Kung Fu Fighting: Building and Scaling Software Businesses
You could say I started my first business in 5th grade, eager to capitalize on Kung fu’s popularity. After receiving $15 dollars in seed investment from Mom Capital, I went to my local hardware store in New Brunswick and bought supplies: broom handles, chains, washers, screws, and electrical tape. My nunchuck business was born. I had three glorious days of sales to my pre-teen peers before the police were interrogating my mother as to why her son was peddling weapons. Ah yes, the sweet constraints of regulation and the humbling nature of failure.
While building a nunchucks empire didn’t pan out, my passion for business continued to grow throughout my time as a student, first as an undergraduate at the University of New Brunswick and then as an MBA candidate at Harvard. I currently serve as the CEO of Introhive, the company I co-founded in 2012 after previous successful exits with Chalk Media, icGlobal, and Scholars.com. Over the past nine years, our team has developed Introhive to be the top B2B relationship intelligence service and data management platform — making it my proudest business accomplishment to date. Reflecting on Introhive’s success, especially compared to my previous entrepreneurial experiences, yields three primary lessons on how to successfully build and scale SaaS businesses. First, determine your audience wisely. Second, develop a niche mastery before you expand. And finally, third, build your team based around idea-generation. Or, as Bruce Lee says:
“Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.”
You need to be absolutely methodical when thinking about your market fit. Know your audience in granular, demographic detail. Selecting your target audience is one of the most important early decisions you’ll make as an entrepreneur. It is the skeleton upon which your product, and your marketing, are anchored and has major consequences for your bottom line. Too many businesses fail because their founders didn’t fully weigh the expenses of marketing and sales overhead in their early calculations.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
It is in your best interest to start with a niche vertical and absolutely master it before moving ahead. With early success in a narrow vertical, you can then leverage the tailwinds of credibility in that one area and expand to new audiences. It’s a lot easier to sell a product when you are known for being the best at something. Think of Dyson: they first made vacuums powerful, sexy, and sleek, and are now considered the go-to luxury upgrade for hair dryers. The case of Amazon offers perhaps the most astonishing example of the modern era: they first mastered the sale and delivery of books, and then took those logistical efficiencies to build the largest retail marketplace in the world.
“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
You want to build teams that are confidence-inspiring and propel your business forward with new ideas and solutions. When we started Introhive we brought on some of the best developers in the world simply because they could produce amazing, quality work…and do it quickly. Time matters when you are getting started and have limited capital to launch. Good teams don’t just produce work; they anticipate and solve problems. This is the difference between a good and an adequate team and, often, between success and failure.
Looking back on Introhive’s success, I can quickly see how our early commitments to understanding our audience, mastering one vertical and growing our team based on the ability to generate ideas gave us the foundation we needed to build our business. I’ve come a long way since my nunchucks days, but can still appreciate the kung fu fighting spirit that has carried me through the highs and lows of launching, growing, and scaling a business. Fellow entrepreneurs: what are your most salient lessons?
Jody Glidden is the founder and CEO of Introhive. Founded in 2012, Introhive is the fastest-growing B2B relationship intelligence service and data management platform. The company was recently recognised by Deloitte’s Fast 50 and Fast 500 Awards and was named the 2020 MarTech Breakthrough Award winner for best CRM Innovation Software.
