Why do we call it a “deadline” when the goal is to bring something to “life” by that time? š¤
Yes, your work might come to an end, but its impact might begin.
Yes, you might finish some tasks, but it might start showing outcomes.
Maybe we should call it ā ālaunch timeā āsomething that would come into existence by that time. š¤·āāļø
Most of the SaaS and Enterprise software is built mostly for single-purpose or single-user workflows.
In a cloud-first and remote-first work environment, we need a different kind of software.
All SaaS and Enterprise software will need to be:
ā¢ Intelligent out of the box
ā¢ Collaborative and real-time
ā¢ Deeply integrated across other workflow apps
ā¢ Secure & privacy enabled
ā¢ Super intuitive & delightful to use
These are “table stakes” requirements now.
What separates a great salesperson from a good one?
It’s the same thing for a marketer, copywriter, engineer, lawyer, surgeon, and many others.
They know more.
There are only 3 ways they can know more:
1. They have more experience
2. They seek more knowledge
3. They continuously apply their knowledge
1. The hack to gain more experience at less age is to be more curious and take risks to work at small-scale companies.
The first job I got in 2002 after college was with one of India’s largest IT providers – Infosys.
I left it in 8 months, took a 40% pay cut, and went to work for a 100 person company.
2. The hack to seek more knowledge is to have a growth mindset and devour as many books and training as possible on the subject matter.
I’m an engineer by education, but people get surprised by how much I know about UX Design principles, Sales methodologies, or Copywriting.
All credit goes to reading a lot of books and taking online courses.
3. The hack to apply more knowledge is to try more in your day job but also do side hustles.
The only way I became an SW engineer from an HW engineer, or a product manager from an engineer, or a salesperson from a PM is – my side hustles.
So invest in yourself and know more than others.
When we had launched Avoma, we allowed anyone to sign-up with their personal email address to try it out.
But now we stopped doing that and have added more friction. Here is why…
It’s about “The Extra Effort” they have to take to demonstrate their commitment.
With the previous approach, people were not committed.
We would follow-up with them, but they would not reply.
Neither they used Avoma actively, nor they bought it.
That makes sense, as they didn’t have any meetings on their personal calendar.
They just wanted to “check it out.”
And we had many competitors also who signed up with their personal or random email addresses “to get inspiration”. šš
And it was our mistake in the first place to keep it open.
But it’s better late than never.
We finally decided to block signups from personal email addresses.
Yes, we are going to piss-off a few people and disappoint them.
Yes, we are adding more friction to the user experience.
But we want people who are willing to take that “extra effort of commitment” with Avoma.
If you sign up with your work email address, we will strive to deliver the best possible experience for you.
Sometimes you have to add more friction to provide the best experience to the right customers.
Attention to detail is probably the most underrated attribute because of which many organizations are inefficient.
Every spelling or grammatical mistake, UI inconsistency, confusing copy, branding mismatch, etc., are typically considered as nitpicking and not necessary.
But these details matter.
And it starts with leaders.
If leaders don’t care, why should employees?
Attention to detail is about getting the small things right.
Attention to detail is about building a consistent habit.
Attention to detail is about building a culture of caring.
Attention to detail is about being passionate about your craft.
Attention to detail is about walking that extra mile but leaping miles ahead (in your career).
“Business Strategy Framework” is a framework about how you think about your focus and strategy for Engineering Platform, Product, and your Go-To-Market.
Let’s consider an example. AtĀ Avoma, we’re building an AI-meeting assistant.
From a use-cases perspective, there are many different kinds of meetings. Everyone’s workflows, pain points, and needs are very different.
When we decided to build Avoma, obviously, we could have built a horizontal AI meeting assistant to serve every single meeting use case.
But that would have been a bad business strategy, especially when you’re a startup and just starting out š.
Instead,
ā¢ We built the engineering platform and AI tech in the most scalable way to evolve into future use cases
ā¢ From the product perspective, we decided to focus on only customer-facing (Sales & Customer Success) external meetings
ā¢ From the GTM perspective, we reach out to the VP of Sales and Customer Success persona
Hope you’ll find this framework helpful when you makeĀ strategyĀ andĀ prioritizationĀ decisions in your company.
Aditya Kothadiya 