The Startup World is a Great University
And here’s an excerpt of my graduation “syllabus”.
We all know how it works: we have an idea for a revolutionary new app, and what’s the next step? Start coding! Well, that might work for the MVP you build in a few weeks, but is it the way to go if you’re serious about building a sustainable company?
I’ve ventured into the startup world more than once. It’s been a true learning path, and the most recent one became a well-established B2B SaaS company in Brazil. Learning is the keyword here. Every step of the way is comprised of mistakes and lessons. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes you feel dumb, but once you realize how much it teaches you, you can only be grateful.
Without further ado, here are a few important points I found on notes I’ve taken throughout the journey. The key takeaway: being a great coder might not be enough. Having strategic thinking and clarity in observing the big picture would be best. Below is not a recipe for success but a list of essential topics to be on your radar when you’re starting.
Product Development
Value
This topic is a given: if your product doesn’t bring real value to your customers, it doesn’t need to exist. What is value in this case? You have to figure it out by implementing some product discovery process. There’s tons of material available on that. My point here is: don’t skip this step. A great idea alone doesn’t mean great value. That leads us to the next topic.
Focus
It happens to me all the time. When I start working on an idea, a million other views will come along, which can be a problem. A critical lesson I learned the hard way: Focus! You will not solve all the issues of the world at once. Be excellent in one or two things first, then expand.
Strategy and Vision
It’s tempting to be immediatist to cash in quickly, but a minimum strategy is necessary. Lay out your medium and long-term vision for your product and company. Things might change, but you need to get started knowing your desired destination.
User Autonomy
Give your final users autonomy to do what they need on your SaaS platform. Promote this so that your users become experts. You might have a community of users helping each other. That way, you let your support team focus on the most pressing matters instead.
Don’t be Too Flexible
Just flexible enough. The more flexibility you offer, the more your customers will ask you for. Balance flexibility with “opinionated”. It’ll be easier for your product team to manage your platform’s roadmap and evolution. One cannot have it all. That’s life.
Quality
Build a culture of quality from the get-go. It’s easy to build software quickly, but as the code base grows, the potential for bugs will also increase. Never forget the tests pyramid: from unit to UI and manual tests. A good product sells itself, they say. And it prevents sleepless nights and headaches.
Metrics
How do we know how things are going? Which features are the most used ones, and which does nobody care? Well, we need data. We need metrics. Create a process to collect and be on top of them. That’s how you know which direction to take when working on your roadmap. Include here the outcome of your user and market research, and you’ll have a sound basis for a solid product.
Scalability
Scalability is crucial when it comes to growth. If you want to increase your customer base by five- or tenfold, you’ve got to create the conditions for it. Picking up on the autonomy mentioned earlier, work on a self-service onboarding process as much as possible. Make it easy for them to add their coworkers. They’ve got to be invested in your platform from the start. And don’t forget to make sure your infrastructure can auto-scale when needed.
You ought to wake up in the morning and have new paying customers. If they need to call you to set up the payment or create a test account, you most likely will lose a great deal of potential revenue.
Scalability is crucial. Yes, I’m repeating it because it is one of the most critical aspects of business growth. Take note!
Customer Relations
Nobody questions the importance of a good relationship with your customer, but it’s essential to have your policies and processes crystal clear.
Clear policies are essential to set the expectations right. What’s your SLA in terms of first response? Do you have different support plans for different needs? How can they monitor their requests? If the SLA is not written and clear, your customers might call you at 3 am, and what can you say then?
Likewise, if your process is unclear, your support team might get confused about how to react when faced with certain tricky situations. Is that something they must do, or should they redirect the customer to the commercial team? Do I need to escalate? What’s the escalation process? Clarity is an important keyword when building your startup. Your customers and team will thank you for that.
Customer Success
Customer success is also customer relations, but it’s a more proactive process. This team will usually be working alongside the commercial team, and its main task is to understand what success means for the customer. How can we, as their suppliers, contribute to their success and obviously, how can we expand our offerings within the company? The CS team must build a trusting and win-win relationship with your customers.
As usual, clarity is critical. You must have clear policies regarding commissions and how sales and CS will share their part when it comes to upselling or cross-selling. Don’t do this, and you’re well set for many misunderstandings and frustration. Trust me.
Marketing
“A great product sells itself”. Yes, that’s true, but only if people know about it. You have to invest in marketing. What type of marketing? It depends on your target market and where they hang out.
A competent marketing team will come in handy to figure out the best approach, but one thing is for sure. Build your authority. Remember when we talked about Focus? You’re an expert in one or two relevant subjects for that industry. Therefore you have to make them see you as the reference for solving that problem. You have to become a ‘top of mind’ company. While this is not an easy task, it’s a worthwhile investment.
Don’t forget to tell everybody what you’re doing and how well you’re doing. And your happy customers will gladly help you with that.
Sales
The commercial team needs a transparent process, practical tools and a clear view of the company’s strategy. After all, whatever they sell, the customers will expect.
They must focus on bringing in more revenue with the least cost possible (focus, scalability) — including the cost of maintaining the customer (focus, autonomy, customer success). Ideally, the sales team will forward leads to the self-service subscription tool and go after the next one.
Don’t overpromise to get a quick sale only to realize its price in the long run. Not all customers will be a great match to your product and your vision, and the salespeople must be able to realize that before it’s too late.
And, please, keep it simple with things like a table of prices for the usual services/features and no more than three straightforward subscription plans. Make it possible for your customer relations team to autonomously figure out simple cases without wasting too much time with useless negotiations.
Sales team, you should definitely bring in new ideas from prospective customers to the product team, but don’t sell them before they’re at least in the roadmap — if they make it that far.
Human Resources
Lastly, for today, I want to touch on a point close to my values: the people who will help you make your vision come true.
Treat them professionally and give them the tools to perform their best work. Give them autonomy, trust them and grow together. And if it’s the case, mentoring programs are a great way to grow together as a team.
They don’t need to work more to get more done; they need to work better and have a sense of purpose. Make your vision clear, so they understand why they’re building that product and its importance to society.
Nobody wants to get stuck on the same job forever. Therefore you must offer opportunities for individual growth. They’re people with their struggles and dreams, spending most of their time working on your vision. You must compensate them adequately.
I’m a big fan of profit sharing. As a company founder, I know I can’t build it alone. Whoever helps me should be entitled to receive part of the profit.
I believe we should always strive to build a diverse, transparent, healthy and professional workplace, a place with purpose where people can rely on and fulfil their dreams.
Is that it?
Of course not! These are just some highlights from my notes throughout the years. Building a company is not an easy feat. When you get down to business, there are so many details and issues that will come up. You’ll have to be creative and resilient.
However, if you have a clear picture of what you need without leaving behind essential aspects such as the ones above, you’re on an excellent way to get started and have a successful journey. Or at least a fulfilling one. Failures are part of life, big or small, they always teach us something, and it’s never a shame to own them.
One final note: I didn’t mention it here, but yes, you’ll have to deal with accounting, balance sheets and that sort of thing. Not my favourite part, but do yourself a favour and stay on top of your finances.
What are your thoughts? Share in the comments!
