Startup life…Asking the best questions
When i sit throughout an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (which has a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I was thinking it may be a great time to do a mental check of start-up life and the transition to date. Always good when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our company significantly the organization 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. I now use her Westpoint terminology during my common speech, confusing friends with such terms as Sitrep, bluf and of course MFIC. I’ll allow her to enlighten you all for the definitions. In my opinion, normalizing they helps us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are typical aligned and the pace is collecting bigtime. Nothing but good things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on website, CRE culture, investment and more. On this page I would like to focus on customers and the way to listen to them.
Once we first launched beta and started collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from your initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a map button for your?” (DOH!). To the people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I for starters, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed by how most people are prepared to present you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help smaller businesses make better lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push almost all our website and assumptions from a pure real estate property perspective. I knew we could improve on the existing tech in the industry, and we’re a commercial real estate property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and all so good stuff but our company offers a platform that’s CRE based to the users. The whole 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 much less just a few these assumptions and more and more engaged with the feedback from your users and folks within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not just a real estate property product, we’re a small business product. How did we find 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 system with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a crucial and foundational objective of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, smaller businesses after they hear our mission, try out system and know very well what we’re exactly about. It’s not unusual for caboodlers to spend 30 mins on one review (that the collection part takes about 60 seconds FYI) because the small business community is simply so hungry to become heard. This can be a group who is putting their livelihoods exactly in danger, every day, to produce their business grow as well as 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 only coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release throughout the subsequent couple weeks (SUPER excited to show everybody) but just all out interviewing, listening and studying under our core customers. I’ve learned that because your products or services is free of charge doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products ought to solve real life problems for real life people. This full release I believe encompasses that mantra. We’re going to share it soon.
Once we grow our company you have a role to play 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 are best at exposing what you are being forced. Our company (and also 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 get this: Are you able to handle the load of the deadline, the subsequent sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and far far more. When you decide go for it . and build a thing that matters you become a great deal more responsible. How? Well ideas are pretty much worth nothing, or so I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution and the team…and the culture. A powerful culture is the foundation for any strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you have an idea, it’s just yours, you’re only accountable for cultivating the thoughts themselves. When you start a small business (from an idea) you’re accountable for the investors, (usually your mates 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 every day…most of you’re accountable for yourself. There is no automatic paycheck or salary to obtain up out of bed and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have desire for. I guess that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate the amount push the button is to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times may be, the load is from the charts and the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you have desire for what you’re doing, if you think maybe with your mission along with your culture along with your team? This is the best damn thing you’ll do your entire life.
No-one seriously knows where our path will lead. Startups of their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and are beginning to test them out in a live environment, time, our efforts and the market will dictate a percentage in our success. I recognize this, the west will dictate how you lead and how we come together as people…and that is something I’m satisfied with.
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I might never knock people who don’t wish to start their unique business, it’s far from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can have. Should you choose? Talk to your customers, listen and learn. They’re going to inform you what they need to see and boost your thinking, in every part of your products or services. We have a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and that we rely on that. I realize what we’re doing at Tenavox is the most rewarding professional connection with playing, and that’s worth every bit of the stress, risk and keenness we’re pouring into it every day. It’s funny, once we began I wasn’t sure exactly how to border this points of the small business owner…Now? We know them because we live them. Along with a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement for experience.”
We had a fantastic team building last week in Austin too! Thanks to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for full release throughout a couple weeks and thanks for reading my ramblings of course.
You can comment below or 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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