While i sit in an AirBnb I rented to the month of August (having a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I figured it may be a great time to execute a mental check of start-up life as well as the transition up to now. Advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our company significantly the organization side is starting to feel “normal.” If that’s a chance. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out from the “storming” phase and after this into the “normalization” phase of our own first year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology within my common speech, confusing friends by using these terms as Sitrep, bluf and naturally MFIC. I’ll permit her to enlighten all of you around the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the c’s helps us show we’ve momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned as well as the pace is obtaining bigtime. All good things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on product, CRE culture, investment and more. In this article I want to focus on customers and the way to tune in to them.
Once we first launched beta and began collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from your initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a guide button for your?” (DOH!). To the people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I first, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact so many people are happy to provide you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help smaller businesses make better lease decisions.
Ahead of time, I felt compelled to push nearly all our product and assumptions coming from a pure real estate property perspective. I knew we’re able to enhance the current tech in the marketplace, and we’re an advertisement real estate property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and a good stuff but we provide a platform that is certainly CRE based to your users. Each of our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real estate property problem-solving mindset. As we grew together as a team, we became much less dependent upon these assumptions and more and more engaged from the feedback from your users and other people within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not simply a real estate property product, we’re a business product. How did we find that out?
We asked.
Our caboodling team has gone out daily hand-collecting reviews in Houston and I’m humbled by their efforts. They’re helping us seed the working platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a crucial and foundational objective of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, smaller businesses whenever they hear our mission, try out the working platform and understand what we’re exactly about. It’s not unusual for our caboodlers to spend 30 mins using one review (that the collection part takes about A minute FYI) as the small business community is simply so hungry to get heard. This is a group that’s putting their livelihoods on the line, every day, to create their business grow in addition to their personal lives more enriched through their dreams. It’s about damn time someone sat down and listened to them.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Not merely coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release in another couple of weeks (SUPER excited to show everybody) but all out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge from our core customers. I’ve discovered that because your products costs nothing doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real world trouble for real world people. This full release I think encompasses that mantra. We will share it soon.
As we grow our company we all have a job to learn only at Tenavox. Mine is heavily steeped in product, real estate property and methodology. That doesn’t mean we don’t wear fifty other hats too, from fundraising (which never stops haha) to data science, startups would be better at exposing what you are being forced. Our team (and also the founders) do no matter what to move the ball forward. People inquire about how a transition from CRE to Startup in tech goes, should they make the leap too making use of their idea? I smile and enquire of this: Is it possible to handle the strain on this deadline, another sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and far a lot more. When you choose to take the plunge and produce something matters you become a great deal more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, approximately I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution as well as the team…as well as the culture. A solid culture could be the foundation for the strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
For those who have a thought, it’s just yours, you’re only in charge of cultivating the minds themselves. When you start a business (from a thought) you’re in charge of the investors, (usually your friends and families hard-earned money), you’re in charge of your people, their efforts in addition to their goals, you’re in charge of your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every day…most of most you’re in charge of yourself. There is no automatic paycheck or salary to get you up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have passion for. I suppose that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate how much work it is always to start a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the strain is from the charts as well as the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have passion for what you’re doing, if you believe within your mission as well as your culture as well as your team? This can be the best damn thing you’ll do your entire life.
No person seriously knows where our path will lead. Startups in their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are beginning to test them out within a live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate some of our own success. I understand this, our culture will dictate the way you lead and the way we interact as people…which is something I’m happy with.
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I’d personally never knock people who don’t need to start their particular business, it’s far from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you do? Confer with your customers, listen and learn. They’ll show you what they desire to determine and increase your thinking, in every single part of your products. You will find a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and that we have confidence in that. I am aware what we’re doing only at Tenavox is the most rewarding professional example of my well being, and that’s worth every bit of the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring in it every day. It’s funny, whenever we commenced I wasn’t sure precisely how to frame the pain points of the small business owner…Now? Could them because we live them. Along with a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement experience.”
There were a great team development last week in Austin too! Because of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned in for our full release in 2-3 weeks and thanks for reading my ramblings as always.
Feel free to comment below or take a run at many of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
Have something to express meantime? Hit me up on LinkedIn or [email protected]
