While i sit here in an AirBnb I rented for the month of August (with a failing AC within the Texas Summer) I was thinking it might be fun to execute a mental check of start-up life along with the transition so far. Always advantageous when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown we significantly the business enterprise side starts to feel “normal.” If that’s plausible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re from the “storming” phase and now to the “normalization” phase in our first year. Now i use her Westpoint terminology in my common speech, confusing friends basic terms as Sitrep, bluf and of course MFIC. I’ll allow her to enlighten everybody for the definitions. In my experience, normalizing the group is assisting us show we’ve momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are typical aligned along with the pace is collecting bigtime. Nothing but good things.
In the past posts I’ve commented on developing the site, CRE culture, investment and much more. In this post I wish to target customers and how to hear them.
If we first launched beta and started collecting feedback, the response was overwhelming from our initial users. “Change this,” “I don’t under this wording here,” “consider adding X,” “is there a roadmap button with the?” (DOH!). To people with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I for one, having just a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed because when so many people are prepared to present you with their help with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help smaller businesses make better lease decisions.
Early on, I felt compelled to push nearly all our developing the site and assumptions from a pure real estate property perspective. I knew we’re able to improve on the current tech on the market, and we’re an advertisement real estate property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and so good stuff but you can expect a platform that is certainly CRE based to the users. The whole core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped within the real estate property problem-solving mindset. As we grew together together, we became much less reliant on these assumptions and much more and much more engaged with the feedback from our users and people within the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not really a real estate property product, we’re a business product. How did we find 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 the working platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s an important and foundational goal of ours to gather these experiences. However, I’m impressed by the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, smaller businesses once they hear our mission, test out the working platform and determine what we’re information on. It’s not uncommon for your caboodlers to shell out thirty minutes on one review (that your collection part takes about A minute FYI) because the business community is just so hungry to get heard. This can be a group who’s putting their livelihoods on the line, each day, to create 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 only coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release here in the following few weeks (SUPER excited to demonstrate everybody) but flat out interviewing, listening and studying under our core customers. I’ve found out that just because your product or service costs nothing doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products have to solve real-world problems for real-world people. This full release I do think encompasses that mantra. We’re going to share it soon.
As we grow we we all have a job to experience only at Tenavox. Mine is heavily steeped in product, real estate 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 what you are pressurized. Our team (and also the founders) do whatever it takes to move the ball forward. People enquire about how the transition from CRE to Startup in tech will go, whenever they dive right in too using idea? I smile and enquire of this: Can you handle the stress on this deadline, the following sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and far far more. When you elect to take the plunge and build a thing that matters you then become a lot more responsible. How? Well ideas are just about worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all within the execution along with the team…along with the culture. A robust culture may be the foundation to get a strong company.
Turning ideas into reality, together.
For those who have a concept, it’s just yours, you’re only responsible for cultivating the thoughts themselves. Once you start a business (from a concept) you’re responsible for the investors, (usually your mates and families hard-earned money), you’re responsible for your people, their efforts in addition to their goals, you’re responsible for your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward each day…most coming from all you’re responsible for yourself. There is absolutely no automatic paycheck or salary to obtain up and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have love for. I suppose that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate just how much push the button is to take up a business, never underestimate how difficult at times may be, the stress is over charts along with the stakes couldn’t be higher. Though if you have love for what you’re doing, if you feel within your mission as well as your culture as well as your team? This is actually the best damn thing you’ll do the whole life.
No person seriously knows where our path may lead. Startups in their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and therefore are beginning to test them inside a live environment, time, our efforts along with the market will dictate part in our success. I do know this, the west will dictate how you lead and exactly how we come together as people…and that’s something I’m proud of.
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I’d never knock people who don’t wish to start their unique business, it’s not even close to basic and oftentimes personal considerations don’t so it can gain. If you undertake? Speak with your customers, listen and learn. They’re going to inform you what they desire to find out and boost your thinking, in every part of your product or service. You will find there’s new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” so we have confidence in that. I know what we’re doing only at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional experience with my life, and that’s worth equally from the stress, risk and keenness we’re pouring in it each day. It’s funny, whenever we started off I wasn’t sure just how to border the anguish points from the small business operator…Now? We understand them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no alternative to experience.”
There were an incredible team development a week ago in Austin too! Because of #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!
Keep tuned in for your full release here in a month and thank you for reading my ramblings as always.
You can comment below or have a run at a number of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.
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