Because i sit within an AirBnb I rented for that month of August (having a failing AC from the Texas Summer) I believed it could be a fun time to execute a mental check of start-up life and also the transition thus far. Always good when you’re sweating from sitting 🙂 Having grown all of us significantly the business enterprise aspects is starting to feel “normal.” If that’s possible. My co-founder Marissa would say we’re from the “storming” phase and after this to the “normalization” phase of our own newbie. I now use her Westpoint terminology during my common speech, confusing friends basic terms as Sitrep, bluf and naturally MFIC. I’ll let her enlighten you all for the definitions. In my experience, normalizing the group is assisting us show we’ve got momentum, synergy and our folks (and internal technology) are all aligned and also the pace is obtaining bigtime. Great things.

In the past posts I’ve commented on website, CRE culture, investment plus much more. On this page I wish to focus on customers and how 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 to the?” (DOH!). To those with tech startup experience I’m sure that’s not new. I for starters, having only a humble CRE broker’s background, was quite surprised/impressed because when so many people are willing to present you with their assist with this mission. What’s the mission again? Help small business owners make better lease decisions.

In early stages, I felt compelled to push almost all our website and assumptions from the pure property perspective. I knew we’re able to improve on the present tech in the industry, and we’re an industrial property product, right? Sure, we’re free and anonymous and many types of that great stuff but you can expect a platform that is CRE based to our users. Our core assumptions and product architecture/functions were steeped from the property problem-solving mindset. Once we grew together as a team, we became much less reliant on these assumptions plus much more plus much more engaged with the feedback from your users and others from the field. This assumption quickly changed, we’re not simply a property product, we’re a business 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 the woking platform with real, verified feedback from business decision makers. It’s a critical and foundational objective of ours to recover these experiences. However, I’m amazed at the response we’re getting from retailers, tenants, small business owners once they hear our mission, test out the woking platform and know what we’re about. It’s not unusual for your caboodlers to pay 30 mins using one review (that the collection part takes about One minute FYI) because the small enterprise community is just so hungry to become heard. This is a group who’s putting their livelihoods at stake, every day, to make their business grow and 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 just coding/testing/building/caboodling and trending hard towards our full release within the next couple of weeks (SUPER excited to exhibit everybody) but simply flat out interviewing, listening and gaining knowledge from our core customers. I’ve learned that just because your products or services is free of charge doesn’t mean it automatically drops some inherent barrier to entry. Products need to solve real life damage to real life people. This full release I do believe encompasses that mantra. We’re going to share it soon.

Once we grow all of us all of us have a task to try out 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 would be better at exposing your identiity under pressure. Our company (and especially the founders) do whatever it takes to move the ball forward. People question what sort of transition from CRE to Startup in tech goes, as long as they dive right in too with their idea? I smile and ask this: Could you handle the worries with this deadline, the next sprint, sales projections, recruiting, feedback, testing, adjustments, operations, payroll and much much more. When you will decide to go for it and create something which matters you in turn become a great deal more responsible. How? Well ideas are virtually worth nothing, roughly I’ve learned 😉 It’s all from the execution and also the team…and also the culture. A powerful culture may 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 minds themselves. When you begin a business (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 and their goals, you’re in charge of your business’s growth, and moving the vision forward every day…but most coming from all you’re in charge of yourself. There is no automatic paycheck or salary to help you get up out of bed and hitting that work-day hard, so pick something you have passion for. I assume that’s what I’ve learned most. Never underestimate just how much arrange it would be to begin a business, never underestimate how difficult some days can be, the worries is from the charts and also the stakes couldn’t be higher. However if you have passion for what you’re doing, if you think maybe in your mission plus your culture plus 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 inside their very natures are risky ventures. We’ve made educated assumptions and so are beginning to test them out in the live environment, time, our efforts and also the market will dictate some of our own success. I do know this, our culture will dictate how we lead and the way we work together as people…which is something I’m satisfied with.
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I’d never knock those that don’t desire to start their very own business, it’s far from easy and oftentimes personal considerations don’t take. Should you choose? Talk to your customers, listen and learn. They will inform you what they really want to see and improve your thinking, in every area of your products or services. There exists a new mantra now, “Built for Tenants, with Tenants,” and that we have confidence in that. I realize what we’re doing at Tenavox is easily the most rewarding professional experience with my entire life, and that’s worth just of the stress, risk and keenness we’re pouring with it every day. It’s funny, whenever we began I wasn’t sure the best way to frame the anguish points of the private business owner…Now? Could them because we live them. Plus a wise someone once said, “there’s no alternative to experience.”

There were an excellent team building last weekend in Austin too! Thanks to #escapegame #Galvanize and #Laketravis for hosting us!

Keep tuned in for your full release within a couple weeks and appreciate your reading my ramblings remember.

You can comment below or require a run at some of the other articles I’ve written chronicling my transition from broker to co-founder.

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