Because i sit here in an AirBnb I rented to the month of August (having a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I believed it might be a fun time to do a mental check of start-up life as well as the transition so far. Always beneficial when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown we significantly the business aspects is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s possible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out from the “storming” phase now in the “normalization” phase in our newbie. Now i use her Westpoint terminology within my common speech, confusing friends with such terms as Sitrep, bluf not to mention MFIC. I’ll permit her to enlighten everybody around the definitions. In my opinion, normalizing the c’s is assisting us show we’ve momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned as well as the pace is obtaining bigtime. Nothing but good things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on developing the site, CRE culture, investment and more. On this page I must target customers and the ways to listen to them.
If we first launched beta and started 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 map button with the?” (DOH!). To the people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I first, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed because when so many people are prepared to offer you their help with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small businesses make smarter lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push most our developing the site and assumptions from the pure real estate perspective. I knew we might improve on the existing tech in the marketplace, and we’re an advert real estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of so good stuff but you can expect a platform that’s CRE based to our users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real estate problem-solving mindset. Even as grew together together, we became much less dependent on these assumptions and more and more engaged by the feedback from our users and others within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not really a real estate product, we’re a company product. How did we discover that out?
We asked.
Our caboodling team is otherwise engaged 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 a vital and foundational purpose of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small businesses when they hear our mission, try the platform and know what we’re exactly about. It’s quite normal for your caboodlers to pay a half-hour on a single review (that your collection part takes about 60 seconds FYI) since the small company community is simply so hungry to become heard. This is a group who’s putting their livelihoods at stake, daily, to produce their business grow in addition to their personal lives more enriched through their dreams. It’s about damn time someone sat down and paid attention to them.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Not simply coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release here in another couple of weeks (SUPER excited to exhibit everybody) but just all out interviewing, listening and learning from our core customers. I’ve found that because your product is provided for free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real-world difficulties for real-world people. This full release I do think encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.
Even as grow we all of us have a part to play right 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 would be better at exposing your identiity under pressure. All of us (and particularly the founders) do whatever it takes to advance the ball forward. People enquire about how a transition from CRE to Startup in tech is certainly going, should they take the plunge too using idea? I smile and enquire of this: Could you handle the stress on this deadline, another sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and much far more. When you will decide go for it . and build something that matters you in turn become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are basically worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution as well as the team…as well as the culture. A solid culture may be the foundation to get a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you have a perception, it’s just yours, you’re only in charge of cultivating the minds themselves. When you begin a company (from a perception) 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 daily…most of all you’re in charge of 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 reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate how much arrange it is always to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the stress is over charts as well as the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you simply have adoration for what you’re doing, if you think maybe within your mission and your culture and your team? This can be the best damn thing you’ll do your entire life.
No one seriously knows where our path will lead. Startups inside their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are just starting to test them in a live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate a percentage in our success. I do know this, the west will dictate how we lead and just how we come together as people…and that’s something I’m satisfied with.
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I’d never knock those who don’t desire to start their own business, it’s far from simple and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. Should you? Speak with your customers, listen and discover. They are going to show you what they desire to find out and increase your thinking, in most facet of your product. There exists a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” so we trust that. I know what we’re doing right here at Tenavox is regarded as the rewarding professional experience with playing, and that’s worth equally from 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 pain points from the private business owner…Now? We know them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement for experience.”
We had an excellent team building events last weekend in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for your full release here in a month and many thanks for reading my ramblings keep in mind.
You can comment below or require a run at some of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
Have something to express meantime? Hit me through to LinkedIn or [email protected]