The challenging path of a very early stage startup
After many years working in a large corporation and eighteen months doing an MBA, in 2019 I officially became an entrepreneur! Along with a cofounder, we launched a flower delivery company with a concept of promoting local producers and self-gifting. However, after a couple of months of developing our business, some bumps on the road made me stop and analyze the situation. I realized that not having a deep understanding of the main products that we were offering would cause negative effects for the company, despite trying to learn about them. In a large company, there are many people with complementary skills, so not necessarily the company needs all the people to have a full understanding of a specific topic, although it would be an advantage. On the other side, in a startup environment, especially in a company with two people, it is important to know a bit more than the basics about the product you are selling. This is even more true when the industry you are entering is taken by specialists, which was the case of the flower industry. I have always liked flowers, but working with them every day is completely different.
Thus, I decided to “fail fast” and leave the company, experiencing one of the most common situations for an early entrepreneur.
I felt very good launching a company and after my first experience, I was decided to start a new venture and face new challenges. Thinking about my first entrepreneurial adventure, I realized that the reason why I decided to do it was to bring happiness to people, but the product was not really impacting the way I wanted. So, I decided to found Mrs. Liz.
In January 2020 I start developing the idea and I set a deadline to launch it: the first week of February 2020. Developing the idea meant…
· Study the market, not only reading about it but also reaching out to potential customers and suppliers to understand their side
· Analyze the competitors and find some inspirations for the business
· Develop the business plan
· Develop the website
· Develop the go-to-market strategy
· Develop the marketing strategy
Just to name a few!
It seems a lot of “to do’s” for 1 month and 1 person, and it was! For this reason, I ended up launching the company by mid-February. I always knew that the first week of February was a tight schedule, but I had to put some pressure and I have always worked better with deadlines, and this time it would not be different.
After the first intense month, the company was launched with a website presenting all the information about Mrs. Liz and I started to put in place the go-to-market strategy I had defined.
As some of the cases, the reality is different than what we plan. For me, the planning was used as a guideline, but it was adapted along the way. At first, my idea was to pursue clients first and, approach the suppliers with “a closed deal “ to convince them to join Mrs. Liz. However, it did not work out for many reasons, but the main one was that I didn’t have the details of the products of the suppliers to specify to the clients. The information about the product and services was easily found on the suppliers’ website or social media, but they were not enough detailed to make a proper sale to a client. Thus, this was the first adaptation to the strategy developed.
Given that situation, I adapted my speech and decided to start pursuing the suppliers from different categories. Even though I didn’t have the customers yet, I was able to sell them my idea and the potential that they could reach selling through Mrs. Liz. The result was not positive with everyone, but I can say I had an 85% success rate! So, I finally felt that things were getting traction.
By the week of March 9th, I was ready to find customers! I had suppliers, I had external support with the marketing strategy (I had a strategy meeting on March 11th), although I was the only one executing it and, I was confident and ready to get my first client. So, I started again prospecting them. Everything seemed to be going great, until the fastidious Friday, March 13th. Due to the pandemic situation, my coworking decided to close, and, on March 16th, the State of Emergency was declared in Portugal, resulting in every company sending their employees to their homes and working remotely!
By that time, we were living a new reality and everyone had to adopt the WFH (work from home) status. Companies had to learn how to manage their teams remotely and, most importantly, trust that everyone was doing their jobs. Workers had to learn how to organize their time better and work-life harmony became even more evident. Along with this, the fear of losing their jobs grew, the uncertainty about the economy of the world, and fear of the virus were present. Wellbeing at the workplace, which was Mrs. Liz’s main concept and it was first offering, ended up not making sense anymore, as most people were not in the office and, by the time I wrote this journey, we still don’t know if everyone will ever be “in the office” again. This was the moment I was forced to adapt again.
The first thing I had to change was my idea about providing products and services at the workplace. So, I decided to change from Wellbeing in the office to Wellbeing during working hours. In addition, once again, it was time to step back and show how I could help companies during this tough period.
By the first week of social distancing, I registered for some online courses to improve my knowledge about wellbeing and its impacts on companies’ revenues. I considered this week a period of self-reflection in which companies and collaborators had to adapt to a new reality. It was not the best moment to reach out to them.
The following week I started reaching out to companies and understand how they were adapting. Wellbeing was becoming more important as everyone realized the importance to keep a healthy mind and body — important for business too. Given that, I created some activities that could be easily implemented by the companies, for free, to promote best practices, and to keep the team aligned. Thus, I recommended these activities to some prospects.
It was not the right moment to pressure them, I wanted to be close to them and help them to overcome this situation. From some talks with friends, I also realized that this was what employees were expecting from companies and most of them were not having it.
For Mrs. Liz’s business, these past months were great to talk to more suppliers and get more people on board with the company. This was also the reason why, by the first week of May 2020, I decided to develop some kits for companies. The help from the suppliers was essential to develop these 2 kits: the WELCOME BACK, in which companies can give to all employees when they return to the office, and the HANG IN THERE, for those who are still working from home and not necessarily know when they will be back to the office.
The creation of the kits was another adaptation I did for the business showing the importance of not standing still. Companies must reinvent themselves and adapt to different situations, but always keeping in mind their mission. As a startup, the lean structure facilitates a faster adaptation (the kits were developed in 1 day) and it is an important advantage to take into consideration.
Mrs. Liz is now a company focused on bringing wellbeing for companies during working hours and in showing them the return they get whenever investing in their employees. The way we bring this wellbeing and the way we help companies taking care of their employees can vary depending on the moment, but our mission is and always will be the same.
