As I sit throughout an AirBnb I rented for the month of August (having a failing AC in the Texas Summer) I believed it might be a great time to do a mental check of start-up life as well as the transition so far. Always beneficial when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown we significantly the business side of things starts to feel “normal.” If that’s a possibility. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out from the “storming” phase and now to the “normalization” phase of our own 1st year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology in my common speech, confusing friends by using these terms as Sitrep, bluf and of course MFIC. I’ll let her enlighten everybody for the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the team is helping us show we have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned as well as the pace is picking up bigtime. Great things.
In the past posts I’ve commented on website, CRE culture, investment and more. On this page I want to give attention to customers and how to pay attention to them.
Once we first launched beta and started 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 guide button with the?” (DOH!). To people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I for one, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed by how everybody is prepared to give you their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small businesses make smarter lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push almost all our website and assumptions coming from a pure real-estate perspective. I knew we’re able to enhance the existing tech in the industry, and we’re an advert real-estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and that great stuff but we provide a platform that is certainly CRE based to our users. Each of our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped in the real-estate problem-solving mindset. Even as we grew together as a team, we became less reliant on these assumptions and more and more engaged with the feedback from my users and people in the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not only a real-estate product, we’re an enterprise product. How did we discover 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 an important and foundational goal of ours to get these experiences. However, I’m pleasantly surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small businesses after they hear our mission, check out system and determine what we’re exactly about. It’s not unusual for the caboodlers to shell out half an hour on one review (which the collection part takes about 60 seconds FYI) as the business community is definitely so hungry to become heard. This is a group who’s putting their livelihoods on the line, every single day, to produce their business grow along with 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 merely coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release throughout the next few weeks (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but plain interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge through our core customers. I’ve found 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 world problems for real world people. This full release I do believe encompasses that mantra. We’ll share it soon.
Even as we grow we all of us have a role to play right 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 better at exposing whom you are under time limits. Our company (and also the founders) do no matter what to advance the ball forward. People question how a transition from CRE to Startup in tech is certainly going, as long as they dive right in too with their idea? I smile and get this: Can you handle the strain of the deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and a lot far more. When you choose go for it . and create a thing that matters you feel far more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all in the execution as well as the team…as well as the culture. A strong culture will be the foundation for the strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you’ve got a concept, it’s just yours, you’re only in charge of cultivating the minds themselves. When you begin an enterprise (from a concept) you’re in charge of the investors, (usually your mates and families hard-earned money), you’re in charge of your people, their efforts along with their goals, you’re in charge of your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every single day…but many of you’re in charge of yourself. There is absolutely no automatic paycheck or salary to get you to get up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something have love for. I reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate how much arrange it is usually to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times can be, the strain is over charts as well as the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have love for what you’re doing, if you feel within your mission and your culture and your team? This is the best damn thing you’ll do your whole life.
No one seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups within their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and are beginning to test them in the live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate a portion of our own success. I know this, our culture will dictate the way we lead and how we interact as people…and that is something I’m satisfied with.
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I might never knock people that don’t wish to start their particular business, it’s definately not basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t allow it. Should you choose? Speak with your customers, listen and discover. They’re going to tell you what they desire to see and increase your thinking, in every area of your products or services. You will find there’s new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we believe in that. I am aware what we’re doing right here at Tenavox is the most rewarding professional connection with my well being, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and keenness we’re pouring in it every single day. It’s funny, when we started out I wasn’t sure exactly how to border the pain points from the small business owner…Now? Problems in later life them because we live them. Along with a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement experience.”
There was a fantastic team building a week ago in Austin too! As a result of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Keep tuned in for the full release throughout two to three weeks and many thanks for reading my ramblings as always.
Go ahead and comment below or please take a run at many of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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