Celebrating the highs and the lows
I had some idea of what I had signed up for when I decided to go full-time on Geeks and Experts — a micro-consulting platform to connect on live 1:1 calls with domain experts. So as I lay out an annual plan for the goals I set to achieve for G&E, I can’t help but celebrate the highs and, yes, the lows of what it has taken to get here.
It’s an understatement to say that the journey (read: rollercoaster) has been a learning process, and I’m humbled to share mine authentically. The more I embrace playing the long game, the more confident I feel about being vulnerable, sharing my failures, looking for lessons, not losses, and building grit and compassion.
Undoubtedly, we’ll make more mistakes as we go, but I promise to keep documenting them to keep it real, to grow from, and to appreciate!
In the early stages, the biggest unfair advantage that any startup has is speed. If you are not answerable to many investors, mentors and employees, you are the ultimate decision maker, and you can course correct as and when you need, in tandem with your cofounders, if you have any. At G&E, we took the idea of building a micro-consulting platform directly to a team of outsourced developers. We thought we were taking advantage of a cost-effective means by hiring overseas talent and we felt okay comprising on the time component.
Until the clock reallllly started to click.
And, with every minor update came a big overhaul of managing calls across timezones. Feedback loops from potential customers would take weeks, if not days, to complete (vs. hours now). This was also seen as a red flag by the investors and advisors we spoke to, and rightly so. We couldn’t fully control what we did not fully build. Tech debt can be a deal breaker for many startups.
The takeaway was to find a way to validate the idea with any scrappy methods possible, whether that is paid ads, landing pages, customer interviews, a newsletter, or an agile version of the MVP — which is what we did in the case of G&E by rebuilding fully in-house.
The earlier you ship, the sooner you get feedback — it’s a fundamentally important loop!
Those who have followed my journey know that I incorporated a company, got a domain name, and created social media pages for G&E with a rough target audience in mind. I had done a lot of research via google forms and paid surveys and had spoken to many potential customers. Initially, I relied more on secondary research and market reports, but soon I realized that I needed to dive deep into customer interviews to draw out an ideal customer profile (ICP) that is very specific to the niche I am targeting.
This is where it started to get fun!
I realized I was talking to everybody with my product, and, as a result, I was talking to nobody. With a niche audience, we were able to convert users to sign up at a much higher rate, and the user acquisition that we achieved in a few months with the old product was achieved in a few weeks with the new one.
We’re still testing different hypotheses with our product as we go, but narrowing the focus has helped us find out where potential customers are (Twitter, Reddit, Indie Hackers, Kernal, Product Hunt, etc.). It has helped me talk to them to find inefficiencies or inconveniences they might face so that I can take them from Point A to Point B.
I’ve shared some of these lessons in other blogs, but one of the best investments I made in 2022 was to take charge of sharing my journey in public. A big shoutout to Kevon, for his Build in Public Mastery which I had an opportunity to join. The community and content that Kevon brought with him gave me a sure-shot path to share my journey online authentically. I highly recommend his course and content to anyone interested in learning more about Building in Public but who doesn’t know where to start.
This year I increased my luck surface area by writing online, and I “lucked out” on the following opportunities/resources I wouldn’t have otherwise:
- PR masterminds workshop.
- Customer discovery tools.
- Founder wellness coaching.
- Build in Public mentorship.
- Featured as a guest blog.
- Invited to podcast interviews.
As clichéd as the saying is, if you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.
Ask for feedback.
Ask for introductions.
Ask for advice.
So now, I make a deliberate attempt to offer and learn from others online as much as I can without expecting anything in return.
A viable, desirable, flexible, and ethical business model has to account for not only user acquisition but also recurring revenue or churn. Yes, the basic unit economics might seem obvious at first, and that was the case with G&E. We had a target customer in mind. We believed that high product differentiation, low marginal costs, and high network effects would offset low retention (B2C) until we worked on the B2B component.
What we failed to realize was that the B2B component in higher education institutions was a slow, lengthy sales cycle and had a lot of non-intuitive players such as admission consultants, school counselors, and most significant of all, parents of the students we were targeting. With a moving target as the B2C component and a tough sell on the B2B component, you have to quickly pivot to test new hypotheses with new customers. The goal now is to “recruit” and not attract new users by solving their pain points.
I shared a bit about treating this journey like a marathon, not a sprint, and my belief in this has solidified as it gives me the courage to approach things not to win every game but to play the game long enough. Persistence to keep going even when you don’t see results is easier said than done — it’s a muscle that needs flexing.
It’s taken me daily practice to change my mindset from “I HAVE to do this” and replace it with “I GET to this”. When you have to wear one too many hats managing content, finance, customers, and pitches, it can feel overwhelming, but slowing down helps you move fast, and zooming out helps you focus.
Eventually, minor setbacks feel more like detours than roadblocks when you are not looking for a quick growth hack or a shortcut.
So, playing the infinite game means a combination of everything from investing in yourself, gaining knowledge, and staying healthy, to finding a goal, achieving certain KPIs, and meeting interesting people along the way.
