As I sit in an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (with a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I was thinking it could be a good time to execute a mental check of start-up life and also the transition so far. Advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our team significantly the company side of things is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s possible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out from the “storming” phase and now into the “normalization” phase of our 1st year. I now use her Westpoint terminology inside my common speech, confusing friends with your terms as Sitrep, bluf as well as MFIC. I’ll permit her to enlighten you all for the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the group is assisting us show we now have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are common aligned and also the pace is obtaining bigtime. All good things.
Over the posts I’ve commented on product, CRE culture, investment plus much more. In this posting I must concentrate on customers and how to hear them.
Whenever 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 guide button with the?” (DOH!). To people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I for just one, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact everybody is ready to provide you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make smarter lease decisions.
In early stages, I felt compelled to push the vast majority of our product and assumptions from a pure real-estate perspective. I knew we’re able to enhance the present tech in the industry, and we’re a commercial real-estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of so good stuff but we provide 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. Once we grew together together, we became less and less dependent upon these assumptions plus much more plus much more engaged from 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 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 goal of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small business owners once they hear our mission, test out the woking platform and determine what we’re all about. It’s not unusual for your caboodlers to spend half an hour on a single review (which the collection part takes about One minute FYI) because the business community is simply so hungry to get heard. It is a group who is putting their livelihoods exactly in danger, every single day, to make 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 simply coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release in the next month or so (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but just all out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge through our core customers. I’ve found out that even though your product is free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products must solve real world trouble for real world people. This full release I believe encompasses that mantra. We will share it soon.
Once we grow our team you have a task to play 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. All of us (and especially the founders) do anything to move the ball forward. People inquire about how the transition from CRE to Startup in tech is certainly going, if and when they make the leap too making use of their idea? I smile and get this: Are you able to handle the strain of this deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and a lot a lot more. When you choose go for it . and make something that matters you then become a great deal more responsible. How? Well ideas are basically worth nothing, or so I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution and also the team…and also the culture. A solid culture is the foundation for a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you have a thought, it’s just yours, you’re only responsible for cultivating the thoughts themselves. When you start a business (from a thought) you’re responsible for the investors, (usually friends and family and families hard-earned money), you’re responsible for your people, their efforts in addition to their goals, you’re responsible for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every single day…but many of all you’re responsible for yourself. There is absolutely no automatic paycheck or salary to help you get 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 how much arrange it is to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the strain is over charts and also the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you simply have love for what you’re doing, if you think maybe with your mission along with your culture along with your team? Here is the best damn thing you’ll do your entire life.
Nobody seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups in their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and so are beginning to test them in a live environment, time, our efforts and also the market will dictate a percentage of our success. I know this, our culture will dictate the way we lead and how we come together as people…and that is something I’m satisfied with.
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I might never knock those who don’t wish to start their very own business, it’s faraway from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can have. Should you choose? Talk to your customers, listen and discover. They’ll let you know what they desire to determine and improve your thinking, in every part of your product. You will find there’s new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we have confidence in that. I realize what we’re doing at Tenavox is regarded as the rewarding professional experience with playing, and that’s worth every bit with the stress, risk and keenness we’re pouring in it every single day. It’s funny, if we commenced I wasn’t sure precisely how to frame the pain sensation points with the private business owner…Now? We understand them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement experience.”
We’d an excellent team development last week in Austin too! As a result of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for your full release in a month and thanks for reading my ramblings as always.
Go ahead and comment below or please take a run at a number of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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