I think is important to know about the founder, is “Why you choose to create this project and not others?” It routes us to another question about what kind of child you were? Did you have someone who influenced you?

Janosch: – In 2012 Zanichelli, a well known Italian publisher, by being one of our customers, told us they could not use bit.ly due to some limitations and asked us to develop a dedicated tool they needed. Since then, we went on thinking about the consequences of what we had developed (which was quite far from what JotUrl is nowadays).

Internet was changing very fast and the number of channels, traffic sources and touchpoints was exploding. Their usage, even more. We realized this was definitely not a temporary trend (just think for instance about the upcoming Internet Of Things).

Users and customers were not engaging with you in silos anymore. The typical interactions and sales-journey were definitely changing. How to track so many different channels & complex flows? We realized that there was just one single possible connection among all those channels and touchpoints: the Link!

Thus, we started to design and later on to develop an all-in-one tool to get the most out of every link you share!

And we have an amazing roadmap in mind for the future of links 😉

OK: – Why did you become a founder and what should anyone develop in him/herself to become a founder?

Janosch: – Why: I think humans have an internal attitude for discovery and for following a self-generated path. Some of them just don’t realize it or just don’t care about it (but it might be dangerous over time). You just need it to grow, even if it might be hard. Being a founder is the best way to fulfill this attitude.

What: Resilience + Look at failures as opportunities to grow stronger + Search for the right-minded people to build a right-minded Team, who breathe and work to reach targets and results altogether.

OK: – What is the most important lesson you received in your startup journey so far?

Janosch: – Resilience matters more than you might imagine. And failures are the best way to grow and become stronger. When things get hard, when you fail, just trust your capacity to be resilient, hold on, and things will get better. In the meanwhile, don’t stop dreaming. It keeps you alive.

OK: – What would you recommend to readers who have an idea, but haven’t figured out where to start yet? Based on your experience, what would be your advice to them?

Stefano: – Mhmm… very hard question.

I’d say, just start. Pick up an issue which has not been solved (it must not be totally new… could also be a better way to address a known issue), which represents a practical need, in other words, a real need other people have to solve an issue). And then start. Starting itself is The way. Start to try, start to fail, start to grow.

OK: – What purchase of €100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

Janosch: – A soccer goal/net for my kids. It provided me with the opportunity to spend more time with them on the sunny weekends. Time is the biggest value one can leverage. It’s definitely a priceless value. You cannot earn it again, like money.

OK: – What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

Stefano: – “4 hours work week” by Tim Ferris.

OK: – What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?

Janosch: – There’ve been a bunch of… Follow him/her… he/she is very influent, stop now and don’t keep on risking, lower your risk as much as possible, trust him… he was the best 10 years ago and has a long experience in the field, some things do never change… and so on…

OK: – If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it – metaphorically speaking, getting a message out to millions or billions – what would it say and why? It could be a few words or a paragraph.

Stefano: – This is a dangerous question…

Maybe:

– Be frugal, you don’t need any surplus, you need emotions… and to be remembered by other human beings for something good that changed their life. Money might help, but it’s a tool to provide more capacity to choose, not the final target to automatically get those things as a consequence.

OK: – What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve made? (Could be an investment of money, time, energy, etc.)

Janosch: – I’m still investing hard… will be able to answer you in a few years.

OK: – What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing you love?

Janosch: – Are you sure you want me to tell you about my sex life? Just kidding… of course. I guess I must first ask my wife… she definitely knows my absurd habits far better than me. Will ask and share her answer.

OK: – Stefano, what would you like to wish the readers?

To realize their dreams!

For more information, you can join their Facebook group “JotURL | Kings of Links“