The 5 big lessons I've learnt from Geeks and Experts, so far.

I had some idea of what I had signed up for when I decided to go full-time on Geeks and Experts (formerly known as Gexpr) - a micro-consulting platform to connect on live 1:1 calls with domain experts. As I lay out an end-of-year plan for the goals I set to achieve for G&E, I can't help but celebrate the highs and yes, the lows of what it has taken to get here.

It's an understatement to say that the whole journey (read rollercoaster) has been a learning process and I'm humbled to be able to share mine so authentically. The more I embrace playing the long game, the more confident I feel about being vulnerable, sharing my failures, looking for lessons, not losses, and most importantly building grit and compassion.

Undoubtedly, we're going to make more mistakes as we go but I promise to keep documenting them to keep it real, to grow from, and to appreciate!

Lesson #1: Build in-house.
In the early stages, the biggest unfair advantage that any startup has is speed. If you are not answerable to a lot of investors, mentors and employees, you are the ultimate decision maker and you can course correct as and when you need, of course in tandem with your cofounders, if you have any. At G&E, we took the idea of building a micro-consulting platform directly to a team of outsourced developers. We thought we were taking advantage of a cost-effective means by hiring overseas talent and we felt okay comprising on the time component.

Until the clock. Reallllly. Starteddddd. To. Clickkkkk.

And, every minor update, came with a big overhaul of managing calls across timezones, and feedback loops from potential customers would take weeks if not days to complete (vs. hours now). This was also seen as a red flag by the investors and advisors we spoke to and rightly so. We couldn't fully control what we did not fully build.

Tech debt can be a deal breaker for many startups and the takeaway was to find a way to validate the idea with any scrappy methods possible, whether that is paid ads, landing pages, customer interviews, a newsletter, or an agile version of the MVP - which is what we did in the case of G&E by rebuilding fully in-house.

Lesson #2: Niche down on an audience.
Those of you who have followed my journey from the start, or before the start, know that I had incorporated a company, got a domain name, and created social media pages for G&E with a rough target audience in mind. I had done a lot of research via google forms, and paid surveys and had spoken to a lot of potential customers. Initially, I had relied more on secondary research and market reports, but very soon I realized that I needed to deep dive into customer interviews to draw out an ideal customer profile (ICP) that is very specific to the niche I am targeting.

This is where it started to get fun!

I realized I was talking to everybody with my product and as I result I was talking to nobody. With a niche audience, we were able to convert users to sign up at a much higher rate and the user acquisition that we achieved in a few months with the old product, was achieved in a few weeks with the new one.

We're still testing different hypotheses with our product as we go, but narrowing the focus has helped with finding out where potential customers are (Twitter, Reddit, Indie Hackers, Kernal, Product Hunt, etc.) and it has helped me talk to them to find inefficiencies or inconveniences that they might face so that I can take them from Point A to Point B.

Lesson #3: Share your journey.
I've shared some of these lessons in other blogs but one of the best investments I made in 2022 was to take charge of sharing my journey in public so as to not repeat the same mistakes I made. A big shoutout to Kevon, for his Build in Public Mastery which I had an opportunity to join. The community and content that Kevon brought with him gave me a sure-shot path to share my journey online, authentically. I highly recommend his course and content to anyone who is interested in learning more about Building in Public but doesn't know where to start.

This year I increased my luck surface area by writing online and I "lucked out" on the following opportunities/resources I wouldn't have otherwise:
-PR masterminds workshop.
-Customer discovery tools.
-Founder wellness coaching.
-Build in Public mentorship.
-Featured as a guest blog.
-Invited to podcast interviews.

As clichéd as the saying is, if you don't ask the answer will always be no. Ask for feedback. Ask for introductions. Ask for advice. So now, I make a deliberate attempt to offer and learn from others online as much as I can without expecting anything in return.

Lesson #4: Think about recurring revenue.
A viable, desirable, flexible, and ethical business model has to account for not only user acquisition but also recurring revenue or churn. Yes, the basic unit economics might seem obvious at first and that was the case with G&E. We had a target customer in mind, and we believed that high product differentiation, low marginal costs, and high network effects would offset low retention (B2C) until we worked on the B2B component.

What we failed to realize was that the B2B component in higher education institutions was a slow, lengthy sales cycle and had a lot of non-intuitive players such as admission consultants, school counselors, and most significant of all, parents of the students we were targeting.

With a moving target as the B2C component and a tough sell on the B2B component, you have to quickly pivot to test new hypotheses with new customers. The goal now is to "recruit" and not attract new users by solving their pain points.

Lesson #5: Play the long game.
I shared a bit about treating this journey like a marathon, not a sprint and my belief in this has solidified as it gives me the courage to approach things not to win every game but to play the game long enough. Persistence to keep going even when you don't see results is easier said than done - it's a muscle that needs flexing, every now and then.

It's taken me daily practice to change my mindset from "I HAVE to do this" and replace it with "I GET to this". When you have to wear one too many hats managing content, finance, customers, and pitches altogether it can feel overwhelming but that is when slowing down helps you move fast, and zooming out helps you focus.

Eventually, minor setbacks feel more like detours than roadblocks when you are not looking for a quick growth hack or a shortcut. So, playing the infinite game means a combination of everything from investing in yourself, gaining knowledge, and staying healthy, to finding a goal, achieving certain KPIs, and meeting interesting people along the way.

Have any interesting learnings from your journey as a founder? I'd love to know. You can schedule a call with me on G&E or follow me on LinkedIn, or Twitter.