What would you do differently if you had to startup again in your professional journey?
Ankur Singh
17 replies
Replies
Kate Kovbii@kate_kovbii
Launching soon!
Oh, I love your question! ❤️ Having a wild career - starting as a small-town local TV journalist and switching to HR Management, Brand management, and finally, Marketing - I won't change a thing. All my mistakes and lessons learned helped me become who I am now. And that's awesome, to be honest 😌
Share
Start selling before building. As engineers, we always have a bias towards building the product first and then shipping it but communication and marketing should start way upfront.
@mehdi_rifai Good point Mehdi. I am on my second startup. For the services business - my first one, our credibility with known people got us our first client. There we had innovative process and maybe a toolset. All we had to do was show them the toolset (more like a quick MVP) and we got our job. And the need was there and they had the budget.
On the second one, which is a product, we did a lot of 'selling' by doing user groups. But most of those were face to face. And all wanted to buy. But when we did our MVP, it was being sold online as a SAAS model. Selling without having face to face, even using videos for B2C turned out to be much difficult, as the personal connection was not there yet.
SO, from my experience, which you might not relate to, the small bit of upfront sales or marketing can give you the push ahead but selling after the product is built will still have its own challenges.
Just thought of sharing my experience. Thanks
@mehdi_rifai Cannot be more true, as engineers, there is always a way to make things better, can be a infinite loop for a startup.
Probably do the 3-month coding boot camp! I would still stay in my lane with marketing and business development I do not wish to be an engineer, but working in tech is more challenging as a non-technical individual, even to have business discussions
Oh, nice question.
As a non technical Saas related profesional, surely I would start trying to learn coding at school years!
I just came into the software, tech world around 27 years old....
actually, I'm a first time CEO/founder and it couldn't be better (as for now)
i work with an amazing team of experts, who's eager to do both - create an amazing product and actually help the web3 community
but if to say something - i wish we spent a bit more time on research and custdev
Probably learn coding haha.
So I wouldn't have to rely on my technical co-founders to build evoke-app.com
I started my first company in 2010. It is still going strong and we have increased our revenues at the rate of 30% the past 2 years. Lesson learnt there was
1. that it takes a while to grow when you are the only investor in your company.
2. Advisors told us that raising money from investors will be a challenge for a service based business. I paid too much attention to this. Now I know that if the business is profitable and run well, investors want to be a part of it.
3. Need to pay a bit more attention to the market. We entered a commodity space with innovative ideas. It was an uphill battle to gain credibility at first.
Career Unleashed which I am here to launch is my second business. Very different than first. Product company, and target is B2C at first and then maybe B2B.
Challenges are new. Lesson learnt so far - B2C marketing costs a lot. But also that we should keep trying new ideas everyday. We have seen uptake and signups for different campaigns.
Back in the days when i started my first venture, i made 1 big mistakes:
- Taking on all the production my self when i should have delegate a big chunk of it and focus more on the sales side where i was better
Great question!
I'd begin with having the right tools to organize myself. I believe, lack of organized calendar and mind - leads to chaotic approach to the Goals.
Also, a big one is this time I'd be seasoned to take the wrath of bootstrapping and the tedious process of getting funded.
Maybe the biggest lesson I have learned from my current startup is to accept that you cannot be good at everything.
So you must let people who are better at specific things take a lead, the ability to delegate seems to be flailing in the hustle culture of do it all.
Always always start selling before building. Even a good idea, built right, is worthless if you don’t have the right network and abilities to sell.