When i sit here in an AirBnb I rented for the month of August (using a failing AC inside the Texas Summer) I thought it may be a great time to execute a mental check of start-up life along with the transition up to now. Always advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our team significantly the company aspect is starting to feel “normal.” If that’s plausible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out of the “storming” phase and today in to the “normalization” phase individuals newbie. I now use her Westpoint terminology within my common speech, confusing friends with such terms as Sitrep, bluf and of course MFIC. I’ll permit her to enlighten everyone about the definitions. To me, normalizing they helps us show we have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are typical aligned along with the pace is picking up bigtime. Nothing but good things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on developing the site, CRE culture, investment and much more. On this page I wish to focus on customers and the way to tune in to 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 guide button for that?” (DOH!). To prospects with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I first, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact most people are ready to present you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small enterprises make better lease decisions.
In the beginning, I felt compelled to push almost all our developing the site and assumptions from your pure real-estate perspective. I knew we could make improvements to the prevailing tech in the market, and we’re an industrial real-estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of that great stuff but we offer a platform that is certainly CRE based to your users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped inside the real-estate problem-solving mindset. Once we grew together as a team, we became much less dependent upon these assumptions and much more and much more engaged through the feedback from the users and folks inside the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not just a real-estate product, we’re a company product. How did we discover 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 system with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a crucial and foundational purpose of ours to collect these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small enterprises after they hear our mission, check out system and understand what we’re about. It’s not uncommon for your caboodlers to pay 30 mins using one review (that your collection part takes about One minute FYI) since the small business community is merely so hungry to get heard. This is the group that’s putting their livelihoods at stake, every day, to produce their business grow in addition to 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 merely coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release here in the next month or so (SUPER excited to demonstrate everybody) but simply flat out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge from our core customers. I’ve found that even though your product or service is free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real world trouble for real world people. This full release I think encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.
Once we grow our team all of us have a part to learn 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 who you are under time limits. Our company (and also the founders) do no matter what to go the ball forward. People ask about what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, if and when they make the leap too making use of their idea? I smile and get this: Could you handle the stress of the deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and a lot a lot more. When you choose to take the plunge and make something matters you become far more responsible. How? Well ideas are basically worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all inside the execution along with the team…along with the culture. A powerful culture could be the foundation for any strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you have a concept, it’s just yours, you’re only in charge of cultivating the thoughts themselves. Once you begin a company (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 in addition to their goals, you’re in charge of your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every day…but a majority of of all you’re in charge of yourself. There’s no automatic paycheck or salary to acquire to get up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have desire for. I reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate the amount arrange it is usually to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult some days can be, the stress is off the charts along with the stakes couldn’t be higher. But if you have desire for what you’re doing, if you feel inside your mission and your culture and your team? This is actually the best damn thing you’ll do all of your life.
No-one seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups in their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are just starting to test them out in the live environment, time, our efforts along with the market will dictate part individuals success. I understand this, the west will dictate the way we lead and the way we interact as people…which is something I’m happy with.
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I’d personally never knock people that don’t want to start their particular business, it’s faraway from basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you undertake? Talk to your customers, listen and discover. They’re going to let you know what they really want to see and improve your thinking, in every single part of your product or service. There exists a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and we have confidence in that. I realize what we’re doing at Tenavox is among the most rewarding professional example of my entire life, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and passion we’re pouring into it every day. It’s funny, whenever we started off I wasn’t sure exactly how to border the pain sensation points from the small business owner…Now? Problems in later life them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement for experience.”
We had a great team development last weekend in Austin too! Because of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned in for your full release here in a month and appreciate your reading my ramblings of course.
Go ahead and comment below or have a run at some of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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