{"id":840,"date":"2018-01-11T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T02:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joshualyman.com\/?p=840"},"modified":"2018-01-11T23:21:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T05:21:03","slug":"learned-bootstrapping-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joshualyman.com\/2018\/01\/learned-bootstrapping-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"What I learned bootstrapping in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’ve been blessed to be able to spend nearly the entire past year focusing on Perspexi Labs<\/a>, the company I co-founded with my great and very able business partner last year. We create the fastest feedback loop ever to help businesses get more feedback from their customers by automatically texting as soon as a service is complete. Over the course of the last year not only has Perspexi grown, but I’ve learned a volume of valuable lessons, which I wanted to share.<\/p>\n (Yes, I realize some people may find much of the following obvious! But they were valuable lessons learned, and wise men have said that what you have learned<\/a> others have yet to learn<\/a>. So we continue.)<\/em><\/p>\n Remember the classic equation,\u00a0Distance<\/em> =\u00a0Rate<\/em> \u00d7\u00a0Time<\/em>, that you probably learned in seventh grade involving trains traveling down the tracks at a given speed\u00a0R<\/em> for\u00a0T<\/em> minutes, going distance D<\/em>? I’ve learned that same equation applies to business as well.\u00a0T<\/em> is constant for everyone, and if you want to change how far you travel\u00a0D<\/em>, your only lever is your R<\/em>ate of speed.<\/p>\n We’re bootstrapping Perspexi, but I now better understand why companies seek funding. Additional funds become an enabler to do more things, more quickly, with more people, reaching your desired business goals faster.<\/p>\n In the early days of Perspexi, we spent about six months building and marketing a tablet application for a specialty of doctors to record outcome measures, but while an effective product it arrived too early.<\/p>\n By the time we were coming to this realization, we started to think about other ways to positively affect outcomes in healthcare and, nearly on a whim, I built out a text messaging platform for getting feedback from patients in\u00a0 a matter of only a couple weeks. Seeing broader application, we also marketed it to service-oriented businesses, and then boom<\/em>, within six weeks we had a flock of customers and a legitimate business.<\/p>\n But then… sales didn’t continue the growth pattern after we explored the first network of referrals, and time started to stretch on. Competitors began catching up, momentum started to slow down, and you start to feel like you’re in the mud.<\/p>\n Do whatever you can to build speed, maintain speed, and capitalize on speed to keep your business from atrophying.<\/p>\n On our team, I possess the technical skills and my co-founder possesses key relationships. However, neither of us are marketing people. At all. This contributed to the slowdown just mentioned, as we flailed around trying to figure out marketing channels that we could employ to boost growth. Helpful resources like the book Traction<\/em><\/a> and conversations with mentors were useful, but lacking any real marketing talent between the two of us certainly made things difficult.<\/p>\n I hold the core belief that anyone can learn just about anything, given time and perseverance. But again in a bootstrapped company, time is one of the precious commodities you have little of. Having all the unique and essential skills needed on your team is critical to bootstrapping success.<\/p>\n One more note on team: because of differing career and life circumstances, we spent different amounts of time working on the business, and doing so at different times of the day. Being out of sync like this also makes things difficult, though not impossible. We effectively operated as a remote team, with the pros and cons that go along with that. I’m used to remote work, but some aren’t.<\/p>\nLesson 1: Speed matters<\/h2>\n
Lesson 2: Team matters<\/h2>\n
Lesson 3: Focus relentlessly on your MVP<\/h2>\n