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behaviour future leadership strategy

Beginning of year 2019 post

The holiday period is always a good time to reflect on the year gone by, and to turn our minds to the future.
 
2018

We started in March 2018 with an idea that we had for a while: making debtor experience best it can be while making the collections process as efficient as it can be. 

I won’t dwell too much on 2018, but what another fantastic year for our business! We developed the product and accompanying service and started executing go-to-market, hired the the team and secured a business incubator backing.

We also learnt a lot on the way. However the key lesson for us would be that hyperrealism is a friend.

  • Assuming the product will resonate with the market (if untested) will most likely be proven wrong. On reflection this is obvious.
  • Product-market fit takes time. Assume you are wrong, so test. Don’t pitch to customers. Proof is to have a meaningful commitment: signed order, intro to a decision maker.
  • Message-market fit will come from talking to customers.
  • Deep analytical understanding is only possible with sufficient data being available.
  • Create your data by talking to customers, partners and competitors. Don’t pitch, think of uncomfortable question to ask, listen to answers and try to disprove your own world view.
  • Once you stop hearing new info you probably know enough to develop testable product hypothesis.
  • Product team needs to lave products (not just in your own domain). Actually better to have broader product experience than domain experience.
  • New product requires new thinking applied to proven product design. No need to invent unessential elements of your product. Use best practice for sign up, activation, integrations, security.

2019

Taking leanings from 2018, we are looking at 2019 with clear focus on go-to-market, building a strong team and serving our customers.