2 gems from successful tech startups

Extracted from smart company’s tips from 13 entrepreneurs 

Listen to your customers

Dave Slutzkin , the head of website marketplace Flippa has heard plenty of advice in his day, but his favourite is a mantra for good customer service – although he can’t quite remember who told him the proverb.

“Customers have your best ideas,” he says.

“Both 99designs and Flippa came about largely when we started focusing on what our users were already doing on the SitePoint Forums way back when, and there’s obviously been a huge amount of success since.

“Since then we’re always concentrating on what our large user base is doing, because if we can make their lives easier with a new product then we can probably sell that to others in the world.”

Keep focused on one core product

Michael Fox, The co-founder of Shoes of Prey (an Australian Unicorn has a favourite piece of advice came from Mike Cannon-Brookes, (of Atlassian) “Keep focused on the one core product; don’t try to do more until you’ve nailed that.”

Plenty of entrepreneurs, such as Steve Jobs, have made their name on simplicity. Fox says success for him comes in the same vein.

“The few times we’ve been tempted to not follow that advice we’ve quickly realised our mistake.

“It’s kept us on the path of staying focused on women’s shoes only at Shoes of Prey and structuring Shoes of Prey and Sneaking Duck so they have two entirely separate teams.”

Posted on January 4, 2016