Blog post by Harjaap Singh
Lessons learned from getting a bootstrapped company to revenue
By Harjaap Singh Makkar
There’s only one thing that keeps a startup alive — is there enough money in the bank?
Zonado (external link, opens in new window) is the first startup that I’ve worked on and I’ve probably made every mistake in the book. Nevertheless, the very curvy road has led Zonado to become a revenue-generating startup within a year of its inception. As I write this, the golden snitch we’re chasing is cash flow positivity — the holy grail for bootstrapped startups.
If I were to go back in time and share a few pieces of advice with Harjaap from 2020 — these are the things I would tell him not to do.
1. Sell to everyone all at once:
Here’s a friendly word of caution: do not try to sell your minimum viable product to hundreds or thousands of customers at once, while tailoring the marketing, and the price to a target that is somewhere in the middle of the curve.
Ultimately, no amount of laptop stickers, branded t-shirts, Excel projections, pitch decks, or slick landing pages will make you more of an entrepreneur than this one magical moment: when someone pays you money for what you’ve worked day and night to build. Until this happens, keep yourself laser-focused on getting here.
Got your first customer? Good — learn from the experience and get to your first 10.
There? Great — now look back and ask yourself — which channels did these 10 customers come from? How did they adopt the product? How much did they pay? When did they stop using the product?
This data will uncover just about every unbiased pattern and insight about the future of the company you’ll need at this time. This is the part when you put your foot on the gas to get to your first 1000 customers through laser-focused marketing that resonates with your people, without breaking the bank.
When we completed this exercise after reaching our first 10 customers, we came to a few key realizations which intuitively helped us map out our next steps.
Insight 1: Of the 5 acquisition channels we usually focus on, 2 have yielded 100% of our revenue to date (fun fact: neither of them is paid media).
Action: Double down on these channels and invest effort in optimizing them instead of adding more channels to the funnel.
Insight 2: Commercial real estate is far too broad of a category — our expertise is in 3 asset classes:
1. Land
2. Retail (especially retail-based businesses)
3. Multifamily
Action: Focus on new user outreach and content creation to cater specifically to these asset classes.
Insight 3: Zonado’s zone of genius consists of sale and purchase transactions, not leasing.
Action: De-prioritize features that only benefit leasing and focus entirely on equipping buyers and sellers with the tools they need. Adjust brand messaging to be more targeted toward this group.
Let’s take a second to think about another arena where targeted messaging matters — politics. Party strategists know all too well that if their narrative doesn’t alienate ~30% of the electorate, then it probably isn’t a good narrative. It’s no different for you and your product. Aim for the niche and make them fall in love with the product, — then work your way outward. 100 users who love your product > 1000 users who think it’s okay (shoutout to Anthony Nguyen - one of Zonado’s earliest supporters and my personal mentor - for this direct quote).
2. Start selling when only when you’re finished building:
I get it. First impressions matter so you want your product to look and work better than that of the company which commands a small army of engineers and is flush with $100M in the bank. But in reality — any feature is only as exciting as the number of people benefiting from it.
Keep your eyes on getting the word out there, talking to people, and building relationships while you grow. Use your growth to increasingly incorporate user activity into product decisions. Most features will look impeccable to you as you build them. But you’ll have to learn to reserve your judgement until you’ve watched real users interact with — or disregard 😭 — these very features.
Oh, and that ‘if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.’ quote from Henry Ford that you’ve seen in 20 different places? Please ignore it. You will need to talk to your users.
Sign off your emails with your direct number, call new users proactively, and go where they hang out — virtually or IRL. Talking to them will tell you what’s great about your product, and what downright sucks about it (yes, those conversations are coming too).
Here’s a hint: each one of your first few bits of revenue will likely come from one-on-one customer conversations that you’ll initiate. Have as many of those as you can starting today.
3. Take on 8 initiatives, all at once:
Did you know that as a startup founder, you need to do everything, all day, every day? Get ready to host the new webinar series, while writing some kick-ass educational content, while also working on a complete overhaul of 2 major features of the product. Don’t forget to watch user recordings, create catchy emails, test out your new revenue source, and work on data integration with that 3rd party website. All the best, champ!
Please stop. You don’t have 24 hours. You don’t even have 8 hours. You likely only have 3 — that’s it. Based on a good amount of research, that’s the number of hours that are optimally productive.
Don’t write down 11 things you need to do at the beginning of the day and constantly fall short — you’ll damage your self-confidence despite working your butt off. That’s no fun.
Instead, fight one battle at a time. Section off days to work on specific things — that new email automation that you think will drive upgrades? Block off half of Friday in your calendar and do only that. Knock it out of the park and click your heels on your way home at the end of the day. 🏁
Bringing it all together
The ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, boiled all his teachings down to 3 ideas.
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, and compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”
Simplicity
Simplicity will get you past the boundless complexities that you can conjure up around your business model and priorities if you let your mind run free. If you find yourself having to explain and re-explain a strategy to your partner, or even yourself then it’s a tell-tale sign that executing it will be no less complex.
Think of it this way: if you can’t condense your product’s value down to one simple sentence, it probably means that you’ll struggle to make it real.
Patience
Patience is what will prepare you for the long haul that you’re signing up for. It will save you from setting unachievable goals. It will teach you that there’s only one way to eat an elephant — one bite at a time.
Most importantly, it will allow you to be kind to yourself, celebrate small wins, and avoid the killer of all good ideas and the mother of poor execution — burnout.
Compassion
Remarkable customer experiences stem from nothing but compassion. One of my favorite YouTubers of all time is Marques Brownlee. When talking about his creative process recently, he shared that his supreme guiding principle is to make videos that he would want to watch. At 16 million subscribers as of today, this principle has served him well.
Sit down and ask yourself — would you use your product? Better yet — would you pay for it?
If there’s only one thing that you’ll retain from this piece, let it be this: take every single opportunity to talk to your users one-on-one. All the revenue you’ll ever earn will come from one place and one place only — their wallet.
About Zonado:
Zonado was started after the brother-sister team of Harjaap Singh and Suhavi Makkar struggled to find warehouse space for their parents’ growing business in Brampton. A deeper look at the industry revealed an opportunity to build a modern solution.
Today, after having onboarded 3,000+ real estate professionals and billions of dollars of commercial real estate properties from across Canada, Zonado thrives because of the support it receives from Brampton Venture Zone. From funding, to access to experienced advisors, as well as a network of bright fellow entrepreneurs, this program has created value for Zonado in a multitude of ways. Most recently, the support received from BVZ has enabled Zonado to build out a strategic roadmap for its future while experimenting with newer methods of monetization and growth.
Zonado’s Impact on Brampton:
Smooth and efficient commercial real estate transactions of commercial real estate are critical to the long-term success of Brampton as it is designated as an urban growth area by the Province of Ontario. Home to a diverse economy with a mix of manufacturing, retail, and service sectors, Brampton’s businesses rely on access to the right physical spaces for their success. Zonado aims to continue to service this community and create economic opportunities for the city that both founders call home.