Founding a startup often leads to an overwhelming list of tasks which spark a series of questions. Timothy Tjendra from July JFDI Discover startup BeeZee Services shares his team’s biggest challenge.
1. How did you hear about JFDI Discover?
Intially we intended on applying to JFDI Accelerate, but were redirected to the JFDI Discover program as our product has yet to be launched and does not have any traction.
2. Tell us about your startup and team – who are you, and what are you aiming to do?
Our startup – BeeZee Services – is developing a mobile app to help home services e.g. Laundry, Air-con and Cleaning companies increase their productivity, and have an effective CRM solution through our app. Customers will be able to enjoy the convenience of using merchants’ services with our user-friendly app accompanied by trusted reviews and automatic price comparisons to find the best deals.
3. Why did you start this business? How has this impacted your life?
Landon, one of our co-founders previously ran a neighborhood laundry shop so he understood the pain points of the industry. Prior to this, he worked for ABB and SES Systems in Software Development & Management so he also has experience in software development. Our other co-founder, Timothy, has experience in building UI/UX from his other mobile startups, and has sales and marketing experience. So we decided to put our skills together and create this startup.
4. What were some of the challenges you faced before joining JFDI Discover?
Our main challenge was framing the right questions to ask ourselves and effectively prioritising the many tasks involved during the initial phases of creating a startup.
5. How did JFDI Discover help your startup?
With the aid of Lean Canvas, OKR and other various tools and templates, we were able to frame our startup in an objective manner and learned how to proceed to hit our key objectives as we moved forward.
6. What was your favorite and least favorite aspect of JFDI Discover?
The tools, learning videos, and articles were our favorite part as they were useful in forcing us to think critically and concentrate on the most important issues.
The downside was probably that the program was only 3 weeks long. It was a time consuming process to schedule interviews with merchants, and therefore were unable to discuss our results with the JFDI Discover coaches during the program.
7. What is the one lesson you took away from JFDI Discover that you think other founders should know too?
The one key lesson we learned was to be objective during the initial analysis, so as to not fall in love with our original idea and therefore experience confirmation bias.
8. Where is your team planning to go from here?
We would like use our newfound knowledge from the JFDI Discover program to progress forward. When we have better traction results, we will either reapply to JFDI Accelerate or look to VC funding.
9. Which resources do you look to for startup related advice? Have you read any books on startups?
We particularly like Tech in Asia to keep abreast of recent news and ideas in the startup world. Other than that, blogs and books on the Lean Startup are useful reads as well.
10. Who would you recommend to Discover?
Any budding startups trying to understand their product market fit should definitely explore the JFDI Discover program!
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Thinking of starting your own business? JFDI Discover will help you find out if you really want to be an entrepreneur. It will reveal if your team is aligned to deliver results. And it will show you how to solve a real problem for customers who are willing to pay thus moving closer to a “problem-solution fit”.
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Cui-Lyn Huang is on the Editorial team for JFDI Asia. Currently pursuing a combined major in Computer Science & Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, and after growing up on the little red dot. She loves to write, she loves to eat, and loves to write about eating.