Case Study: Matidor's Sean Huang Builds For The Market, Not Any One Particular Customer
Huang says, "I think listening to the customer’s feedback is important but what’s more important is learning how to prioritize what you are building is actually for the market."
Introduction:
Sean Huang is a Vancouver-based serial entrepreneur who has worked on three startups with more than 12 years of experience in sales and business development. From door-to-door sales with one of the largest telecom providers in Canada to handling enterprise accounts, Sean was one of the fastest salesmen in his marketing firm to get promoted to senior sales manager for B2B campaigns. In 2015, Sean co-founded his first startup in the mobile VR space and after some initial traction, the company was accepted into a cross-border accelerator program in Shanghai (Chinaccelerator).
Currently, Huang heads business development for Matidor, a YC-backed project management software on a live map for environmental consultants working with energy exploration companies. In 2020, Matidor finished second place in the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition out of over 1,000 applicants, as well as a finalist in the 2021 SXSW Enterprise track.
Executive Summary:
Problem: Building A Centralized Source Of Truth For Field Service Operators
The problem we had on our journey to solve PMF was having a solution built on assumptions before we knocked on doors. While iterating the product, we didn’t identify who the ideal customer profile was early on, even though we did a lot of user interviews.Market: Environmental Consultants Are The Ideal Customer Profile
We decided consultants would be great beachhead customers since they spend most of their time in the field juggling reports and doing a lot of admin work, followed by managing their client’s data. Since consultants have to juggle between time in the field and reporting, it quickly became clear that they would be the ideal user on the platform.Solution: Maintain Focus On One Use-Case For One Type Of Customer
The biggest PMF blocker is to split ourselves too thin by tackling too many use cases/industries simultaneously. We learned that every industry has its own workflow, terminologies, and use cases through time.Team: Focus On Improving The Group’s Efficiency And Learning Rate
I think it’s important that founders are aligned on the same goal, and therefore, any debates or conflicts are just talking points for us to hash out the best way to move forward as a team. Leveraging the best of each other and learning to step back from areas where you are not great will allow the team to flow and move faster while getting things done.Fundraising: Raise Enough To Get To The Next Stage
When we came out of Y Combinator last year, we didn’t raise too much since we felt we just needed to raise enough to get to the next milestone before raising our series A. In this round, investors who invested understood our market and product potential, so setting expectations was not that hard.Takeaway: User Feedback Is Important, But Keep The Market As The Biggest Picture In Mind
I think listening to the customer’s feedback is important but what’s more important is learning how to prioritize what you are building is actually for the market rather than fulfilling the demands of a single customer.
Case Study: Matidor
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