Tanner Green’s Post

What I Learned from Failing my Startup #6: Building is BullS**t Because Dan Robinson and I are both software engineers, we decided to immediately start building a product solution for our customers. We coded for hours and days without addressing the customer on what types of features they wanted. This turned into an ultimate disaster after months and months of trial and error building, what we thought, was a good solution for our clients. Ultimately, we build a bunch of crap that nobody wanted. We thought we were getting enough feedback but it was all noise because those customers weren't actually using our software. Here's the step by step process we have done for our next venture and it's worked tremendously so far: 1. Put a cap on your early customer size (no more than 5) 2. Create an agreement to meet with them regularly for continuous feedback 3. Don't build anything unless asked, and paid for by the customer. Good luck out there founders!

Lessons From a Failed Startup #5 ❌ Beware of your GTM: 5 Q's you need to ask before diving in Dan and I had the perfect idea to go through partners to get more customers. Here's what we did: ■ Created a strategy to meet with at least 5 partners a week ■ Created a podcast about the partners to build rapport ■ Created a partner program to pitch to them about our software ■ Signed multiple partners to start selling our software to their clients meet This was a GTM that took about 2 months before it started picking up steam. We did a longer approach because there was a finite amount of partners out there and we wanted to build trust. They LOVED our software and were super hyped on it. We got many partners on board and things were going great! So we thought... After a while we realized that none of the partners were selling our stuff. We didn't even get a single meeting from any of them. This is when we realized we done goofed. We started asking around and found out this was not the right move and we wouldn't get sales rolling in every day from them. We ran out of money and eventually shut down the business... Here's 5 questions we learned to ask about our GTM and partnerships that need to be considered before you dive in: 1. How will your approach be selling to their clients (ie. who's doing what)? 2. Do they care more about client experience more than the kickback? 3. Are they more burdened with work if they sold your software? 4. Do they have a great use case for any of their clients? 5. Are your partners paying for your product as well? Hopefully this helps shed some light on what you need to consider when working with partners! NOTE: These partners are great people and amazingly talented, they just didn't do what we thought they would do to no fault of their own! Good luck out there 🍀

Hot take: Apple stores make no difference for why people want to buy their products. 99.9% of your experience is using the device outside of the store. It's the quality of the product and intuition that makes all the difference. Comment your thoughts...

Founder Lesson #4: How to Properly Nail an ICP (Top 3 lessons learned and a common mistake) Last summer, Dan Robinson and I we're really trying to focus on who we were targeting. We thought by narrowing it down to a job title and an industry was enough. While this can be enough for a well-established company, as a startup, it's important to get so familiar with your customers that your messages strike them in the heart every time they see your company. Our initial messages really hit home with our customers, but we didn't know why they wanted it. Because of this, we weren't generating enough pain to have them make the decision to go with us. We tried too much to find their TV shows instead of figuring out what they actually wanted in their jobs. Trying to get all of the metrics like what they eat for breakfast every morning is not important. The reason people push for that is because they want you to dive into what they are thinking every day. Here are the top three things I learned on how to resonate with my customers properly: 1. Know Their Goals What part of work gets them out of bed every day? What are the metrics they're trying to hit? Why do they care? How can they excel at their job? 2. Know Their Fears What keeps them up at night? What are they afraid of losing? What don't they think they can acheive? 3. Know Their Sources Where do they get their info? What media do they use? What would work best, ads, social media marketing, SEO, etc...? Once you've got a handle on these three things, you pretty much have all you need to make a successful marketing message AND you'll know how to talk to them in your sales meetings. Happy Founding!

Go check out the new video series! Can't wait to give you guys all the tips on how to use HubSpot 🎉

First Time Founder #3: Niches are in the Riches If you are something to everyone, then you are nothing to everyone. Dan Robinson and I couldn’t find a niche for our software and we kept getting pulled in different directions. We weren’t talking to the right people and we weren’t resonating with them because we didn’t really know who we were selling to. If I were to do our business again, I would find one industry that really needed our help and quadruple down on them until we squeezed every last customer in that industry. Anyone who tells me they are “industry-agnostic” in their startup, they are fighting an uphill battle. When you don’t start with a super specific niche here’s what happens: - You have no messaging - You have no consistency - Your product is pulled in every direction - Your credibility suffers Those are just a few of the things that can happen. Dial in your niche, nail the crap out of it and exhaust that market. Only then can you have the liberty of expanding to other industries and markets.

First Time Founder Lesson #2: Get a Co-Founder with Industry expertise On our last business, Dan Robinson and I tried to create a sales software inside of HubSpot. Neither of us had ever done sales or worked inside of HubSpot before. We were constantly fighting an uphill battle because, not only did we have no idea how to start a business, we had no idea what it was like to experience the pain. It was so hard trying to learn everything about sales and everything about HubSpot and everything about starting a business. We spent hours and hours and hours trying to play catch up and it was hard on the soul. Not to mention, here are some additional benefits you can have from an industry expert co-founder: - Deep knowledge about pain and solution - Connections across the industry - Immediate credibility - The gut feeling you need to make decisions If you want to start off with a major head start, get a co-founder who knows everything about the industry. Reach out if you have any other questions!