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Startup Founder Flounders And Discovers Critical Key To Solving Customer’s Problems – Nate Kontny

January 18, 2016 by Matt Fox

You can interview your customers and you’re never going to know the problem, as well as you could, unless you actually walked in their shoes.

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In this episode we talk with Nathan Kontny. Nate is the CEO of the popular CRM Highrise and the creator of the awesome online writing platform Draft.

Nate has some great stories and insights to share from his experience as the founder of two YCombinator startup companies.

What you’ll discover in this show:

  • Why you want to build a company that solves your problems.
  • Why you need to truly care about the problem you’re solving.
  • What Nate learned from the unexpected lack of interest he received from angel investors at YCombinator’s Demo Day.
  • Why you want to sell your product before your finished.
  • The indicator during the sales process you need that lets you know you’re on track.
  • How Nate discovered the importance of passion and excitement, and how it carries him through the process.
  • Why you want to ask, “What’s my purpose?” before you start.
  • Why building software that intrigued Nate was software that didn’t intrigue the world.
  • How he learned to find the true problems worth solving.
  • Why Nate said it’s really hard to solve other people’s problems.
  • How he’s using these strategies to make Highrise better and easier to use for his clients.
  • How Nate uses the basis of Sherlock Holmes to become better with what he does.
  • Why Nate doesn’t find logic as the best indicator to follow.
  • When you should trust your gut and instincts.
  • How marketing events won’t build a business.
  • How he discovered the importance of long-term audience building.
  • The importance of unique ways to communicate new feature releases to your clients.
  • How Nate is learning and working through the challenges after becoming CEO at Highrise.
  • Why Nate asks, “Am I working on a real problem or am I working on something that I just find curious?”
  • The importance of a good mentor or teacher.

Enjoy

Listen Now:

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Mentioned in the show:

  • Highrise
  • Draft
  • Heap Analytics
  • Mixpanel
  • KissMetrics
  • The Book: The Greatest: My Own Story

Read more about Nathan Kontny:

  • Nathan Kontny

You can find Nathan Kontny here:

  • Highrise
  • Draft
  • Nate on Twitter

Filed Under: Small Business, Start Up

This article copyright © FailToLearn.com.

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