Top Mistakes We’ve Made at cleverbridge
Today, we are having our monthly Everest Program meeting at Catapult Chicago where we bring three to four of cleverbridge’s most experienced employees to share their knowledge with the companies that are members of Catapult. It’s a great way for us as a relatively successful tech startup to take some of our lessons learned and give back to the next generation of successful companies.
This time we are talking about the top mistakes made at cleverbridge. Of course, over 9 years we have made lots of mistakes, but this list focuses on the early years.
1. Not firing fast enough - Almost every successful CEO says it, but not removing an underperforming employee fast enough is one of their biggest admitted mistakes. Frequently the first time CEO takes the approach that “he/she isn’t doing that bad and we just need to get them to do X better,” but the reality is that if the person comes in with experience, you don’t have time to carry them along when they are one of twenty employees or fewer. It’s never easy to do, but you have to make quick decisions and move on for the best of the company.
2. Too passive sales approach - We had great connections in our industry and did a good job of landing them, however we should have reached out much broader within our target market to acquire more clients faster. Tactically, this means that even though your title doesn’t say “sales,” “account” or “manager,” you can certainly help with prospecting, intro emails, work your LinkedIn network and anything else in your free time. The more clients, the easier it is to acquire more clients.
3. Growing point to point - Since we were bootstrapped, we were always focused on how the company was progressing month-to-month. Should we hire another customer service person? Invest in a new developer? Expand the sales team? Of course, you have to make those decisions too, but if we had planned the next five steps instead of stopping to talk about each step each time, we could have moved faster.
4. Waiting for “that pretty girl” to notice us - We had several cases where we had opportunities to win clients that would have had a dramatic impact on our organization due to their revenue or the attention that we would need to pay them. Each time, the deal fell through for different reasons and in each case we lost something more valuable than anything: time. Don’t get caught hoping to hit the home run when what you need as a startup is singles and doubles.
5. Not knowing how to get proper PR - When we chose to invest in PR, and I see a lot of startups at 1871 and Catapult that can use this advice, we went back and forth between doing it ourselves and hiring an outside firm. Neither one worked well for us. In doing it ourselves no one was focused (or experienced) on that front so we weren’t successful. In outsourcing it, we didn’t want to spend decent money on it without some semblance of a guarantee of success so the outsourced PR firm was handcuffed. Don’t be bashful about spending money here, either insource or outsource, because perception is reality and a strong PR person can dramatically change your business for the better.
Let me know what areas of mistakes that you would like me to write about in future posts. I definitely have enough material to cover client management, customer service, company organization, sales and marketing.
