Discover One Amazing Creator Everyday #Creator35
Hello Friends,
We all have heard data driven development, product driven development, but did you try building by taking customers in the house?
Let’s meet today’s creator, who is a passionate founder helping businesses grow, a hustler sharing insights and helping many aspiring builders, creators grow.
Khushbu is currently building Rapidr, A platform that helps you ideate, strategize, prioritize and communicate with your customers in a single place.
Besides, she shares cool insights about building a SaaS business from scratch on Twitter.
Q. How your journey as a creator started?
A. Before this, I’ve worked in the tech industry as a Software Engineer for multiple startups, all plagued with a common disease of feature and product prioritization. Many, if not all, product managers didn’t know what the most requested feature was; instead, they built either from their gut or whatever the sales or other customer-facing teams told them.
We spent months after months building the wrong features only to figure out the company who requested it was churned, and nobody else found that feature helpful. It was clear; there has to be a way to demystify which is the most requested feature — or even better, the most requested feedback the product team needs to prioritize. Hence, the idea of Rapidr was born.
Q. What’s the first-ever thing you have built or created?
A. Rapidr is my first rodeo! I’ve been building small things here and there to scratch my own itch, but nothing this huge.
Q. What’s that one thing you want to achieve in 2021?
A. 2021 has been the year of firsts: we got Rapidr, Inc. incorporated in Delaware, US through Stripe Atlas and got our first paying customer.
The goal is to end the year with a healthy MRR for Rapidr and sow all seeds to grow sustainably in 2022 and beyond.
Q. What’s that one thing you are most curious about?
A. Currently, I am most curious about the marketing and growth tactics more prominent companies employ to grow their businesses. But in general, I am most curious about the interstellar and the world beyond our tiny blue planet.
Q. What’s the one mistake you have done and will advise others not to repeat that? If you are comfortable sharing.
A. I am a perfectionist, so naturally, shipping things early has been very challenging for me. I’ve spent countless hours perfecting and aligning pixels — which could have been better spent strategizing and prioritizing. Learning when to stop perfecting things and ship the product is a hard lesson to learn.
Q. Which book are you reading these days? Which Genre excites you the most?
A. I am currently reading Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. I’ve read countless business non-fictions, but I try to unwind with a good fiction book these days. No favorite Genre, though.
Q. What do you love to do when not working? Any hobbies you want to share?
A. Running a business is more than a full-time job, but when I want to unwind, I either play guitar, watch some light-hearted movies / tv-shows, or go for long walks.
Q. What’s something you learned/realized recently that you wish you learnt/realized much earlier?
A. Building a startup isn’t one-directional: you can build software, but that’s not all. You’d have to have a basic understanding of so many moving parts like — product, engineering, marketing, sales cycles. You should have a ton of business acumen too.
Building a startup is incredibly rewarding, but be prepared to fight many adversities, like bureaucracies, poor market, product-market fit, etc.
Q. Can you tell a bit about “Rapidr”?
A. Rapidr helps product companies bring customers into their product development. So their product-led development turns into customer-led development.
A slightly more technical explanation is, Rapidr is a user feedback lifecycle management tool. Think gathering feedback from customers, prioritizing with roadmaps, and communicating back about shipped features to customers. We’re building a platform that helps you ideate, strategize, prioritize and communicate with your customers in a single place.
If you’re interested, come check us out on https://rapidr.io or drop me a line on khushbu [at] rapidr.io .
Q. What would you recommend to others looking to start their careers in the startup/SaaS space on how to go about it?
A. Stop reading the mantras, the how-tos, the guides, the business books. Stop listening to the gurus, the podcasts, and the audiobooks. The best way to learn is by doing.
Sure — learn from the mistakes of others, but make a rule that the output you’re giving out into the world should be greater than the input you’re getting from the world, and you should be fine.
You cannot prepare for everything; the best way to start is by jumping head first.
Q. Suppose there is a big whiteboard in front of you. What’s the first line you would like to write?
A. “All you have to do is whatever it takes.”
Rapidr
A platform that helps you ideate, strategize, prioritize and communicate with your customers in a single place.
Connect with Khushbu on Twitter
Thanks for reading.
If you know anyone whose story must be shared like Khushbu, let me know, anshu@kiwismedia.com.
Fueler is a platform that helps individuals in showcasing their proof of work. A platform where aspiring individuals get inspired by discovering inspiring individuals and their best works.
