In the last two weeks, it felt like I was Neo from the Matrix, slowing down time after Q1 and dodging some bullets that commonly hit startups in the process. It hit (better yet grazed) me twice that I had 1) shifted – ever so slowly – towards selling features and not 2) taking the time to hone in on the perceived problems, solutions, and emotions of my prospects.
Luckily I have a community around me that helped me wake up.
Reflection Inflection
At the end of every quarter, as we draft new OKR’s (Objective Key Results), there is this moment where we collectively look in the mirror and see past victories and challenges. Our victory was growing revenue as a result of our empathetic AI’s successfully competing with traditional debt collectors. My personal challenge had been to silence the noise – inherent with being in a startup – and laser focusing on sales.
Right as I finished drafting the KR’s (Key Results) that would lead me to a relatively state of “sales Zen”, I received a nudge from one of our VC’s. In quick succession Iterative – which I can’t rate highly enough – was organizing talks by Ned Philips and Mat Ward on sales. As I listened to these two Morpheuses, they talked about the fact that “people buy on emotions, and justify with logic” and you “shouldn’t sell, solve”.
As I left the talk, I quickly opened my sales presentation with sweaty palms, “OH NO! SO MANY FEATURES!”. This escalated to perfuse sweating as I realized that I would soon pitch the Chief Operating Officer of Malaysia’s biggest consumer lending organization. This morphed into a 10 second long comedic existential crisis: “Do I even know what my prospects feel at all… Is this air I’m breathing?!”.
Back to the user
The day after I texted Sugumar Arunasalam – former CFO of a lending company turned endearingly passionate real estate agent – and asked him for a coffee. Half-way through my flat white I shared my “solutions vs. features” predicament and sprung the question on him, “Sugumar, what are the key drivers and frustrations that make BNPL’s outsource collections?”. In authentically direct, funny, and insightful fashion he responded:
“Look, honestly it was quite simple. We were running on Excel sheets – no automation! By the time our guy got to the ball, it was already late. You needed to hit them automatically! Our collection guy could only reach 10 people per day. If I tell him ‘collect 100,000 this month’ – impossible! He’ll never do it. Then his number gets blocked, now what? You also got the headache of staff – they need managers, supervisors, higher pay. When then number of outstanding accounts goes down, you still carry this guy on payroll.”
A journey that started with a reflection that pushed me into a tiny existential crisis transformed into an opportunity that – once again – helped me refocus on understanding the challenges and aspirations of my customers.
PS. If you were wondering, the meeting with the COO went well!
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