David Bitton of DoorLoop On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup

A solid plan — Although we never made official business plans, we always had 20–40-page Google Docs full of information ranging from market research, market size, competitor analysis, marketing plan, etc… Once you have your plan, you organize and prioritize it, and then start attacking it as quickly as possible.

Startups have such a glamorous reputation. Companies like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Uber, and Airbnb once started as scrappy startups with huge dreams and huge obstacles. Yet we of course know that most startups don’t end up as success stories. What does a founder or a founding team need to know to create a highly successful startup? In this series, called “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup” we are talking to experienced and successful founders and business leaders who can share stories from their experiences about what it takes to create a highly successful startup. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing David Bitton of DoorLoop.

As a 5X entrepreneur and best-selling author, David has been surrounded by real estate his entire life. Inspired by his parents who managed their own properties, he made his first investment at 21, and by 22 had his realtors license and was a community manager. After co-founding a legal CRM software that was acquired (PracticePanther), David’s bringing his knowledge of real estate and technology to DoorLoop.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life. From selling music CDs, DVDs, tennis lessons, etc., I have always had the mindset that hard work is the key to success. Not long after my graduation from the University of Miami, I joined a software startup named Nova Point of Sale, where I met my current business partners, Ori Tamuz and Matt Cave. It was a huge learning experience for all of us, and I personally dove into learning everything I could about sales, marketing, customer service, and more. Ultimately, I fell in love with marketing and became the company’s marketing director.

After that business sold, Ori approached me and we started another business together, a law practice management software called PracticePanther. We took all our learnings from the first company and applied them into PracticePanther, which was eventually acquired by ASG in 2018. Having developed and sold two successful businesses, we decided to partner up again and start DoorLoop. Together, we put everything we’ve learned over the years into founding the easiest property management software with the best customer service. That’s where DoorLoop began. We raised $10M in Seed funding and another $20M in Series A and the rest is history.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

Ori and I were still at PracticePanther when the idea for DoorLoop first came up. Ori was investing in real estate and self-managing his properties. Property management software was the logical solution to get some of that work off his plate–except he couldn’t find something that was both powerful, user-friendly, and affordable.

There was one specific day that I’ll always remember: Ori came to work and was telling me about how there was no easy software for property management. I’ll never forget him saying “Let’s build something better! Let’s do it!”

The idea was on pause until PracticePanther got acquired, but it was always in the back of Ori’s mind. Once we analyzed the market and recognized the TAM and massive opportunity in the property management software space, Ori put together an amazing team of co-founders, raised money, and we were off to the races again.

Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with your business? Can you share a story with us?

My dad was an inspirational entrepreneur himself. After moving to New York from Israel in his 20s with only $60 in his wallet and barely speaking English, he quickly founded 2 of his own companies. Those companies still existed until he retired at age 75. My dad was always my sounding board for every major decision I made in my life and constantly supported my decisions to start my own businesses. Funny enough, I almost didn’t join Ori’s first company, but it was my dad who pushed me to join. I would’ve never met Ori or be where I am today without that one major life decision influenced by my father’s guiding voice.

I also had a mentor named Tamara that really pushed me to start my own business. It was a risky move at the time, but it ended up paying dividends.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I could give a million different answers: our features, our world-class support, our ease of use–but the truth is that it always comes back to our team. The DoorLoop team is full of the brightest minds I’ve ever worked with. Every single person is an A-player, and it’s such a privilege to work alongside and learn from them.

A story that comes to mind is a “Looper” on our team that signed up a new landlord on Friday. This client wanted to start charging his tenants rent on Monday, the 1st of the month, and although it’s normally a 3–5-day process, this team member worked all weekend just to make it happen. There are countless stories like this; the DoorLoop team goes above and beyond every single day. If you want to build a world-class company, you need a world-class team, and each person on our team is beyond world-class.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Giving back is a huge part of our goals at DoorLoop, both on a professional and personal level. One example is our Loopers for Love program, in which 1% of all our profits are donated to the Ronald McDonald House Charity. We also offer members of our team dedicated paid time off for community service, and we match Loopers’ donations to their own charitable endeavors. We also encourage them to let us know about any charitable events, like races and fundraisers, that they may be participating in so that we can sponsor them.

This year on Thanksgiving morning, our team is running a 5k in support of Make-A-Wish foundation’s “Turkey Trot” event.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Prioritization & time management — This was something that took me years to learn, and I’m still learning. 80% of the things I did in my last company were a waste of time. 20% of the things I did bring in 80% of the results. So, with DoorLoop, I’m laser focused on those few items that yield the most returns. I also follow the ABC method of time management learned from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done that has completely changed the way I work.

Finishing everything I start — Being persistent and never giving up on any of my big projects has been a major contributor to my success. I will work on something nonstop until it’s done and will never let any roadblocks get in my way. It’s easy to get distracted all day with new tasks or priorities, especially shiny exciting ones, but I say “no” more than I say “yes” to anything new so I can focus on my MIT (most important task).

Thinking — Most entrepreneurs I speak to are always working “in the business” rather than “on the business”, so they’re never coming up with new ideas or ways to improve. The best thing I ever did was observing the Jewish Sabbath from Friday to Saturday night where I completely disconnect from the outside world and turn off my phone and computer for 24 hours. This gives me 24 hours of complete freedom to have quiet time where I can let my mind drift away, get new ideas, and come up with solutions to any issues. There are plenty of other times though where you can get alone time: in the car, shower, bed, plane, etc. The most important part is to capture those ideas and execute on them.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

“Go slowly; you don’t want to break anything.” That seems to be a very common piece of advice, and our leadership team hates it. I know that may be controversial, but we want to encourage the members of our team to move quickly, be creative, and take risks (responsibly, of course). We have a huge sign in our office that literally says, “Move Fast and Break Things”.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

When we started our last company, PracticePanther, the original idea was to create a CRM software that would combine lead management, accounting, invoicing, and file management. We had very big ambitions to conquer the world, compete against industry giants like SalesForce, Freshteam, QuickBooks, and Dropbox by creating an all-in-one platform that any business could use. Within 2 gut-wrenching years of no growth, we realized we made the #1 classic business mistake — not choosing a niche market. Everyone that signed up ended up using a competitor that ONLY focused on either 1 use case (like CRM or accounting) or they used a competitor that only focused on that target market, like a software built just for dentists or plumbers.

There were a handful of times where we came very close to quitting, but we ended up reading Lean Startup by Eric Ries, pivoted the entire business to focus on lawyers only, spent 6–9 months revamping the software, and finally started getting traction. Within just 2.5 years, the business was acquired.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard? What strategies or techniques did you use to help overcome those challenges?

I’m a huge fan of learning from others and, for me, that means reading as many books and watching as many videos as possible.

I also absorbed as many audiobooks as possible on my daily commute to work that were mostly self-help, motivational, business-oriented audiobooks.

One piece of advice that kept coming up from every author or speaker was to have persistence and never give up. I’m happy I listened because it eventually paid off.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

It can be a journey full of emotional highs and lows. In my experience, I’ve found that instilling a work-life balance is crucial. I know that might sound like absurd advice to a new founder who’s in the weeds of building up their company; I know because I’ve been there. What I quickly learned is that burnout is real, and it will happen. I’m not saying you must set a hard cap at 40/hours a week, or that you have to go on X vacations a year. The truth is that the ideal work-life balance is a little different for everyone. What I am saying is that you should absolutely continue to cultivate your relationships, hobbies, and leisure activities outside of work. You’ll be a better entrepreneur and collaborator for it.

Let’s imagine that a young founder comes to you and asks for your advice about whether venture capital or bootstrapping is best for them? What would you advise them? Can you kindly share a few things a founder should look at to determine if fundraising or bootstrapping is the right choice?

I’m a fan of bootstrapping and growing organically in the beginning of your journey until you hit product market fit and figure out your full funnel and processes.

It also helps you focus on being lean, getting a lot down with a small team, acquiring new customers on a limited budget (if any), and figuring out your ideal customer profile and buyer personas. After you’ve achieved product-market fit, bootstrapping might become less sustainable when you’re trying to rapidly scale and compete with larger competitors with bigger budgets across the board. Expectations from users are higher, cost to acquire customers (CAC) is higher, demands on your dev team are higher–the pressure and demands on your bandwidth are higher. You need to have the resources to support your entire company from that point on, and that’s where a VC or PE firm can be instrumental.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Many startups are not successful, and some are very successful. From your experience or perspective, what are the main factors that distinguish successful startups from unsuccessful ones? What are your “Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.

A solid plan — Although we never made official business plans, we always had 20–40-page Google Docs full of information ranging from market research, market size, competitor analysis, marketing plan, etc… Once you have your plan, you organize and prioritize it, and then start attacking it as quickly as possible.

Invest in marketing — Sometimes you need to invest money to make money and in startups that is true. You can always use the organic grassroots efforts of SEO, social media marketing, and other avenues, but if you want to quickly scale, I highly recommend running Google Ads or any other paid marketing channels which allows you to quickly test your website, landing pages, conversion funnel, copywriting, ICP (ideal client profile), and more.

Making data-driven decisions — You can’t improve what you don’t track. Instead of making assumptions, you need to make data-driven decisions. It’s very important that you collect and analyze data on a daily or weekly basis to look for opportunities to improve and fix any holes in your systems. So many people start their own businesses and only focus on social media since it’s the easiest method of marketing. None of them track the results. They end up spending 4 hours a day on social media and have no idea if there’s any return, and most of the time, there isn’t (depending on the business). If you’re going to go all-in on any marketing channel, you need to track the number of clicks, conversions, revenue, and ROI. Keep in mind, your time should also be factored in here. If you spent 10 hours on something but only earned $100, factor in your hourly rate to see if it was really worth it. This is also known as your opportunity cost.

Launch & iterate quickly — Too many people are in “stealth mode” for too long, building their software for years before launching. For years they’re missing out on beta customers and feedback. They think they know what the customer wants, and they might spend months or years building features that aren’t as important as they thought. The best book I can recommend is Lean Startup by Eric Ries which teaches you to launch your MVP (minimum viable product) and get beta customers as quickly as possible, even if they’re not paying.

Be the least important person in the company. By making myself replaceable, I make sure the business can always run without me. I do this by empowering my team to be thinkers and learn how to do everything I can.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Hesitating to make decisions, which I’ve found often comes from poorly or insufficiently identifying your key goals and landmarks in a way that’s objective and measurable. I have experienced doubts and hesitations in past companies: when is the right time to bring in venture capital? When is the right time to sell?

Second is not identifying your personal goals: what do you want out of this business? For most founders, it’s financial independence. Then, identify quantifiable landmarks your business will need to hit in order to get there. This won’t eliminate every tough call you’ll have to make, but it will provide you with a solid foundation for making big developmental decisions.

Startup founders often work extremely long hours and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends. What would you recommend to founders about how to best take care of their physical and mental wellness when starting a company?

My advice is to remind yourself as often as possible that you are a detriment to your business if you’re burnt out. It’s important not just for your mental health, but for the health of your business and your future, to take care of yourself and give yourself space to relax. That’s different for everybody: for some, it’s a 40-hour work week and for others it’s a 60-hour one. I can’t tell you what works for you; I can tell you that if you’re missing meals, sleep, exercise, and time with your loved ones, it might be a good idea to delegate the parts of your work that you can.

At my last company, I used to work 70+ hours a week. Now that I’m married with 3 kids, I don’t have the time to work even remotely close to that amount. The funny thing is, I’m just as productive because I only focus on the most important tasks and make no time for anything else that’s not a top priority. It also forces me to focus on the big picture and outsource and delegate as much as possible instead of doing it all myself.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would start the “daily mentor movement” where every day you open 15–30 minutes on your calendar and be a mentor for someone. I have a special calendar available for my morning and evening commutes where I spend 30 minutes a day giving back as much advice as possible to help others that were in my shoes 15 years ago. The world would be a much better place if everyone shared their knowledge to save others from making the same mistakes they did.

We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

That’s easy — Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee). He’s one of the reasons we tested out content marketing in our early days. The results were so good, we doubled down and now have an entire video marketing and content marketing team that produces over 1,000 pieces of content a year ranging from blog posts, videos, press releases, email campaigns, webinars, free resources, and so much more. I highly recommend reading his book, “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” which completely changed the way I think about content marketing.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The best place to see new updates and news is on our blog and resources page! We’re constantly updating it with useful news, templates, and free resources for property managers, investors, and landlords. Also be sure to check out our webinars (and maybe even keep your eyes peeled for a podcast in the not-so-distant future). I don’t post frequently, but you can also follow me on LinkedIn.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health.