While i sit in an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (using a failing AC in the Texas Summer) I figured it could be a great time to execute a mental check of start-up life along with the transition so far. Advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our company significantly the company aspects is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s a possibility. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out of your “storming” phase now to the “normalization” phase of our own 1st year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology inside my common speech, confusing friends by using these terms as Sitrep, bluf not to mention MFIC. I’ll let her enlighten all of you for the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the c’s is helping us show we now have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned along with the pace is obtaining bigtime. All good things.
In past posts I’ve commented on website, CRE culture, investment and more. In this article I must target customers and the ways to listen to them.
When we first launched beta and commenced collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from our initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a atlas button for that?” (DOH!). To the people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I first, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed by how many people are happy to offer you their help with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make better lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push almost all our website and assumptions coming from a pure real estate perspective. I knew we could improve on the current tech on the market, and we’re an advertisement real estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of so good stuff but we provide a platform which is CRE based to the users. The whole core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped in the real estate problem-solving mindset. Even as we grew together together, we became less dependent on these assumptions and more and more engaged through the feedback from our users and others in the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not really a real estate product, we’re a small business product. How did we find that out?
We asked.
Our caboodling team is out daily hand-collecting reviews in Houston and I’m humbled by their efforts. They’re helping us seed the woking platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a crucial and foundational purpose of ours to gather these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small business owners once they hear our mission, check out the woking platform and know what we’re exactly about. It’s not uncommon for the caboodlers to shell out a half-hour on one review (that this collection part takes about 60 seconds FYI) because the small business community is merely so hungry to be heard. It is a group who is putting their livelihoods at stake, every single day, to create their business grow along with their personal lives more enriched through their dreams. It’s about damn time someone sat down and followed them.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Not merely coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release in the following couple weeks (SUPER excited to demonstrate everybody) but all out interviewing, listening and learning from our core customers. I’ve discovered that because your products or services costs nothing doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real world damage to real world people. This full release I think encompasses that mantra. We will share it soon.
Even as we grow our company everyone has a job to learn here at Tenavox. Mine is heavily steeped in product, real estate and methodology. That doesn’t mean we don’t wear fifty other hats too, from fundraising (which never stops haha) to data science, startups might be best at exposing what you are pressurized. Our company (especially the founders) do no matter what to advance the ball forward. People enquire about how the transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, whenever they take the plunge too with their idea? I smile and have this: Could you handle the strain of this deadline, the following sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and far far more. When you elect go for it . and make something which matters you become much more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, approximately I’ve learned 😉 It’s all in the execution along with the team…along with the culture. A strong culture may be the foundation for a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
If you have an idea, it’s just yours, you’re only accountable for cultivating the minds themselves. When you start a small business (from an idea) you’re accountable for the investors, (usually your pals and families hard-earned money), you’re accountable for your people, their efforts along with their goals, you’re accountable for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every single day…most of you’re accountable for yourself. There is absolutely no automatic paycheck or salary to obtain up out of bed and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have adoration for. I assume that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate simply how much arrange it would be to take up a business, never underestimate how difficult some days may be, the strain is over charts along with the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have adoration for what you’re doing, if you think with your mission as well as your culture as well as your team? This is actually the best damn thing you’ll do the whole life.
Nobody seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups of their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are just beginning to test them in a live environment, time, our efforts along with the market will dictate a percentage of our own success. I know this, the west will dictate the way we lead and just how we interact as people…which is something I’m satisfied with.
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I’d personally never knock people that don’t desire to start their unique business, it’s not even close to basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t allow it. Should you? Speak to your customers, listen and learn. They will let you know what they desire to find out and increase your thinking, in most area of your products or services. We have a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” so we have confidence in that. I know what we’re doing here at Tenavox is regarded as the rewarding professional example of my life, and that’s worth every bit in the stress, risk and passion we’re pouring with it every single day. It’s funny, when we started out I wasn’t sure just how to frame the pain points in the small business owner…Now? Problems in later life them because we live them. And a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement experience.”
There were a fantastic team building events a week ago in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Keep tuned in for the full release in 2-3 weeks and thanks for reading my ramblings as always.
Go ahead and comment below or require a run at many of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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