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Thoughts on 'Startup Advice in Exactly Three Words'

April 21st, 2010 | Customer Support,KikScore & KikReport,Online & Small Business Resources,Small Business,Small Business Tips | No Comments »

I recently stumbled upon this post by Dharmesh Shah on the OnStartups.com blog that got me thinking about the time that we have spent working on KikScore.  In this post Dharmesh comes up with 47 different 3 word phrases that offer advice to others while trying to start-up a new company.  After already having worked on our start-up company for the past 3 years, these pieces of advice triggered a few memories that enforced Dharmesh’s advice for me through these experiences.  Below I picked out a few of the phrases that rang true for me the most and I explain why I feel strongly about these.

Support customers maniacally – This could not be more true for the customers we currently have on our application.  Any customer issue that we receive immediately goes to the top of the priority list in order to address it immediately.  I think that this is a no-brainer for any business but especially for companies just starting out.

Persist through downturns – About 6 months after we started working on KikScore we entered into the recession that we have just now begun to dig out of.  While this definitely wasn’t ideal, I think that it made us focus more on our product and customers and will make us a better company in the long run.  I think that a lot of companies that make it through this recession will be better for it and it will help them learn a lot of lessons that they otherwise may not have.

Improve product daily – We are constantly looking for ways to improve our product and prioritizing these enhancements for release.  I think that it is very important for start-up companies to be regularly adding functionality to their products in order to make current and potential customers happy.

Use your product – Just about everyone on the KikScore team has either used the product themselves on a site they own or worked closely with a friend or family member to use it on their site.  I think that this has allowed us to get a unique perspective on our product and helped us improve it more efficiently for other customers to use.  I think this is important because sometimes the very companies that make great products don’t always use them and over time they become outdated because they don’t have that “real world” experience.

Do any of these items above, or the other 43 pieces of advice that Dharmesh offers, remind you of a decision you made while working on your business? 

(By the way, I must admit that I re-used the picture of the puppies on this post from Dharmesh’s post on the OnStartups.com blog.)

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