The Switch From Building a Product to Building a Company
When I started my career I knew absolutely nothing about building products, yet I became an expert in that one area of a tech business. As I start my journey of building a company, I’m realizing there are so many things I never had to think about when I was solely focused on the product. Everything from choosing the name to thinking about market sizing and value propositions has made me feel like building the product is the least important part. Now I’m having to spend my time perfecting pitches of various lengths while thinking about legalities like incorporation. I didn’t realize I’d have to spend so much time talking to people and looking for which accelerator is right for me. I’ve come full circle in some regard, I feel like I’m back where I started — not knowing anything.
Humble Beginnings
I joined Vanhawks, a pre-seed startup, out of university as a full-stack web developer — their first software hire. They had just finished the most successful Kickstarter in Canada at the time and we had ambitious goals to meet in order to ship a smart bike all over the world.
On the web side we had to build: a new landing page, a tool for backers to choose their Valour configurations and pay for any additional upgrades, a web app, and the mobile APIs. I didn’t really know how to do any of this when I joined, yet we ended up building the above, and more. I got to learn how to work with marketing, UX, firmware developers and mobile app developers. I was involved in everything from conception to delivery of the projects and my experience at Vanhawks really solidified what it takes to build a software product. Not only that, but with the help of the CTO, I got to learn how to balance business objectives and what the execs wanted, with what was reasonable and what tradeoffs were needed to make it happen. I was also exposed to stock options, limited runway, investment rounds, startup accelerators, and more. Vanhawks accelerated my career more than I could have imagined, and I left knowing I could build and ship software products.
Since leaving Vanhawks (they’ve since been acquired!), I worked for a revenue-funded startup called 5Crowd with some very talented business minds building their proprietary software platform. Their mission was to connect freelancers all across the world to work with the internal team over this platform. I took it from an alpha product that wasn’t usable, to something that could actually be used to perform things like project management, file uploads, chat, and onboarding of talent. They were acquired during my time there and I left to pursue new challenges in my area of choice — backend development.
The current company I work for, Unata, is seeing tremendous growth, filled with exceptional talent, and has picked up numerous awards as a workplace lately. It’s an amazingly welcoming team that is changing the future of grocery. Grocery clients can use our platform for things like eCirculars, eOffers, and eCommerce. Combined with technologies such as Amazon Alexa, I definitely see this as the future of grocery. I’m part of the team that makes continuous improvements to the platform.
A New Chapter
As I was wrapping up my time at 5Crowd after having accepted an offer for Unata, my lovely life partner and now brilliant business co-founder presented a game changing idea to me. It was the basis for what we are currently working on: Cost Canvas. You can read more on the initial flash of brilliance and how we’ve kept the research going in my partner’s post, here:
I didn’t realize how much I’d been yearning to get back to the early stage startup grind until I started working on Cost Canvas. For context, we’re currently trying to find product market fit, a revenue model, and find our first customers. I’ve written some code, but a very minimal amount compared to what I’m used to, and it’s been weeks since I last have (for Cost Canvas, that is). Having had great startup experience in the past, I thought the switch I’d have to make every evening and weekend from software engineering to building a company would come more naturally to me. It hasn’t, but there are similarities that have helped.
Take, for example, gathering requirements when building a product compared to customer research when trying to find product market fit. Both of these involve talking to people and more importantly listening to find out how current problems are being solved in order to improve upon. However, the former is done (at least in my experience) when you already have the need established, whereas with the latter you are trying to learn what the user needs. A much different psychological challenge for me.
There were many other things that I had zero experience in. An example here would be trying to figure out the revenue model. Having no financial background at all, I’ve really had to step out of my comfort zone. This requires setting up meetings with CFOs and Controllers, which is also hard to do given I work full time and dedicate my days to Unata.
I’m embracing the challenge however, and have recently been accepted to Founder Institute to take part in the Summer 2017 cohort. This is a startup incubator that has sessions on week nights and is meant to only take about 20 hours per week — perfect if you’re working a full time job. I’m looking to explore my idea further and find out if there is a viable business to be made out of it. I’m very lucky to be accompanied by my outstanding partner.
Follow Us
If you’d like updates on our progress, visit our website to sign up (or use the form below) and follow our Instagram and Twitter. I’m also following in the footsteps of my partner and starting to post more on my Twitter.
