This post originally appeared on the blog of the crew .
I knew building a startup would be difficult. I knew it would be slow. I knew we had to do a lot of customer development and build something that people want.
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But there were some things I did not know.
Much of the work is actually email
Someone recently asked me what a typical day looks like for me to Exist. Upon reflection, I realized that a lot of what I do starts with email.
I handle most of our customer support, which means answering questions for customers who are on the fence of the registration, tracking bug reports and help current users with questions.
I also do proactive customer support, which means looking through our user logs and identify those who may need assistance to improve their body of experience, highlighting a framework that they did not know or explain how a feature works so they can get more out of it.
I send too many emails to my co-founder, Josh. Because there are only two of us, a lot of our communication takes place during the day via instant messaging, but there are always things that end up in emails
I often sends Josh emails with ideas for the product or a new marketing angles i want to try. Sometimes I'll ask him to clarify things for me, so I can adjust the copy of the product or explain things more clearly to users. And because we use to manage our tasks Asana, whenever one of us comments on a task or complete, we end up with more emails to read.
There are more.
A huge amount of networking takes place via email. Ask intros, setting up meetings, the establishment of intros for other people, organizing events-everything happening in the inbox.
I often share my feedback with other founders, and ask for their opinion or advice on Exist. Building these relationships is a lot of fun, but that inevitably means more time in the Inbox.
And finally, promoting Exist often begins with emails. Send emails to journalists and editors about republication Exist blog. Send emails to writers who would be to see if they want to try. Send emails to those products to see if they will try Exist and share their comments with me so we can do better.
There are many other examples, but I'm sure you get the point now. Much of what I do every day to make my start is to just sending a lot of e-mails. Even Josh is our technical co-founder, and is building the entire product alone to date, many of its tasks involve email in one way or another.
The networking is more like a game than I thought
I put a lot of time and energy in the networks recently, but it quickly became draining. I know networking is important for building our society, and I am lucky that both Josh and I are already starting the Melbourne scene to some degree.
What really surprised me was the way up degenerates network in a game, or challenge, as soon as you start to focus on it all the time.
The first problem occurred when I realized that I needed a LinkedIn account. I'm not a fan of LinkedIn, and had closed my account a few months ago, but it seemed there was no way around it. AngelList does not help you work out who knows who, while LinkedIn is really the only way to get an idea of who to ask when you need an introduction to someone.
It did not take long for me LinkedIn account is like any other social network that everyone uses it differently. I started having a lot of requests to connect from people I did not know.
Although I do not accept, it seems that many people do connect with someone on LinkedIn, and so have many "connections" which means nothing.
When I found someone I wanted to have an intro, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the three people I know were directly connected to that person. Of course, it appeared that none of them actually knew this person. They were superficially "connected" and are not able to show me after all.
This brings me to another question, I came across quickly. When you try to network with people who are well known and / or far (which is pretty much everyone when you live in Australia), you end up treating everyone you meet as stepping stones.
Although some friends whom I knew well were happy to help me with the introduction, many people I met when I was deliberately "networking" are not interested in my product or the space I am, so that they were stepping stones just for me to meet people who are in the right space.
This was aging rapidly. I do not like the feeling of stepping on people to get where I want to go.
It is possible to be in Melbourne made the much harder networking. Working on a consumer product in an emerging space and creating our own market means that there is not a ton of people interested in what we do.
From what I hear to be in a startup center like Silicon Valley, it is more likely that the people you meet will offer new introductions for you without you asking them.
Get feedback is harder than I thought
"Exit the building" is a trope in startup circles that means talking to your customers. Get to know them, work out what their problems are, make sure you provide a real solution to a real problem.
I read enough before and during the starting process Exist I knew I had to. I knew that customer feedback was really important for the construction of a useful product. I did not know how it would be difficult to obtain this feedback, though.
First, ask "feedback" is too vague to most customers. Only a few take the time to make comments when you ask that way. Ask more specific questions can elicit more responses, but unless you know exactly what to ask, you will not get feedback, you can act.
The best advice I have heard to date to get feedback from customers at the beginning was Francisco, a co-founder of YourGrocer. His suggestion was to ask customers to talk you through the process of hearing about your product, thinking about buying, execution and use. This helps you get past the problem that customers do not really know what to give you feedback because they do not think like "comments".
As you talk through their experience, you will be able to pick up on why they chose your product, what problem you solve for them and all the problems they encounter in the use of your product.
The great thing about this process is that it puts the burden of learning the user back on you. Instead of blaming the customer does not give you useful feedback, you let them tell you a story about what happened, and uncover the ratings hidden in this story for yourself.
Running a startup is so fast, crazy process always changing it is impossible to know everything about it before you start. And of course, your mileage may vary. Hopefully these things will not surprise you if you fall on them now, but you'll probably your own surprises to fight.
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