Leetal Gruper of Tarci On Five Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Startup

My suggestion to entrepreneurs is to always write down what metrics they want to meet in X amount of time (actually write it down) and be true to yourself when the time comes on if you met these metrics or not.

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 Leetal Gruper.

Prior to co-founding Tarci, Leetal Gruper headed the sales and ops teams at Q Technologies and Worldpay (largest payments company in the world) and consulted companies on sales best practices with Bain & Co. She holds an MBA from London Business School and a BSc in computer engineering from the Technion.

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?

Before co-founding Tarci, I headed the sales and retention teams at Worldpay (the largest payment company in the world). One of the key challenges we faced was the lack of accurate data about SMBs to make the unit economics work. We spent far too much time going after the wrong small businesses that will end up churning and not even recovering the cost of acquisition.

There was a clear void in the market that needed to be filled. It was time someone found a way to generate true, up-to-date SMB data that could be used to identify real opportunities and build long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with small and mid-sized businesses. So, along with my co-founder Sergey Bahchissaraitsev, that’s what we did.

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

There was no single “Aha Moment”. I had experienced “the pain” myself during my time at Worldpay. When Sergey and I started working on the idea, I immediately went to the market to try and sell (and validate it wasn’t just a pain I experienced at Worldpay). We closed our first 2 paying design partners very quickly and that was the first validation we had something here.

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?

Clive Kahn, the founder of Travelex, Cardsave, and now takepayments.

I first met Clive after he sold Cardsave to Worldpay. We worked together on integrating the Cardsave sales machine into Worldpay.

The way Clive builds successful companies in a super competitive market is a true inspiration.

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

One of our customers described Tarci how Tarci stands out, as what enables his sales and marketing teams to focus on opportunities that need their services and are more likely to give a good return on investment. In his words “… Tarci really is our secret sauce.”

So more specifically to your question, we stand out because we provide visibility where everyone has accepted darkness.

Let me explain, the SMB market is highly fragmented and businesses’ needs and status change rapidly, using traditional data gathering methods is ineffective. That’s why those who rely on traditional data often describe it as if they are operating in the dark.

That’s where we come in.

We see what others can’t. We provide our users with the “night vision” they need to see where the opportunities are. Now they can tell who is expanding, adding new services, currencies, branches, or scaling down and struggling. We like to think of it as giving our clients a “superpower”.

That superpower, that ability to see in the dark, is also what led to our name, Tarci. There’s a funny little nocturnal primate with enormous eyes called a tarsier. Not only can tarsiers see in the dark, but they’re also extremely agile and can rotate their heads almost 360°. They get the big picture, just like we do.

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

I like to think that by helping service providers connect with SMBs right when an SMB needs help, offering a solution by way of the right product and service, we’re saving everyone a lot of headaches, time, and money.

As an example, we saw in the data that a nail salon from Arizona started offering Mimosas to clients (Amazing idea, right?). They even did it right and applied for a liquor license. However — they missed notifying their insurance company about this new service. It’s just Mimosas…. But that’s a material change in risk in the eyes of an insurer and now suddenly they are not fully insured.

Our insurance clients use Tarci to identify such need-alerts or use cases (which happen all the time) and help make sure businesses don’t have any nasty surprises.

Small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy and by helping them get the right services at the right time, we like to think we play a small role in doing good for the global economy.

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?

Communication skills — as a consultant at Bain & Co, I had to learn how to communicate clearly and for results. More specifically, not just communicating for the sake of saying what you have to say, but rather on-point to achieve a very specific goal.

Execution orientation and relentless focus on real metrics and measuring performance and results continuously across the company, product, and customers.

Grit and mental stability to deal with the ups and downs of start-up life.

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

I don’t believe in looking back and dwelling on the past. At every point in time, I try to make the best decision using the data I have then. I don’t blindly follow advice but use it as another input into my decision-making process.

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

We managed to secure paying design partners even before Sergey wrote our first line of code. On the one hand — amazing early indication. On the other hand — we suddenly needed to service these customers. Sergey and I worked night and day, Sergey designing our system and I am doing manual data QA. It wasn’t pretty or glamorous.

We also didn’t raise a lot of money in the, so there was a lot of scrappiness but we pulled through.

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?

The market was pulling us in. Not only did we have design partners before we started developing, but we soon had clients that were willing to pay for our data and to receive it in a zip file over email (we didn’t even have a UI back then). You can’t ignore such strong signals that there is a real need and a real pain that you are providing a solution for.

The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy and is filled with challenges, failures, and 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”?

Always maintain proportions in life.

For me — so long as everyone in my family is healthy — I feel good. Business can go up and down but it’s just a business at the end of the day.

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 myself faced this question and Sergey and I selected to go the VC route. Why? Because to build a deep tech company, you need enough capital until you get to profitability.

I often advise founders to think about what that money can do or contribute and if they were not successful in fundraising — what would they do? Can they already start doing it even before they go to fundraise?

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 great co-founder and complete alignment between you and your co-founder. I see many startups that never get off the ground because of co-founder disagreements.

Focusing on real metrics and measuring, measuring, measuring.

Ability to convince early on really good people to quit their comfy job and join you on the journey. If you don’t get the right people early on — you won’t be able to scale.

Grit.

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?

Being too in love with your idea and not listening to market signals.

My suggestion to entrepreneurs is to always write down what metrics they want to meet in X amount of time (actually write it down) and be true to yourself when the time comes on if you met these metrics or not.

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?

As someone who is based in Tel Aviv and travels back and forth to the USA — I still need to figure this one out 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.

Stop obsessing about what people around you might think and do what you think is right.

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.

Do I have to pick just one? I’d love to sit down and speak with Reid Hoffman.

Reid has a fantastic podcast called Masters Of Scale and I’ve been listening to it a lot as we are scaling Tarci.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Our Tarci LinkedIn page is always the first to be updated whenever we have new developments. We also have a blog at Tarci.io that focuses on how service providers can best serve SMBs. And, of course, I’d happily connect with anyone who wants to reach out to me personally on LinkedIn.

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