While i sit within an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (using a failing AC from the Texas Summer) I thought it might be a great time to do a mental check of start-up life and also the transition up to now. Always advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our company significantly the business enterprise side of things is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s a chance. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re from the “storming” phase and now in the “normalization” phase of our own first year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology in my common speech, confusing friends basic terms as Sitrep, bluf as well as MFIC. I’ll allow her to enlighten all of you for the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the group helps us show we now have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned and also the pace is obtaining bigtime. Great things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on product, CRE culture, investment and more. In this post I must give attention to customers and how to hear them.
When we first launched beta and began collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from the initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a atlas button to the?” (DOH!). To those with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I first, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact so many people are happy to give you their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help smaller businesses make smarter lease decisions.
Ahead of time, I felt compelled to push most our product and assumptions from your pure real-estate perspective. I knew we’re able to strengthen the current tech in the industry, and we’re an advertisement real-estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and all sorts of so good stuff but our company offers a platform that is CRE based to users. Each of our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped from the real-estate problem-solving mindset. Even as grew together together, we became much less dependent upon these assumptions and more and more engaged by the feedback from the users and other people from the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not only a real-estate product, we’re a company product. How did look for that out?
We asked.
Our caboodling team is going 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 recover these experiences. However, I’m impressed by the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, smaller businesses whenever they hear our mission, try out the working platform and understand what we’re about. It’s not unusual for the caboodlers to spend half an hour on one review (which the collection part takes about A minute FYI) for the reason that small company community is just so hungry being heard. This can be a group that’s putting their livelihoods exactly in danger, daily, to generate their business grow as well as 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 month or so (SUPER excited to exhibit everybody) but just all out interviewing, listening and studying under our core customers. I’ve found out that even though your product or service is free 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 do believe encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.
Even as grow our company all of us have a job to experience 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 best at exposing your identiity under time limits. Our company (and especially the founders) do whatever needs doing to advance the ball forward. People inquire about what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech is going, whenever they take the plunge too with their idea? I smile and ask this: Is it possible to handle the load with this deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and a lot more. When you decide to go for it and make something that matters you become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are virtually worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all from 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 thought, it’s just yours, you’re only accountable for cultivating the ideas themselves. When you begin a company (from a thought) you’re accountable for the investors, (usually your friends and families hard-earned money), you’re accountable for your people, their efforts as well as their goals, you’re accountable for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward daily…but a majority of of all you’re accountable for yourself. There isn’t any automatic paycheck or salary to acquire up out of bed and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something have passion for. I reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate how much work it is usually to begin a business, never underestimate how difficult at times may be, the load is off the charts and also the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have passion for what you’re doing, if you think inside your mission as well as your culture as well as 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 starting to test them out in the live environment, time, our efforts and also the market will dictate part of our own success. I recognize this, the west will dictate the way you lead and exactly how we interact as people…and that is something I’m happy with.
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I’d never knock people who don’t want to start their particular business, it’s not even close to simple and easy , oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you undertake? Speak with your customers, listen and discover. They’re going to tell you what they really want to determine and increase your thinking, in every area of your product or service. You will find there’s new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we trust that. I realize what we’re doing here at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional example of my life, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring in it daily. It’s funny, once we started off I wasn’t sure just how to frame the pain sensation points from the small business operator…Now? Problems in later life them because we live them. And a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement for experience.”
There were an excellent team development a week ago in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for more for the full release within 2-3 weeks and thanks for reading my ramblings remember.
Go ahead and comment below or have a run at a number of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
Have something to say meantime? Hit me high on LinkedIn or [email protected]