When i sit here in an AirBnb I rented for your month of August (using a failing AC from the Texas Summer) I was thinking it might be a great time to do 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 organization aspects is starting to feel “normal.” If that’s plausible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re from the “storming” phase now to the “normalization” phase in our 1st year. I now use her Westpoint terminology during my common speech, confusing friends with such terms as Sitrep, bluf as well as MFIC. I’ll allow her to enlighten everyone for the definitions. To me, normalizing the team is assisting us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned as well as the pace is collecting bigtime. Perfect things.
In previous posts I’ve commented on product development, CRE culture, investment and much more. On this page I want to give attention to customers and how to pay attention to them.
Whenever we first launched beta and commenced 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 roadmap 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 because when everybody is happy to give you their assistance with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small businesses make better lease decisions.
In early stages, I felt compelled to push almost all our product development and assumptions from the pure property perspective. I knew we will make improvements to the current tech in the industry, and we’re a commercial property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and all a good stuff but we provide a platform that’s CRE based to users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped from the property problem-solving mindset. As we grew together together, we became less and less just a few these assumptions and much more and much more engaged with the feedback from my users and others from the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not only a property product, we’re a small business product. How did we find 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 platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a vital and foundational objective of ours to collect these experiences. However, I’m impressed by the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small businesses whenever they hear our mission, check out the platform and know what we’re all about. It’s not uncommon for your caboodlers to invest a half-hour using one review (that this collection part takes about One minute FYI) as the small business community is just so hungry to become heard. This is a group that is putting their livelihoods at risk, every day, to produce their business grow and their personal lives more enriched through their dreams. It’s about damn time someone sat down and followed them.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. Not only coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release here in the following couple of weeks (SUPER excited to indicate everybody) but flat out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge through our core customers. I’ve found out that just because your products is 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 believe encompasses that mantra. We will share it soon.
As we grow our company all of us have a part to learn here 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 might be best at exposing your identiity being forced. Our team (and particularly the founders) do anything to advance the ball forward. People enquire about the way the transition from CRE to Startup in tech is going, whenever they make the leap too making use of their idea? I smile and enquire of this: Are you able to handle the strain with this deadline, the following sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and far far more. When you decide to take the plunge and produce something matters you then become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are virtually worth nothing, or so I’ve learned 😉 It’s all from the execution as well as the team…as well as the culture. A strong culture could be the foundation for any strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
When you’ve got a concept, it’s just yours, you’re only to blame for cultivating the minds themselves. When you begin a small business (from a concept) you’re to blame for the investors, (usually your pals and families hard-earned money), you’re to blame for your people, their efforts and their goals, you’re to blame for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every day…but a majority of of you’re to blame for yourself. There’s no automatic paycheck or salary to help you get off the 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 arrange it is to start a business, never underestimate how difficult at times might be, the strain is off of 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 within your mission and your culture and your team? This can be 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 so are just beginning to test them out in a live environment, time, our efforts as well as the market will dictate some in our success. I do know this, the west will dictate the way you lead and the way we communicate as people…that is certainly something I’m proud of.
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I’d never knock those that don’t need to start their own business, it’s far from basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can have. If you undertake? Speak with your customers, listen and learn. They will tell you what they really want to find out and increase your thinking, in each and every area of your products. You will find a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and now we rely on that. I understand what we’re doing here at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional connection with playing, and that’s worth just from the stress, risk and fervour we’re pouring with it every day. It’s funny, if we began 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 replacement for experience.”
We’d a fantastic team development last weekend in Austin too! Due to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Stay tuned for your full release here in a couple weeks and appreciate your reading my ramblings remember.
Twenty-four hours a day comment below or please take a run at a few of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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