Three months into building our own business. Here’s how it’s been.
Feb 6th, 2019 by Danilo Tesi
You never know until you do it
Based on previous assignments we had worked on together, we started building our business plan step by step. We thought we had it all figured out to the smallest detail but boy oh boy, little did we know!
As far as we can tell, things keep on changing by the day: with every interview we do, with every book we read, with every meeting we have. I’d even go as far as saying that what we thought was our service, wasn’t actually the service it’s become over the last few months.
There is just no way of anticipating the market’s reactions, questions, and feedback before you actually dare to confront yourself with it.
If there’s any tip that we’d have for our fellow entrepreneurs: just start at one point. You’ll figure the rest out as you walk.
It’s an uphill battle
It definitely depends on what your business is about but from our experience, it’s quite tough to convey the value of our work to potential clients. Not because what we offer isn’t great and important for our clients’ success but simply because we don’t sell tangible products or commodities. Whoever we’ll talk to, will have to think about our words and evaluate them. We can’t just say: here’s an amazing pair of shoes, try them and if you like them, we give you a nice discount. We sell a service that belongs to the realm of content strategy, cross-cultural communication, and user-centric asset development – many hyped words that companies have a hard time estimating the value of.
A possible tip for our fellow entrepreneurs: just sell shoes, everybody has an opinion about how much they should cost 😉
Let’s just work with Microsoft
Here’s the thing about reeeeaaaally being customer-centric. It sounds great but many companies aren’t really sure that they want to invest in it. How do we know? Businesses operating in the DACH market get very excited about Mango Kollektiv’s proposition but when they understand that it involves some financial investment, they start doubting whether it’s worth it. Why? Good question. The answer is psychology, we believe.
Humans are creatures of habit and the average business owner is no exception to that rule. Once they’re used to a certain way of going about things, it’s really hard to shake those routines up. In this case that might mean spending (a lot of) money on German advertising and business development while actually not knowing much about who their business is trying to sell to. The assumption: A/B tests, campaign optimization, and data scientists will make it happen. 2 years and many coins later …
However, the big players are miles ahead when it comes to practicing the user-centricity that they preach. Microsoft, Nike, Booking.com, and Amazon are just a few examples when it comes to leading the customer-centric future of co-created products.
Want inspiration? Listen to this episode of The Content Strategy Podcast.
Our conclusion: we need to work with Microsoft LOL.
Find your allies
Starting a business is tough already. Doing so without any partners is even tougher.
Just imagine: your company is ready to start operating, your website just went live and 3, 2, 1…..
Of course, you can start reaching out but there’s a reason why companies hire sales reps – it’s not that easy (and I, Danilo, have done quite some sales in my life). Quick challenge: think of a business you’d like to work with, find the right person to talk to on LinkedIn and now create a meaningful connection with them by email or phone. Except: where do you get their email and phone number from?
Creating content is another option. It’s fun, it’s a good way to talk about all things related to your core business and it reaches people. Sometimes more than expected (sometimes less). But does it sell? Well, not directly. It might in the long run but as we experience it, it supports building your brand more than it generates income.
So what’s with the allies? Well, you need them. First of all, they can give you valuable feedback. Secondly, they have a network that you don’t have. Just make sure to choose your partners wisely as you want the collaboration to create a win-win situation ideally.
In our case, that meant joining the network of the DNHK (German-Dutch Chamber of Commerce) and partnering up with companies who can potentially reach new clients through us.
Bottom line
Building a business is a lot of fun, intense, challenging, tough, nerve-racking, disappointing, hilarious, ironic, tiring, and many more things all at once.
A few things worth knowing before you get to it:
- When it’s good enough, just start. You can’t control what’s gonna happen anyway.
- If you like shoes, sell shoes 😉
- Business owners, like all other humans, are creatures of habit. If you propose anything out of the ordinary, it’ll take more convincing.
- Create meaningful relationships with partners who can help you…and whom you can help when the time has come. It’ll make things easier.
- Finding contact details of a person online ain’t easy – unless they want you to find them
- We need to work for Microsoft…just saying
Let us know if you like this kind of content in the comments down below and we’ll try to keep you entertained. Until then – Stay Mango!
Danilo Tesi
Danilo is the co-founder of Mango Kollektiv. If you want to know more about him, click here.
If you want to find out how Mango Kollektiv’s culture-specific approach to consulting businesses can help you, click here.