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How to develop a service when there are tough competitors around

When it is possible and necessary to tear at the market leaders, when and how to create added value and what to do in order not to fall into despair if you are considered a budget clone of another service.


Under the cut - our thoughts conclusions. And they were born from the fact that we are constantly being compared with TimePad. At least they remind us of him when they want to scold him for something. And we live with it. We have survived to almost a million registered participants and we can tell you something about it.

Constant pressure


  • We have almost a million event registrations in 7 years!
  • How much does the taipad have?
  • 30 million ...

Such a dialogue took place recently in our office, when we monitored key performance indicators. Then came the discussion that the Taypad has existed since 2008, and we have been from 2013, that the Taypad can earn, and we are a non-profit organization , that the Taimpad team has 80 people, and we have 20. And blah blah blah.

But the numbers are inexorable. For all the time - 198,000 organizers from them versus 20,000 from us and a total of 22 million unique visits against 600 thousand - they say that we are an order of magnitude worse.

But the most annoying thing is to hear “every day you’re like the Taimpad”, “well, what makes you better than the Taimpad”, “the Taimpad is more convenient”. And you know that you are:

a) like a timepad for functions;
b) worse than Taipad, according to the results and user reviews.

Is there a chance to get out of this pit of self-abasement?


Is it a TimePad?


Leader-ID was born in 2013 by cloning Runet-ID, a ticketing system for IT events. For the sake of a quick start, our predecessors completely copied the mechanics of creating events, registering for them and accumulating points for participation. UI then also did not change based on some internal considerations. It was important for us to start accumulating a database of loyal users - participants in offline activities, and at that time there were only a couple of thousand of such users.


Find the five differences. Registration forms for events of the Runet-ID and Leader-ID system We



continue the warm-up for the mind. User registration forms Runet-ID and Leader-ID



This does not ripple in the eyes, but profiles of one user in two systems

After the “copy-paste” phase, functions such as “Personnel reserve” or “Correspondence of the event to the goals of our organization” began to appear. The system was inflated, inflated and inflated to the point where any change to the code required three weeks of re-testing so that the change did not cause system failures. And, as a rule, it attracted. Almost a year ago, we recognized that some of these features were not relevant, and disabled those that did not bring direct benefit.


Leader-ID through the eyes of the team that has been developing it since 2013

In fact, 60% of users still come to us directly on the pages of events, and we still use the system as a database of participants in our activities. But since then we have grown 4.5 times - to 954,000 users - and we are gradually shifting our focus from offline events to online services that allow users to connect, learn, work and do joint projects from wherever they are. And here a limitless field for activity opens.

Thesis 1. We did not create a product for registering for events in order to worry about comparing with the market counterpart of TimePad.

Therefore, we are not worried. In addition, we are still only in the middle of the path (if it has a middle or an end at all).


But they continue to remind us of TimePad


  • “Your registration form is very inconvenient.”
  • “And can you do one-click registration already ???”
  • « - .»
  • « 40 !!! 5 !!!»

The question is not idle, and even from time to time a quiet voice inside us sounds: “Well, can we simplify it all the same?” Minute weakness passes, but dry facts remain.

Let's follow the flow of creating an event on TimePad. To create an event, you must first create an organization. The form is hybrid - you create an account to log in and immediately start an organization. It takes about one and a half minutes to register. The key difference is that with TimePad, the organization unit can be considered the profile unit (you can log in as fifteen under one account), and with Leader-ID, a person. An organization with the same name in TimePad can be set up two times (it will have two or more addresses), a person in the Leader-ID can have several accounts (linked to different mail addresses).


Fight. Preliminary forms before going to the event creation page. On the left is TimePad (5 fields, 1 question, 2 checkmarks) vs Leader-ID (10 fields, 1 checkmark) (right). 1-0. Although not, 2: 0: TimePad has a Facebook login.

The next step is to create an event. No, wait a moment. Email must be confirmed ...


TimePad email confirmation form is a must before creating an event. 2: 1. Of course, we also ask for confirmation of the mail, but sometime later


Create an event and set time


At TimePad, the event creation form is divided into four steps. First we create an event - these are seven required fields (“Name”, “Date”, “City”, “Category”, “Organizer”, “Organizer's address”, “Contact email”) and six optional (“Short description”, “Detailed” Description ”,“ Address of the event ”,“ Poster ”(picture),“ Partners ”(name, website, logo),“ Language of the event ”). If you do not fill out all the information, it takes about five minutes.

Next, go to step 2 - “Registration form”. It can be skipped if the organizer is satisfied with the required fields for registration of participants specified by the system ("email", "Last name", "First name"). Or fill in three additional fields (text before the questionnaire, questions during registration of participants, text after registration is completed). We believe that it is enough to click "Continue" here.

Step 3. Set up a ticket program. We indicate the number and cost of tickets. We assume that the event is free for participants, and simply click “Continue” (optional settings for the ticket program here - 3 additional fields and 5 ticks). And, no, we don’t just click “Continue” - first we read the notice that we forgot to put down the price of tickets, put 0 in the “Price” field and click “Continue” again.

Step 4. Set up the publication. We set age limits and set privacy.

Everything is ready. The minimum publication time is 7-8 minutes.

No moderation - I immediately see my event and I can send a link to registration to the participants. This is a definite plus - 3: 1. Events in Leader-ID are sent for moderation before publication, moderation can take up to 24 hours if the event is held in our coworking, and up to 10 minutes if on an external site.

But there is a nuance. If you use the service to register participants for an event and are interested in attracting participants (that is, do not hold a meeting with colleagues on work through TimePad) - you will surely fill out a couple more optional fields. Offhand - descriptions (at least one of two), address (especially if you do not hold an event on Red Square, where you can simply write Red Square, and you need to indicate the house, building, possibly the number of the checkpoint for the passage), a poster (a known fact about seals and a picture to attract attention). And now you do not understand how, but fill out three more fields that together will take you another seven minutes (if you do not need to create a description of the event from scratch).

Total - 15 minutes to create a decent event card through the TimePad service. In Leader-ID, you do not need to set up a ticket program for lack of it, as well as age restrictions and privacy, so the minimum description takes 5 minutes and the full description 10 (with ready-made texts). This, of course, not counting the time for the response of the moderator.


Event creation form. 10 required fields (TimePad) versus 13 required fields (Leader-ID). Plus 3 fields that a decent organizer will fill out anyway - and get 13 versus 13. The score does not change, 3: 1


Register for the event


We come to the main thing - registration of participants. And then we are dealt a crushing blow. Indeed, in order to register for an event created using TimePad, a participant just needs to fill in three fields (“email”, “Last Name” and “First Name”) and receive a registration confirmation. And that’s all. Three fields! We smoke.

We smoke and look at the application form for participation in the event created on Leader-ID. When you click on the direct link to the event card and click on the "Participate" button, the user gets to the authorization form, from where, in the absence of an account, gets to the registration page. And then our favorite 11 required fields for creating a profile. After that, the user returns to the event page and presses "Participate". A curtain.


We will not even put a comparison screen, but simply please you with the ridiculous truth of life from the Telegram channel “Excuses for the customer”, which we ourselves read

But that’s interesting. With the functionality common (creating an event card and supporting registration for an event), the two systems have different tricks. TimePad works with the organizers, creates services for the organizers (for example, a seating service) and increases the number of events (since the main cash flow occurs through events, or rather, the sale of tickets to them). Leader-ID works with participants in events, offers services for them (networking, recommendations) and increases the possibilities of useful acquaintances between participants (which will lead to a useful action - a joint project, team building, product launch, or, at worst, to the wedding).

Well, what kind of wedding will take place if you know one post? Therefore, 11 fields.
Thesis 2. As they say in one joke, it snowed for three minutes or, as men say, all night. Time (including time spent filling out registration forms) is relative. Especially when the forms are essentially identical to each other.

The very moment when you need to "copy-paste"


At the beginning of 2019, we conducted a study about the behavioral patterns and needs of event organizers who use Leader-ID. Our main offer at that time consisted of a network of free venues for events: provided that participants register for it through Leader-ID.

We were not very surprised when we learned that 20% of the organizers duplicate information about their event and register participants also through TimePad. The main goal of the organizer is to ensure attendance at his event, and sometimes he is ready to go to any tricks to achieve this. For example, to register all participants through TimePad, “because it’s more convenient,” and then send everyone a letter that the owners of the site, such animals, force everyone to register in their system, and he, the organizer, is not guilty that this happens, please Register, I'm really looking forward to see you.

At the same time, everyone suffers: users who are forced to register twice, organizers who remember about registering at the last moment and receive angry calls from site administrators that the event will be canceled if no one is registered for it, administrators who need to predict attendance in order to secure the site all necessary - and we, because our karma is rapidly flying away minus the anger of all previous comrades.

If madness cannot be stopped, it must be led.

We decided not to work with those organizers who are forced to use Leader-ID, but with those who do it out of love. These are those who conduct events on external venues, do not depend on access to our coworking events and host events on the platform, because we have their target audience, and the registration form is not too annoying. On average, one such event per day was recorded on Leader-ID. We set a goal for the year to increase this figure four times - and we did it.


The total number of events per month, where the organizers accepted applications for participation on the Leader-ID, and held on external venues.

The organizers page helped us in this.: we listed in it free services for those who register visitors with us, and began to promote it on social networks. When creating the page, we had a dilemma: whether to make detailed descriptions of each of the services or to put together a short list of everything that we have. In other words, what does the organizer peck at - a particular service or a list of features?

We argued for a long time ... and decided to do it like TimePad. They have two pages: one about the service and one about the possibilities inside the service . Both are made on the same principle - to make the organizer understand that a lot can be done with them. We made in the image and likeness.


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To expand our circle of acquaintances, we have created a networking service . And we are especially happy when contacts are established between participants in various events. It works like this: if the organizer connects the service, its participants see information about each other, see what exactly unites them (“attended two events together”), and can exchange contacts. Because even at an event of 20 people, people either spend time getting to know each other and self-presenting, or then remember what was the name of the man in the gray suit who was sitting on the right.

The service performed well at large events, where there were more than a thousand participants, and very poorly among the organizers of small events. We started to “sell” it with cold calls and immediately came across the following answer: “Gayz, the service2meet.biz is richer in functionality: there you can in real time not only see the contacts of the event participants, but also make an appointment and even choose a “table” for which you will meet. ”

“But they don’t show the general story of two hearts,” we sighed.




The ability to quickly see at which events you have been with another user is one of the most useful networking tools.
Thesis 4. There will always be someone who has done better than you.

What useful and interesting we learned as a result


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  6. Look for those who need it.
    When the user himself comes for the service, he is interested in providing information about himself - and you spend less time on verification and rechecking. Therefore, it always makes sense to look for users who work with the service without coercion, and find out what you can do to make them more. Sometimes it’s enough just to clearly tell people what this service will give them.

Conclusions work only if you, having dipped your service in a bucket of shit, can find it there.

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