We continue the #InsightsPodcastSeries and in this episode, we focus on the importance of Execution and how to get it right in the early stage of a startup. To talk about this important topic, we have Srikanth Iyer a successful serial entrepreneur who has built large companies across multiple industries. Initially in Education with Edurite (sold to Tutorvista/Pearson) and currently founder and CEO of fixed furniture eCommerce startup HomeLane.
On the first part of the podcast, we discuss the importance of execution and specifically the following topics:
- What is execution and why is it important?
- Early days — how to get things started, how to figure out must-haves vs nice-to-haves and focusing on must-haves
- Speed vs. getting things right — what is more important?
- Customer delight — to get to Product-market fit — how to go about it?
- Role of product/tech — how important in early stage vs once you are focusing on scale
- Launching with a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and then continue refining the product/tech
- Why scaling prematurely can hurt your startup?
We also discuss a book that has really inspired Srikanth to deliver outstanding service to his customers. The book is “Uncommon Service” and highly recommended for founders — particularly startups that involve services. Here are some of the key takeaways from the book and we discuss a couple of them in the podcast in the context of Srikanth’s experience.
Uncommon Service — key tenets:
- Tenet #1: You CANNOT be good at everything — to be great at something its ok to be bad at something else — how do you decide on what to be good at as CEO?
- Tenet #2: Someone has to pay for it — what does that mean?
- Tenet #3: It’s not your Employee’s fault — but they are the ones executing?
- Tenet #4: You must Manage your customers — how do you do that?
- Tenet #5: Now multiply it all by Culture — talk to us about the importance of this one?
In the next few podcasts, we will dive deeper into the importance of execution and how to get that right as a startup founder. If there is any feedback on this podcast or questions for the next set of episodes, please do share as a comment below or tweet us at @Accel_India
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!