In this discussion, we had the pleasure of hosting Anchala, the founder of the innovative startup Multiply. Anchala shared her journey of launching the app, the evolution of her role as a founder, and the invaluable lessons she learned along the way. We will explore the key themes and insights from the episode, providing actionable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.
The Importance of Team Building and Complementary Skills
One of the most critical aspects of launching a startup is assembling the right team. Anchala emphasized the importance of finding team members with complementary skills. Initially, she worked with an agency due to budget constraints and her inability to code. However, the turning point came when she connected with her co-founder, Dima Karpov, who brought technical expertise to the table.
Actionable Tips:
- Identify Gaps: Assess your own skills and identify areas where you need support. It can be risky to depend on paid external sources for missing skills, causing longer development cycles, and higher development costs in the example of software development knowledge.
- Complementary Skills: Ensure that your co-founder’s skills complement yours to avoid conflicts and enhance productivity. Two marketing experts in a business focused on tech will struggle with their business as much as two engineers would struggle with a business focused on marketing.
Evolving Roles Post-Launch
Before the product launch, Anchala focused on design and working closely with the tech team. Post-launch, her responsibilities expanded to include sales, marketing, partnerships, and finance. It's a unavoidable reality of entrepreneurship that founder's responsabilities will grow with their business. This can be difficult for many founders to accept, but it forces the need to be able to setup priorities and delegate the priorities that can be delegated.
Actionable Tips:
- Be Adaptable: Be prepared to wear multiple hats and adapt to new roles as your startup grows. This will almost always involve going beyond the founder's comfort zone. Trying to find others to learn from becomes a constant need for entrepreneurs because of this requirement for adapability.
- Prioritize Tasks: Focus on high-impact tasks that drive growth and delegate where possible. An entrepreneur should be primarily focused on the current biggest obstacle to the companies growth or progress. It is vitally important that once possible a founder is not required for maintanence tasks, but is focused on pushing the company forward.
Embracing Imperfection and Iteration
Anchala shared a valuable lesson from a professor: it’s better to release a low-resolution prototype than to wait for perfection. Presenting something unfinished invites constructive feedback rather than judgment. In product development it's even important for the prototype to not look 'too good' otherwise it may receive in-authentic feedback out of fear of offending the team behind the prototype.
Actionable Tips:
- Start Small: Launch an MVP to gather user feedback and iterate based on real-world usage. It may even come to pass that features an aspiring entrepreneur were concerned about, are unnecessary or that the users are far more concerned about other features.
- Focus on Value: Communicate the value to your usesrs of your product rather than just its features. The user doesn't care about all the 'cool technology' in a product, merely about how it helps them with their problem. Losing focus on this fact can prove fatal to a startup.
Handling Bugs and Scaling Issues
No matter how many times you test your app, users will always find issues you didn’t catch. The key is to keep iterating and improving based on user feedback. When bugs are found celebrate it, afterall, the earlier a bug is found, the smaller the audience who sees it and the greater time period the product team has to solve the bug.
Actionable Tips:
- Continuous Improvement: Treat bugs and issues as opportunities for improvement, not omens of disaster. By improving a product by small increments every day, over weeks, months and years the compounding effect will be monumental improvements to the product.
- User Feedback: Actively seek and incorporate user feedback to refine your product. A startup's users must be their north star to navigate the potential features which could be added, or removed. Founders with insufficient feedback, or an unwillingness to listen to feedback, are commonly prone to developing a product too specific to their imagined needs, instead of the actual needs of their customers.
The Reality of Founding a Startup
Anchala candidly stated that founders should not expect a healthy work-life balance. The early stages of building a startup often require long hours and many sacrifices. These are the costs of creating something impactful, whether an entrepreneurs goal is to improve society, or to make a vast fortune, these must always be wrought through difficult, stressful and unbalanced times.
Actionable Tips:
- Set Realistic Expectations: Understand that building a startup is demanding and requires dedication. It's can take founders to their limits of their ability and is a marathon, not a sprint, thus an entrepreneur must set realistic expectations with themselves as well as their loved ones
- Work Smarter: Learn to delegate tasks and empower a founder's team to increase efficiency. If the whole team is seeking ways to be efficient and more effective, they will multiply each other's impact.
The Decision to Bootstrap
Initially inclined to raise funds, Anchala decided to bootstrap Multiply, allowing her to maintain control and avoid giving away equity too early.
Actionable Tips:
- Evaluate Options: Consider the pros and cons of bootstrapping versus raising funds. It is a reality of startups that taking investment is sacrificing some level of control for the funding to grow more quickly. When outside of a growth face, seriously consider if it's possible to continue bootstrapping the buiness until you reach the next growth stage, which is when investment will go the furthest.
Future Funding Plans
Now that Multiply has made significant progress, Anchala is open to raising funds but emphasizes the importance of finding the right investors.
Actionable Tips:
- Strategic Investors: Seek investors who can provide valuable connections and insights, not just capital. It is such a common story of founders struggling from bringing in the wrong investors that is is practically a fable.
- Solid Foundation: Ensure you have a solid product and higher valuation before seeking external funding. It will make the process of finding investment easier, and better allow an entrepreneur to come to the table with some cards with which to negotiate.
Conclusion: Embrace the Journey
Anchala’s journey as a founder is a testament to the challenges and rewards of building a startup. Her insights on team building, embracing imperfection, managing work-life balance, strategic pivoting, and funding provide valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Key Takeaways:
- Complementary Skills: Build a team with complementary skills and trust.
- Iterate and Improve: Embrace imperfection and continuously iterate based on feedback.
- Dedication: Understand the demands of founding a startup and prioritize tasks effectively, with the wisdom of experts where possible.
- Flexibility: Be open to pivoting your strategy based on market feedback.
- Funding: Evaluate the best funding strategy for your startup based on the current status, not just the future potential, and seek strategic investors.
By embracing these lessons and remaining patient and adaptable, aspiring entrepreneurs can navigate the complexities of the startup journey and build successful ventures.
You can listen to our edited podcast under Founders Voyage on your favorite podcast platform or directly on our website: https://www.foundersvoyage.org/
If you’d like to support the Founder’s Voyage podcast that we have been working hard to edit, you can donate to that directly through our Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/foundersvoyage
If you wish to get in touch with Anchala, you can find her LinkedIn here.
To learn more about Multiply you can find them here.