Confidence, Culture & Focus: 3 Counterintuitive Lessons I Learned Co-Founding a Startup
Over 10 years ago, I had an idea to create an app to digitize the auto sales industry and change the way dealers buy and sell cars — easy, right? Well, we did it, but there were definitely a few hiccups and pivots along the way.
Looking back, there are some things I wish someone had told me in 2009. Unfortunately, I had to learn those things the hard way. Hopefully by sharing these lessons, I’ll save you a few steps.
Lesson 1: Assume you’ll be successful — but accept that you’ll never be done.
Doubt will hold you back — if you don’t believe in yourself and your idea, no one will. But believing in yourself is just the first step. As a founder and leader, you also need to be the most positive person in the room, and you must be your own champion.
When TradeRev first started, our potential and initial customers told us we were doomed to fail, that no one was going to buy cars on their phone. Who could blame them? In 2011, only 10 percent of the world used smartphones. By 2018, it was 36 percent. You can see why people using flip phones and T9 texting might have been skeptical.
But we believed in ourselves and our product. So we bought iPhones for every new customer, and soon they were hooked. I kept thinking to myself that if we could just get to 1,000 cars sold in a month, I’d be able to kick back. Well, we hit that target pretty quickly, and then we hit another one and another one, until last month we sold 1,000 cars in a single day.
I realized that there was never going to be that kick back moment. We’re always doubling down and focusing on the next iteration, product and feature. I know now that I’ll always be pushing to be better, because frankly, that’s why I got into this. That’s what fuels me.
Lesson 2: Money isn’t the most important thing — values and culture are.
We started TradeRev just as companies like Facebook and Amazon were really taking off. This made me define success as a $1 billion valuation and interviews on Bloomberg. Our first two rounds of funding came in at $3 million, and both investors wanted to grow the company as quickly as I did. And we did grow it, but we weren’t ready to scale that rapidly. That’s when I learned that money can’t be the only focus. You also need to ensure you have the right people on your team to help you make the right decisions, in the right way.
Our head of creative was also our HR representative until year five. I was leading the company and running marketing until year six. We were doing well, but we weren’t the right people for the jobs. Having the right people is pivotal because they create the right culture. Culture may feel like a buzzword or an intangible concept, but trust me, it’s not.
In 2014 we found the right partner in KAR Auction Services, Inc. The company gave us a lot more than money and challenged us to grow and scale the right way, starting by defining our values. That’s when our senior leadership banded together and created our core values under the acronym FHAB — Fun, Honest, Accountable and Brave.
This FHAB culture is what grounds every single one of our employees, empowering them to make the right decisions for the organization. It goes beyond the new users, revenue and profit, because if we fill our company with people who stay true to our values, we know we’ll be successful.
Lesson 3: Don’t get distracted — focus on one problem.
We all have amazing ideas, but what separates success from failure isn’t just execution — it’s focus. When you start, you may find many applications for your product, and one of the most important jobs is to prioritize your focus. The hardest choices to make are the opportunities you have to turn down.
When TradeRev first started to gain traction and visibility in the market, we had players from various industries approach us to use our product in a new way. From real estate and wine to wholesale fish sales, everyone thought TradeRev could be the next big thing in their industry.
The problem was, we began to explore those ideas. We started to design generalized, real-time, mobile-centric auction models. Luckily, we quickly realized that it wasn’t us.
We returned to our roots, but while entertaining these ideas, we distracted ourselves from our core competency of solving the wholesale automotive problem. Our loss of focus caused an opportunity cost — not implementing other features that would have benefited our core business. We learned a key lesson: When you maintain your focus and stay the course, your team will do great things.
I know there will be more hiccups and pivots along the road for us at TradeRev, but with these three lessons learned, I’m better prepared to deal with them. I hope these lessons will help smooth the path for you as well.
