Startup life…Asking the best questions

When i sit within an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (using a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I figured it may be a fun time to do a mental check of start-up life as well as the transition up to now. Always good when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown all of us significantly the business aspects is beginning to feel “normal.” If that’s a chance. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out from the “storming” phase and now in the “normalization” phase individuals 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 allow her to enlighten everybody about the definitions. In my opinion, normalizing the c’s is helping us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned as well as the pace is picking up bigtime. Great things.

In past posts I’ve commented on product, CRE culture, investment and much more. On this page I wish to target customers and the ways to listen to them.

Once we first launched beta and commenced 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 roadmap button for that?” (DOH!). To prospects with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I for just one, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed since most people are prepared to present you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small businesses make better lease decisions.

In early stages, I felt compelled to push the vast majority of our product and assumptions from a pure real estate property perspective. I knew we will enhance the present tech on the market, and we’re an industrial real estate property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of that good stuff but we offer a platform that is certainly CRE based to our users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real estate property problem-solving mindset. Once we grew together as a team, we became less and less dependent on these assumptions and much more and much more engaged through the feedback from the users and other people within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not really a real estate property product, we’re a company product. How did we find 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 system with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a vital and foundational goal of ours to collect these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small businesses when they hear our mission, try system and know very well what we’re about. It’s not uncommon for the caboodlers to shell out a half-hour on one review (that the collection part takes about A minute FYI) for the reason that small enterprise community is merely so hungry to get heard. It is a group who’s putting their livelihoods at risk, every single 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 just coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release within the subsequent couple weeks (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but merely flat out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge from our core customers. I’ve learned that even though your products costs nothing doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real life trouble for real life people. This full release I think encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.

Once we grow all of us we all have a part 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 who you are under pressure. All of us (especially the founders) do no matter what to move the ball forward. People question the way the transition from CRE to Startup in tech is going, as long as they make the leap too using idea? I smile and get this: Is it possible to handle the worries on this deadline, the subsequent sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and much considerably more. When you will decide to go for it and build something which matters you become much more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, or so I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution as well as the team…as well as the culture. A solid culture will be the foundation for the strong company.

Turning ideas into reality, together.

If you have a thought, it’s just yours, you’re only to blame for cultivating the minds themselves. Once you start a company (from a thought) you’re to blame for the investors, (usually your friends and families hard-earned money), you’re to blame for your people, their efforts and their goals, you’re to blame for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every single day…but a majority of of most you’re to blame 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 you have adoration for. I reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate simply how much work it is always to start a business, never underestimate how difficult at times could be, the worries is off of the charts as well as the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have adoration for what you’re doing, if you think in your mission plus your culture plus your team? This can be the best damn thing you’ll do your entire life.

No person seriously knows where our path will lead. Startups in their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and so are beginning to test them inside a live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate part individuals success. I do know this, the west will dictate how we lead and the way we interact as people…and that is something I’m proud of.
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I’d never knock those that don’t wish to start their very own business, it’s faraway from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. Should you choose? Speak to your customers, listen and learn. They are going to show you what they really want to view and increase your thinking, in most part of your products. We have a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we have confidence in that. I know what we’re doing at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional example of my well being, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring into it every single day. It’s funny, when we began I wasn’t sure the best way to border the pain sensation points from the private business owner…Now? We know them because we live them. As well as a wise someone once said, “there’s no alternative to experience.”

We had a great team development last week in Austin too! As a result of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!

Stay tuned for more for the full release within 2-3 weeks and many thanks for reading my ramblings keep in mind.

Feel free to comment below or require a run at many of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.

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