Startups shouldn't feel like walking a tightrope
Why success is found in getting the big things right, not in avoiding mistakes altogether
Earlier this year we faced a problem – people loved our product but our go-to-market was all over the place. In one week we’d talk to a pet hotel that wanted to report on bookings, a radio station that wanted an automated spreadsheet tallying song requests, and a swag manufacturing company that wanted to report on its paid ad spend. Because our marketing spoke to everyone, we were speaking to everyone. And so our sales processes were all over the place, conversion was all over the place. It wasn’t clear where we should focus.
Our instinct as founders in situations like this is to put more in. If only we could be a bit smarter, get the messaging just right. If only we could perfectly describe our value proposition. If only we could get rid of every imperfect word on the homepage. If only we could do all that, and do it perfectly, we’d work it out.
This whole experience felt like walking a tightrope. That it all came down to getting everything just right. But that’s not how companies actually win. One of the things I took from the early years at Intercom is just how many things can be broken, while still winning. This isn’t a knock on the company. Talk to anyone in a successful company and they’ll tell you what a mess it feels like on the inside. Winning is more about getting a few important things directionally right than it is about avoiding mistakes.
When I gave myself some space to reflect on the situation I thought it shouldn’t be this hard. We’re answering the wrong question. The thing about starting a company is you can literally do anything. You’re not part of a corporate hierarchy that dictates the bounds of the problems you can solve. You get to make every decision. No one is coming to save you. It’s scary. It’s empowering.
If things are too hard and if you can do anything, that means you can change the question you’re answering. The question we were trying to answer was how do we reach and onboard anyone who has use for a next-generation data-connected spreadsheet. In retrospect it’s an absurd question to spend time on. Recognizing this let us refine the question. Who gets the most value from Equals today? Who’s in a position to be an early-adopter? Who are we best suited to reach?
Following this set of questions led us to verticalize our go-to-market. Instead of pitching a next-generation spreadsheet for anyone that wanted to query, analyze and report on data, we started pitching Equals as an ARR reporting solution for startups. This is as specific as it gets. We were well-positioned to reach and be an authority to this audience, starting with our ARR book. And early-stage startups are well positioned to be early adopters. We finally found a repeatable and scalable go-to-market motion.
And so if you feel like you’re walking a tightrope, trying to get it just right and then it’ll work. If you’re grinding without seeing results. Ask yourself whether you can change the question instead.