A year ago, we thought a good deal of lessons were behind us. After all, how clever we must be launching our company on the palindrome of the millennia: 02022020.
We set forth only to encounter challenges unlike any in history within a month of spinning up.
Fast forward to today and we find ourselves where we planned on being last February. A case and point for our first lesson:
Forget Your Plans
Our original plan was to build a product studio focused on high-risk, fast-paced product builds. As we watched 2020 unfold we made the decision to double down on existing client relationships and minimize our work on internal projects. This was partly out of risk mitigation and partly out of a desire to help other companies speed up their transition to the digital world.
We found it’s easy to take for granted the skills you use daily when working in tech. Teaching your grandma how to download and operate Zoom, though thankfully low-risk, highlights how wide the tech gap really is and how much value our knowledge can provide as people in this space.
Rather than force our personal agenda, we adapted to our market. A decision that led to a series of ideas and frameworks built out of a need to improve efficiency and reduce costs in our own and our client’s process.
“42% of small businesses fail because there’s no market need for their services or products.” [1]
Rethink traditional funding
We knew from the start we would be bootstrapping and we are a firm believer in profitability over hyper-growth (until the timing is right) but when the entire startup world gets a 47% reduction in seed funding [2], this impacts priorities and capital availability across the board.
We’ve made it a goal for ourselves to prioritize value generation over growth and to always look for ways to do more with less.
Digital is the New Default
Remote work is no longer a job perk for the knowledge work industry, it’s a necessity. This change brings new challenges and a need for massive improvements to tech across all industries.
Despite being seasoned remoters, finding ourselves thousand’s of miles apart in addition to quarantine, was a new experience. Like other teams, we’ve had to adapt our tools and schedule to improve communications amidst zero in-person interactions for the year. Miro ftw.
Opportunities we see from this shift: data security, network bandwidth, charging your laptop at the park”, “work from any possible space you can find”, “water-cooler” moments, (large) file transfers, contactless everything, collaborative tooling, and so much more.
“a PwC survey of 669 CEOs, 78% agree that remote collaboration is here to stay for the long-term” [3]
A More Private Internet
As long-time privacy advocates, having followed along with the work of the EFF, built blockchain products, and done our best to bake in privacy-centric ideas into our own products ( Gnokey ) we are excited to see conversations hitting the mainstream.
The trend of “Privacy-first” design and development is approaching swiftly and you’re going to want to be on the right side of the conversation.
“Some 81% of the public say that the potential risks they face because of data collection by companies outweigh the benefits” [4]
Think About Others, Not Yourself
The startup and VC industry has been focused on “unicorns”, “move fast and break things” and the latest “consumer trends” for a long time but we believe two things are happening:
1. A lot of people and ideas are at risk of being overlooked due to a lack of access to tech/resources and a misalignment of where capital goes and where capital is deserved.
“…1,383 companies raised a round … Only 31 of those startups, which together raised $114.8 million, had Black founders — about 2 percent.” [5]
2. There’s a significant shift happening in tech and the harsh reality is that the new top priority will need to be putting out fires (quite literally), instead of the latest zippy flying scooter idea
“Just because the VC gives you a million dollars and tells you grow faster, do you have better product market fit in that moment?” [6]
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As we run up on the end of our one-year anniversary/belated launch, we’re bullish on 2021 and are hopeful we can all learn and progress from our lessons of the last 12 months.
For us, we have funneled our experiences into a final sprint for the year. we decided to condense our original one year plan into a sprint over the last two months with one goal: ideate, design, and launch a series of products based on what we’ve learned.
We are excited to bring these to light and hope they can provide some value to you. Check it out here.
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[1] https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-businesses-fail
[2] https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/first-financings-us-vc-deal-value-2020
[3] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-agenda/ceo-panel-survey-emerge-stronger.pdf
[5] https://www.wired.com/story/venture-capital-2020-still-really-white/
[6] https://youtu.be/NVVsdlHslfI — 2:06
