Because i sit here in an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (having a failing AC in the Texas Summer) I thought it might be fun to do a mental check of start-up life and the transition to date. Always good when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown we significantly the organization aspect is starting to feel “normal.” If that’s a possibility. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out of the “storming” phase and after this into the “normalization” phase individuals first year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology inside my common speech, confusing friends by using these terms as Sitrep, bluf and of course MFIC. I’ll permit her to enlighten everyone on the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the group helps us show we now have momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are typical aligned and the pace is collecting bigtime. Great things.
In past posts I’ve commented on product, CRE culture, investment and much more. In this post I want to target customers and the ways to tune in to them.
When 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 atlas button to the?” (DOH!). To people 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 everybody is prepared to provide you with their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small businesses make better lease decisions.
In the beginning, I felt compelled to push almost all our product and assumptions coming from a pure property perspective. I knew we could make improvements to the current tech in the industry, and we’re a commercial property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of so good stuff but you can expect a platform which is CRE based to users. The whole core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped in the property problem-solving mindset. Once we grew together together, we became less just a few these assumptions and much more and much more engaged by the feedback from the users and others in the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not really a property product, we’re a small business product. How did we discover 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 a vital and foundational purpose of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small businesses when they hear our mission, try the working platform and know very well what we’re information on. It’s quite normal for the caboodlers to spend 30 mins one review (that the collection part takes about 60 seconds FYI) as the small enterprise community is just so hungry to get heard. It is a group who is putting their livelihoods at risk, each day, to create 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 only coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release here in another couple weeks (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but just plain interviewing, listening and studying under our core customers. I’ve found that simply because your products or services is free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products have to solve real life trouble for real life people. This full release I believe encompasses that mantra. We’re going to share it soon.
Once we grow we everyone has a task to experience at Tenavox. Mine is heavily steeped in product, 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 who you are under pressure. We (and also the founders) do whatever needs doing to go the ball forward. People question the way the transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, whenever they dive right in too making use of their idea? I smile and have this: Could you handle the worries of the deadline, another sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and a lot a lot more. When you will decide go for it . and make something that matters you become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are basically worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all in the execution and the team…and the culture. A powerful culture may be the foundation for any strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
For those who have an idea, it’s just yours, you’re only to blame for cultivating the thoughts themselves. When you begin a small business (from an idea) you’re to blame for the investors, (usually your friends and families hard-earned money), you’re to blame for your people, their efforts as well as their goals, you’re to blame for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward each day…but a majority of of all you’re to blame for yourself. There is no automatic paycheck or salary to acquire up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something have passion for. I suppose that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate simply how much arrange it would be to start up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the worries is from the charts and the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you have passion for what you’re doing, if you think maybe within your mission along with your culture along with your team? Here is the best damn thing you’ll do the whole life.
No one seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups of their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and they are just starting to test them out within a live environment, time, our efforts and the market will dictate a portion individuals success. I do know this, the west will dictate the way you lead and how we communicate as people…that is certainly something I’m proud of.
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I’d never knock people that don’t desire to start their own business, it’s not even close to basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can have. Should you? Talk to your customers, listen and learn. They are going to let you know what they need to find out and improve your thinking, in most part of your products or services. There exists a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we rely on that. I know what we’re doing at Tenavox is the most rewarding professional experience with my entire life, and that’s worth equally in the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring with it each day. It’s funny, if we started out I wasn’t sure exactly how to border this points in the small company owner…Now? We know them because we live them. And a wise someone once said, “there’s no replacement for experience.”
There were an excellent team building events a week ago in Austin too! Thanks to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for more for the full release here in a month and thank you for reading my ramblings of course.
Feel free to comment below or require a run at a number of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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