As I sit within an AirBnb I rented for your month of August (with a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I thought it will be a fun time to execute a mental check of start-up life as well as the transition up to now. Always beneficial when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown our company significantly the business enterprise aspect starts to feel “normal.” If that’s possible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re out of your “storming” phase and after this into the “normalization” phase of our own newbie. I now use her Westpoint terminology within my common speech, confusing friends by using these terms as Sitrep, bluf as well as MFIC. I’ll let her enlighten all of you for the definitions. If you ask me, normalizing the group is assisting us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are aligned as well as the pace is collecting bigtime. Nothing but good things.
In the past posts I’ve commented on developing the site, CRE culture, investment plus more. In this post I want to focus on customers and ways to tune in 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 roadmap button for that?” (DOH!). To prospects with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s nothing new. I for starters, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed due to the fact most people are happy to give you their assist with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make smarter lease decisions.
In early stages, I felt compelled to push almost all our developing the site and assumptions from the pure real-estate perspective. I knew we’re able to make improvements to the prevailing tech on the market, and we’re an industrial real-estate product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and all sorts of that good stuff but our company offers a platform that is CRE based to our users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real-estate problem-solving mindset. As we grew together together, we became much less dependent upon these assumptions plus more plus more engaged through the feedback from your users and others within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not simply a real-estate product, we’re an enterprise product. How did 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 the platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a critical and foundational purpose of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m pleasantly surprised about the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small business owners when they hear our mission, try the platform and understand what we’re exactly about. It’s quite normal for your caboodlers to shell out a half-hour using one review (which the collection part takes about A minute FYI) as the small enterprise community is definitely so hungry to get heard. This is a group who’s putting their livelihoods at stake, every day, to generate 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 merely coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release within the following few weeks (SUPER excited to demonstrate everybody) but merely all out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge through our core customers. I’ve learned that simply because your products or services is provided for free doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products must solve real world problems for real world people. This full release I do believe encompasses that mantra. We are going to share it soon.
As we grow our company everyone has a part to experience 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 are best at exposing whom you are being forced. We (and also the founders) do whatever it takes to advance the ball forward. People enquire about what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech is certainly going, as long as they take the plunge too using idea? I smile and have this: Are you able to handle the load of the deadline, the following sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and much considerably more. When you decide to go for it and make something matters you then become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are virtually worth nothing, roughly 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.
When you have an idea, it’s just yours, you’re only in charge of cultivating the thoughts themselves. Once you begin an enterprise (from an idea) you’re in charge of the investors, (usually your mates and families hard-earned money), you’re in charge of your people, their efforts and their goals, you’re in charge of your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every day…but a majority of coming from 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 have desire for. I reckon that that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate just how much push the button is usually to begin a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the load is off the charts as well as the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you simply have desire for what you’re doing, if you believe in your mission as well as your culture as well as your team? Here is the best damn thing you’ll do your whole life.
Nobody seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups inside their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and so are beginning to test them within a live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate some of our own success. I know this, our culture will dictate the way you lead and how we come together as people…and that’s something I’m happy with.
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I would never knock people that don’t want to start their particular business, it’s definately not easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can have. Should you? Speak with your customers, listen and discover. They will let you know what they really want to view and increase your thinking, in each and every facet of your products or services. We have a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and we have confidence in that. I realize what we’re doing right here at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional experience with playing, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring in it every day. It’s funny, once we started off I wasn’t sure the best way to border the anguish points from the small business owner…Now? We know them because we live them. And a wise someone once said, “there’s no substitute for experience.”
We had an incredible team development last week in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for your full release within two to three weeks and thank you for reading my ramblings as always.
Go ahead and comment below or take a run at many of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
Have something to say meantime? Hit me on LinkedIn or [email protected]