This is a guest blogpost by Eurosender’s COO, Silvana Rodríguez. They pitched at Lisbon Investment Summit 2016 and now Silvana shares some of the best practices from their experience at Eurosender.
Last 7 th and 8 th of June, Eurosender had the pleasure to attend the Lisbon Investment Summit organized by Beta-i. It was not only a great opportunity to reach out and connect with investors, but also to share good practices with many interesting startups, all trying to find their way towards becoming unicorns!
As briefly mentioned in our 3-minute pitch, according to my point of view Eurosender’s success is a result of three key characteristics. I proceed to naming and explaining them with some concrete examples:
1. Being extremely capital efficient
The discussion regarding capital efficiency being a myth will not be considered in this post. I personally believe that capital efficiency does exist and that “Capital efficient startup” is not an oxymoron. Here are two situations that have helped Eurosender shift towards capital efficiency, which your startup may find useful:
a) By quickly identify blood-sucking partners and stopping cooperation right away
It’s hard to tell when a partner has stopped acting in good faith for the benefit and growth of your startup. Agencies working for a fixed monthly sum, for example, are easy to fall into the non-cooperative area and to stay in their comfort zone of doing the minimum effort and waiting for the juicy check at the end of the month. It is critical to identify this situation as soon as possible and to cut it immediately. In startups every penny is usually obtained with a lot of effort and, if used properly, 1 EUR can go a long way.
b) By identifying the successful channels and prudently sticking to them
This is not an absolute NO to innovativeness and to thinking outside of the box; but it is an absolute YES to being rational and sticking to what has proven successful. Please consider that what works for one industry doesn’t work for another: advertising through social media can be very successful for some, and can be a catastrophe for others.
2. Being bold but mindful when making decisions.
For example, hire slow, fire fast:
A great part of a startup’s success is determined by having the right amount of highly motivated people working and living for the company. Although a challenge, it is of paramount importance. This is why hiring process should be made consciously as you can’t afford to pay for someone that doesn’t truly become an asset. On the other hand, having unmotivated free-riders can really rotten the organisation from the inside, as they not only affect their own scope of work, but they influence the motivated ones into also becoming slackers. Identify them and act quickly.
3. Having a rock-solid business idea and believing in it.
Coming up with a unique business idea is, in itself, quite a challenge. If you strongly believe (and have documented yourself sufficiently to believe) that yours is truly one-of- a-kind, make sure you and all your team besides you stand strong for the idea and can defend it. Investors and competitors smell fear and insecurity.
We’re always looking forward to hear your success story, and what made your startup become what you believe it is!