Founder stories: A scientific approach to end-to-end revenue generation
What inspired you to start Growblocks?
I have worked in different startups over time - from revenue operations to becoming Chief Revenue Officer. After the pandemic, the company I was working for at the time was eventually sold to Xero - and I was looking for a new challenge. My now Co-founder was in a similar position, so we started exploring some ideas. We noticed that a full end-to-end revenue tool was missing, and this is what eventually became Growblocks: A tool allowing revenue teams to do everything from revenue modelling and planning to monitoring and analytics.
Was being a founder something you always wanted to do?
There was always the urge to start my own business, and both my co-founder and I had developed experience over the years that gave us the confidence to give it a try. Looking back, there was definitely a little bit of arrogance and ignorance involved when it comes to what it actually means to be a founder - and how difficult it can be. I am still very happy that we took that risk. You never want to end up at a point in your life where you didn’t at least try.
As a founder, what are some of the challenges you have been facing in the last couple of months and how did you overcome these?
Time management has definitely been one. As a founder, you naturally start off with a really small team so you end up having to deal with all these different tasks. Unfortunately, you only have limited time and, in some cases, you may also not have the experience which means that you will have to spend even more time acquiring knowledge and skills to perform some of these tasks on your endless To-do list.
What I have learned is that you need to choose wisely what you are focusing your time on. It’s worth outsourcing certain tasks to people who can do them better or more efficiently: that’s how we came across Scaleup FInance. It’s great that I no longer have to spend hours on strategic or operational finance tasks. Now I can focus on other essential aspects of building and growing Growblocks.
Before starting your own business you probably had expectations of what being a founder would be like. What were those and how do you reflect back on this now? What surprised you?
When you are employed in a startup or company of a certain size and maturity, you dismiss some of the really important things that you need. You need to find product-market fit, build a brand, get your operations and processes in place - the list is endless.
When we started Growblocks, I was aware that things may not be easy all the time but I completely underestimated the time and energy necessary to develop some of the building blocks every startup needs. My experience is that when you are in the position of an employee rather than a founder, you take a lot of these things for granted. Theoretically, I should have been aware of the amount of work necessary to get things up and running because I worked for startups before and somehow I still ended up being surprised in some instances.
On top of that, the process of building your own business is an emotional rollercoaster. You have days where you may be getting great feedback from potential investors - which puts you in a great mood - and then 5 minutes later you receive an email from a customer who isn’t happy with your product. I am just having to constantly switch between ups and downs so much more than I originally expected.
What has been one of the biggest learnings on your founder journey so far?
When we started Growblocks, we didn’t have a product ready to sell. What I learned quite early on was that even when you don’t have a product to sell yet, you still have a story to share. That’s why I became very active on LinkedIn - to share that story and use it to start positioning Growblocks as a Brand very early on. I definitely had to step out of my comfort zone here because I am naturally more of an introvert. It’s definitely been worth it though because it’s become one of the most valuable channels for Growblocks as a Brand.
Reflecting back on your founder journey, what piece of advice would you want to give others thinking of starting their own business?
When building your own company, one thing you will have to make sure is being noticed. Some startups don’t make it in the long run because their product isn’t good enough. But one of the major risks that I see a lot of founders underestimate is not building out enough top funnel. Your product can be the most amazing thing but that won’t help you if people don’t know about it - so go out there and make as much noise as possible!