…Continued from Part 1
My internal dialog on my way into the office, at the gym, going to bed, really any idle moment has begun to sound like this, If we don’t scale users of the platform we can’t invest in a UI developer as soon as we’d like. If we don’t establish the right strategic partnerships early Explorics won’t scale as quickly as we know it can. If the new revenue is not sufficient we will not be able to hire the next sales person I have slated for Q2 2018. Phew, it’s enough to keep a CRO up at night (and occasionally does).
I had lunch with Explorics Board Member and my good Friend, Kyle York, yesterday. Kyle has been in my shoes before having been part of the founding team at Dyn (acquired by Oracle). For all of my stress about the tactical effort of creating and growing a pipeline that will sustain us into the future our conversation taught me something. A startup isn’t about me as the CRO trying to boil the ocean, it’s about all the little things. It’s about laying the foundation. It’s about establishing credibility in the market, it’s about creating a footprint of thought leadership and market engagement, it’s about letting the world know who Explorics is and why they should care. It’s about this very blog post.
What I have learned is, my old mantra no longer holds true the way it once did and that’s okay. The new reality for me is that when it comes to running a tech startup LOTS of things happen BEFORE you sell something. Like a physical building the foundation is a very important step and one that should not be rushed…even by an overzealous sales exec.
We have a proven product in the Explorics platform, paying customers and I have a brilliant cofounder in Evan York. We have an active and supportive board in Kyle York and Travis York and are entering the market at the right time.
Give me a call and see what the fuss is all about. After all, the mantra may be changed but I still need to sell something.
Thanks for reading.