Hans Hickler - Put experience on your side

Ao trabalhar com minhas startups de logística no Brasil, percebi algo em comum que desponta como um valor agregado: a plataforma.

A Mandaê, CargoX, Comprovei e Athenas possuem propostas de valor muito diferentes e disruptivas, propondo-se a resolver oportunidades únicas na área de logística.

O que recai no cerne delas e aparece como um fator muito importante é que todas são empresas de tecnologia e, mais do que isso, empresas de plataforma.

E o que isso significa?

É muito mais do que uma boa tecnologia. Plataformas oferecem recursos eficientes de integração para consumidores e parceiros, impulsionando os dados que circulam pelo processo. Esses dados são usados para otimizar a eficiência, entregar análises de produtividade e melhorar o planejamento.

As plataformas permitem a intersecção entre a conectividade de informação e a ciência de dados, entregando um valor imensurável.

Recentemente, discuti esse ponto com o CEO de uma das startups brasileiras que estou envolvido: “O valor dessa empresa, que resulta em retorno aos acionistas, é a plataforma. Ela não é só o motor de produtividade para gerar uma boa margem, mas também permite a escalabidade do negócio, assim como a produção e integração de novos produtos”, ele me disse.

A proposta de valor da Mandaê é oferecer aos clientes uma plataforma de envios que une uma grande rede fragmentada de transportadoras, conecta todas as pontas da cadeia e oferece uma experiência de entrega inovadora e descomplicada. A plataforma oferece dashboards de performance e o gerenciamento de dados para otimização logística. Ela traduz a necessidade dos consumidores em uma boa rota, executando as operações de forma eficaz. A plataforma dispõe de uma integração fácil para novos parceiros da rede e uma inovação disruptiva de produtos criativos para os clientes.

A plataforma da Athenas integra múltiplos parceiros reguladores e logísticos em um sistema compreensível de operação em terminais, o TOS+. Ao usar tecnologia de vanguarda, como plugin extensível, conectividade de Internet das Coisas (IoT), planejamento 3D em tempo real e otimização de inteligência artificial, TOS+ desponta como uma plataforma única em seu segmento. Ela também será capaz de visualizar as operações em terminais e fornecer análises de big data para melhoria em performance e produtividade.

A plataforma da CargoX é o segredo do seu sucesso como um agente eletrônico que desfruta de uma rede própria, reunindo milhares de clientes e caminhoneiros. A plataforma é a barreira contra o avanço de concorrentes e é o elemento precioso da startup. Automação, análise tática de dados e triangulação de rota são as soluções à disposição dos cliente e caminhoneiros. Além disso, ações como planejamento, execução e capacidade de escala são todas feitas pela plataforma.

A Comprovei usa uma plataforma algorítmica para planejar e otimizar múltiplos pontos de parada durante a rota de entrega. Com 16 milhões de entregas até o momento e mais de 1,5 milhões de entregas por mês planejadas e executadas, a startup realiza todo esse feito com uma equipe de apenas 10 pessoas. A plataforma facilita a interação entre clientes e caminhoneiros e possui interfaces relevantes TMS e API quando solicitadas, além de dados para o planejamento e aperfeiçoamento de rotas.

O sucesso depende bastante não apenas da tecnologia inovadora, mas do desenvolvimento de plataformas que levam a execução, produtividade, facilidade para o cliente, ciência de dados e escalabilidade. É isso que impulsiona o valor da empresa no momento do desinvestimento!

Herr Schnerr – It’s All Coming Back Now

I give a presentation to University Students in which I do a “career walk” , connecting the dots of the major decisions and pivotal moments in my career and the lessons that I learned from them. I begin the presentation with guidance my father gave me as I left college. One of the students in the class asked me, “Is there anything else prior to your first job where you could connect the dots?”…

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Entrepreneurs – Taken By Surprise – Investor Money

In my ongoing series on Entrepreneurs Taken By Surprise. I asked some of the institutional investors I work with on their perspective. Doug Jaffe, Managing Director at Caldera Pacific in Hong Kong gave me his perspective, focusing on the impact of investor stipulations when things end up not going as planned for the venture: “No matter how often you explain the terms of an investment and what it…

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Continuing my series on asking some of the entrepreneurs I work with about the biggest thing that took them by surprise, or something they underestimated, Matthew Wensing, CEO of Riskpulse, has been building a business that uses weather and risk data to optimize supply chain efficiency and cost.

Matthew talks about how understanding your market is much more complicated than we initially think:

“One thing that was surprising is the depth of a market. Meaning, you choose to focus on a niche thinking it’s small and then realize that it’s an entire industry. Then you focus again and realize the same thing. Which means there’s much more to learn than you realize … at least 5x-10x more.

For example, supply chain is huge, so you might pick transportation, then transportation is huge so you pick temperature sensitive transportation, then you realize there’s pharma and food and others.

Then you realize there are entire companies that just make the boxes that ship pharma products, and some of them are suited for air travel versus ocean versus rail versus truck. Endless specialization.”

Matthew is spot on! More importantly he hits on the crucial point that you can never know too much about the market you are serving, about the customers you are serving.

Add to that, you will have product pivots, and you will find that your product resonates better with certain customers than with others (which customers will pay for your products) – so, how well you know your market and its customers is hugely important; and with every pivot, with every narrower focus, comes an absolute necessity to understand the target market deeper.

Entrepreneurs usually start their businesses with a rudimentary to,at best, a good knowledge of their market and customers. What is certain is that the landscape and the products of the business will evolve; therefore the customer and market focus evolves. Sometimes drastically.

Make customer and market understanding a core competency, and avoid some of the surprise!

I asked some of the entrepreneurs I work with about the biggest thing that took them by surprise, or something they underestimated, in starting their first ventures. @Marco Giberti, Founder and CEO of Vesuvio Ventures, has deep experience launching several startups and as a seasoned early-stage investor and business-builder. His response around working in the B2B environment is particularly poignant:

“My first startup was b2b related and I minimizde the long, painful and slow sales process around b2b and corporations in general and this is exacerbated with startups in particular because the additional challenges and risks that startups represents for corporate customers.”

We hear a lot about the difficulty to scale in the consumer environment. In B2B, it is no cakewalk! Several of my clients have found the above experience to be very real. While B2B has less customer acquisition fragmentation, your revenue targets are concentrated into bigger, fewer customer tranches.

Selling your great product to big businesses is often about pilots, aggressive pricing for “marquis” customers, long sales cycles.

Overcoming the hurdle of “we don’t integrate with startups”, “come back when you have traction” is hard enough when articulated by your potential customers - but often it is not. Businesses have their priorities and are often not geared to incorporate outside innovation (let alone inside innovation). Startups in the B2B must battle the prioritization triage that occurs daily in business.

Understand your customers well, and assure that your value can be articulated in an overwhelmingly compelling way so as to overcome these B2B hurdles.

I have been an early stage investor for quite some time, and have the pleasure of working with and investing in several on an ongoing basis in my business.

One of the things I value in the CEO of an early-stage company is their good stewardship of the funds with which their investors entrust them. An entrepreneur who manages expenses, does not let cost run away from them, is one who understands that there must always be a strong obligation to use invested funds to get the business to that next milestone.

Often, the executive has put everything they have into their venture. In addition sacrifices, to a significant level, they forsake their own income to assure that maximum funds are allocated to the business.

At the outset, such action by the entrepreneur is very appropriate. Early stage investors are investing in an idea, or at best in a most viable product where monetization and customer acquisition has yet to be proven.

However, as the business grows, and the venture moves beyond A-round of investment into more substantial rounds to scale proven models, I would argue that the income-selflessness of the entrepreneur can actually be detrimental – substantial time of minimal income has now passed for the entrepreneur, and the stress of no time off, constant pressure of the business and deep personal sacrifices, starts to take a toll.

Not good. This phase in an early stage company requires a balanced, forward thinking leader who takes risks and action of scale, of import. Bigger money is now being invested, investors are more astute and demanding, and the business levers are significant. At such a time, financial pressures on the entrepreneur risk comfort of shorter term-decision making (consciously or sub-consciously). Just at the time when staying power and steadiness of purpose are required, we do not want any financial concerns plaguing the entrepreneur.

As such, I am very much in favor of later investment rounds allowing the entrepreneur (and some other executives as required) to release some of their equity – to participate in the success of the venture to-date. Providing some surety to their personal situation, allows the entrepreneur to take the correct view of the business. Clearly, the entrepreneur and their team must continue to be adequately vested, but there is an opportunity to reap a little to provide needed peace of mind and personal staying power!

When my clients talk with me about what they want to achieve for the year, I inevitably walk to the whiteboard or tear out a page from my notebook and start to draw my Key Levers Chart.

It is about focus. It is about knowing which levers I have to pull in order to achieve my plan. The 80/20 rule. The priorities that matter. Where I focus the energy, resources and talents of my team.

Your plan is a function of two things:
The budget (revenue, margin, cost, EBITDA, profit…)
Initiatives to be achieved (eg Deliver next generation product, open office in Brazil, win business in Pharma…)

in order to meet the Plan, you identify the Key Levers, the priorities that must be delivered. These Levers are your 80/20 rule; they determine the success of your plan:
eg x revenue from top 20 customers
eg Increase margin by 60 basis points
eg Implement Customer Service Center in Manila
eg Finalize and implement with Brazil partner
eg Launch marketplace product by June 1 in US

Each Key Lever has a specific set of actions. Unlike your levers, which are your 80/20 rule, your Actions are specific and you should target that your Actions amount to 120% attainment of the Key Lever that they address- you won’t achieve all your Actions, you will miss on key assumptions. Your Actions are specific – WHO, WHAT, WHEN – they are embedded into your and your team’s objectives.

This is here the rubber hits the road!
• Don’t accomplish the Actions and you don’t accomplish the Key Levers.
• Don’t accomplish the Key Levers, and you don’t make your Plan.

Simple as that!

Once the Key Levers and Actions are defined, assign the Actions to your team and assure that:
• They map to the objectives (and variable compensation) you set for your team
• The Agenda of your meetings maps to them. (This is what you talk about)
• Your dashboard to track results maps to them (This is what you measure)
• You and your team’s time and resource allotment maps to them (This is where you spend your time)

While your Key Levers will likely not change throughout the year, your Actions might. As you track progress and results, and Key Levers are either at risk or over-delivering, you will find that adjustments need to be made. New Actions added to compensate or accelerate.

Plan
Key Levers
Action Items

Manage to that!

In working with early stage companies, I focus them on the proof-points they want to nail, in time for the next inflection point of their business, often coinciding with a next series round of investment.

Why is this important? Proof–points are company deliverables that have to be completed in time for that inflection point, that next fundraising. They are as important as any other objectives you have set for your business. If you don’t achieve them, then you are not prepared for the next inflection point, convincing your investors to invest.

Ask yourself, “what do I want to be able to show my investors with case studies and proof-points so that there is no doubt about our capability?”

What do you want to prove?

Depending on the traction of the company, the proof-points that need to be reached vary but they typically fall along the lines of product development and rollout, customer/revenue traction, market penetration, organization and talent build-out.

For example, all too often I see startups and early stage companies focusing on revenue traction. In reality, the proof-points to be established for that next round of investors are likely to have more nuance than that.

• Prove that we can scale with multinational customer across markets
• Prove that sales channel can be x % of business
• Prove that product x can be upsold
• Prove that monetization targets (what we charge) can be met
• Prove retention of customers

set targets and ownership on your team for each proof-point and manage to them!

In the same manner, while talent acquisition and organizational depth are always on the mind of the early stage CEO, often they are not viewed as critical levers to be attained as part of making the case for new investment. Wrong. By the time you get to series A or B rounds, the scrutiny you received about your team in the seed round will pale in comparison. Investors are looking at the following proof-points:

o Are you organized for success?
o Do you have a solid team with skills, experience and hunger?
o Have you built key components of the organization that allow you to achieve this next phase of scale? (and can you show me your hiring plan once money comes in?)

Set your company plan across key deliverables/levers that must be achieved in order to attract that next round of investors. Consider these proof-points as important as any other deliverable and manage your business accordingly. For example, it might be better to grow 25% and prove customer up-selling with a few case studies versus 35% per month and not prove that.

Be laser-focused on your proof-point deliverables and you will be set up to win that next round.