As I sit within an AirBnb I rented for the month of August (using a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I figured it could be fun to do a mental check of start-up life and the transition up to now. Always advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our team significantly the organization side starts to feel “normal.” If that’s plausible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out of your “storming” phase and after this in the “normalization” phase individuals first year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology in my common speech, confusing friends with such terms as Sitrep, bluf as well as MFIC. I’ll allow her to enlighten everyone for the definitions. In my experience, normalizing the team is assisting us show we now have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned and the pace is buying bigtime. All good things.
In past posts I’ve commented on website, CRE culture, investment plus more. In this article I must give attention to customers and how to tune in to them.
Once we first launched beta and commenced 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 roadmap button for your?” (DOH!). To those with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I for one, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact many people are ready to give you their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make better lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push the vast majority of our website and assumptions coming from a pure real estate perspective. I knew we’re able to improve on the current tech on the market, and we’re an advertisement real estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and that good stuff but we provide a platform that’s CRE based to your users. The whole core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real estate problem-solving mindset. Once we grew together as a team, we became much less just a few these assumptions plus more plus more engaged from the feedback from my users and other people within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not just a real estate product, we’re a company product. How did we discover 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 working platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s an important and foundational objective of ours to get 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 working platform and know what we’re exactly about. It’s not uncommon for caboodlers to shell out thirty minutes using one review (that your collection part takes about One minute FYI) for the reason that small enterprise community is simply so hungry to get heard. It is a group that’s putting their livelihoods on the line, each day, to produce their business grow and their personal lives more enriched through their dreams. It’s about damn time someone sat down and heard them.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Not simply coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release within the next couple weeks (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but merely plain interviewing, listening and studying under our core customers. I’ve discovered that just because your products is free of charge doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products have to solve real world problems for real world people. This full release I believe encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.
Once we grow our team everyone has a role to try out 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 whom you are being forced. Our company (and particularly the founders) do no matter what to go the ball forward. People enquire about what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, if and when they take the plunge too with their idea? I smile and ask this: Can you handle the load of the deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and much much more. When you choose to take the plunge and produce a thing that matters you then become much more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, approximately I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution and the team…and the culture. A robust culture may be the foundation for a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
For those who have a thought, it’s just yours, you’re only responsible for cultivating the minds themselves. Once you start a company (from a thought) you’re responsible for the investors, (usually your friends and families hard-earned money), you’re responsible for your people, their efforts and their goals, you’re responsible for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward each day…but many of you’re responsible for yourself. There’s no automatic paycheck or salary to obtain up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have love for. I guess that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate just how much work it is usually to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times could be, the load is from the charts and the stakes couldn’t be higher. But if you have love for what you’re doing, if you think inside your mission and your culture and your team? This can be the best damn thing you’ll do all of your life.
No one seriously knows where our path will lead. Startups inside their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and so are just beginning to test them in the live environment, time, our efforts and the market will dictate a portion individuals success. I know this, the west will dictate the way we lead and just how we work together as people…and that’s something I’m satisfied with.
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I’d personally never knock people who don’t want to start their own business, it’s definately not simple and easy , oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you undertake? Speak with your customers, listen and discover. They are going to show you what they really want to view and increase your thinking, in every facet of your products. You will find a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and we believe in that. I realize what we’re doing at Tenavox is the most rewarding professional experience of playing, and that’s worth just with the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring involved with it each day. It’s funny, when we started off I wasn’t sure just how to border this points with the private business owner…Now? Could them because we live them. And a wise someone once said, “there’s no substitute for experience.”
We’d a great team building last week in Austin too! Because of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for more for full release within 2-3 weeks and appreciate your reading my ramblings as always.
Go ahead and comment below or require a run at a number of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
Have something to state meantime? Struck me on LinkedIn or [email protected]