As I sit in an AirBnb I rented to the month of August (which has a failing AC in the Texas Summer) I was thinking it will be a great time to do a mental check of start-up life and also the transition to date. Always good when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our team significantly the business aspect is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s plausible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re from the “storming” phase and now in to the “normalization” phase individuals 1st year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology during my common speech, confusing friends with your terms as Sitrep, bluf not to mention MFIC. I’ll let her enlighten you all for the definitions. To me, normalizing the c’s helps us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are typical aligned and also the pace is collecting bigtime. All good things.
In past posts I’ve commented on product development, CRE culture, investment plus much more. On this page I must focus on customers and how to hear them.
Whenever we first launched beta and started collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from my initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a map button with the?” (DOH!). To prospects with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I for just one, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed since so many people are happy to provide you with their assist with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make smarter lease decisions.
Ahead of time, I felt compelled to push most our product development and assumptions from a pure real estate property perspective. I knew we’re able to enhance the prevailing tech in the market, and we’re a commercial real estate property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and all sorts of that good stuff but we offer a platform that’s CRE based to your users. The whole core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped in the real estate property problem-solving mindset. Even as grew together together, we became less and less dependent upon these assumptions plus much more plus much more engaged by the feedback from my users and other people in the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not simply a real estate property product, we’re an enterprise 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 platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s an important and foundational objective of ours to collect these experiences. However, I’m surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small business owners whenever they hear our mission, test out the platform and understand what we’re about. It’s normal for the caboodlers to spend half an hour on a single review (which the collection part takes about A minute FYI) because the small enterprise community is merely so hungry being heard. This is the group who is putting their livelihoods on the line, daily, to generate their business grow and 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 the subsequent month or so (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but simply all out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge through our core customers. I’ve learned that simply because your products or services is free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products must solve real-world problems for real-world people. This full release I think encompasses that mantra. We will share it soon.
Even as grow our team you have a task to try out 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 your identiity under time limits. All of us (and also the founders) do whatever needs doing to go the ball forward. People inquire about what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, if and when they make the leap too using their idea? I smile and have this: Are you able to handle the worries of the deadline, the subsequent sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and considerably more. When you decide go for it . and build something matters you then become a great deal more responsible. How? Well ideas are virtually worth nothing, or so I’ve learned 😉 It’s all in the execution and also the team…and also the culture. A solid culture will be the foundation for a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
If you have a concept, it’s just yours, you’re only accountable for cultivating the minds themselves. When you begin an enterprise (from a concept) you’re accountable for the investors, (usually friends and family and families hard-earned money), you’re accountable for your people, their efforts and their goals, you’re accountable for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward daily…but most of you’re accountable for yourself. There is absolutely no automatic paycheck or salary to get you off the bed and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have desire for. I assume that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate how much push the button would be to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times may be, the worries is off of the charts and also the stakes couldn’t be higher. But if you have desire for what you’re doing, if you feel inside your mission as well as your culture as well as your team? This can be the best damn thing you’ll do the whole life.
No one seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups inside their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are just beginning to test them out within a live environment, time, our efforts and also the market will dictate a percentage individuals success. I know this, our culture will dictate the way we lead and how we interact as people…and that’s something I’m satisfied with.
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I’d personally never knock those who don’t wish to start their own business, it’s faraway from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you do? Speak to your customers, listen and learn. They are going to show you what they need to find out and improve your thinking, in every area of your products or services. We have a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we have confidence in that. I am aware what we’re doing at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional experience of my well being, and that’s worth equally of the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring into it daily. It’s funny, whenever we commenced I wasn’t sure exactly how to border the anguish points of the private business owner…Now? Could them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no alternative to experience.”
We’d an incredible team building last weekend in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned in for the full release in 2-3 weeks and appreciate your reading my ramblings as always.
Feel free to comment below or require a run at a few of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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