GoQuoty: “Many Things Are More Important Than A Business Plan.”

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Florian Fazekas of GoQuoty explains how the qutation platform for individuals & companies works and which things are more important than your business plan.

Describe GoQuoty in 50 words or less.

GoQuoty is a quotation platform for individuals and companies — especially startups — who are looking for attorneys, tax advisers, notaries, accountants and business consultants.

How does GoQuoty work and why are you targeting these markets?

The lack of (any kind of) market transparency in these pricey service fields is the reason why we decided to focus on them. We want to help individuals and companies to find the right service provider – and to pay the right price for the service. And, the best thing about GoQuoty – it is easy to use, fast and for free!
In three easy steps you will find the right service provider: (1) send a request; (2) receive three tailor-made quotations; and (3) choose the one that fits your needs most.

Why did you decide to pursue your own dreams rather than someone else’s?

Surround yourself with good people who believe in what you do. This sentence sums it up perfectly.

We are a bunch of guys which have the same drive, the same idea how things should be changed and hence could be improved. And to get rid of the naysayers and people who slow you down, which is often the case in traditional structures and established companies, was the logical consequence.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

Due to the impact GoQuoty had in its initial service fields, it expanded to basically all areas where people are looking for any kind of service – in real-time GoQuoty now connects seekers and providers in all areas.
It helps customers to pay the right price whereas at the same time partners can easily and more effectively manage their workload. GoQuoty improved the market conditions and created – as close as it can get – perfect markets.

What were the biggest challenges you faced building your startup?

Building a product ensuring a great user-experience for partners and users and a foundation that allows us to grow.

We had a shippable product in January 2015, however, we decided to throw it away and start from scratch to improve it in all areas. Our main challenge is to serve all our partner’s needs (especially as every market differs) while making sure that we keep design, consistency and user experience always in mind. We’ve already spent many hours (and, obviously, liters of coffee) building and designing our product, yet we just barely scratched the surface. It is a basically a constant challenge.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

Making customers happy is by far the best benchmark. We constantly get in touch with our customers, also once they have been served, to evaluate the customer satisfaction and to spot weaknesses.

Success = customers + customer satisfaction⌃2.

Already pivoted? Did customers use the quotation platform like you imagined it in the beginning?

Pivoted might be an exaggeration. We noticed that we had to adapt certain things — they never work out how you imagined them. However, we’re always iterating to make sure that we provide our customers with the best possible experience.

Bootstrapped or financed: What fuels your startup now and what will in the future?

Bootstrapped. Based on the fact that we had most key resources (e.g. development, marketing, management) in our core team, it was just our time we had to invest.

Anyways, since it is our aim to operate in several countries, ideally worldwide, and to incoporate additional service fields, we are currently looking for investors.

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

We do not think that competition is ferocious, because each competitor creates market growth – let’s make the market bigger as we rather have 10% of a huge market compared to 100% of a really tiny one.

Regarding staying on top, Jack Welch put it perfectly: “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” Hence we are always pushing ourselves hard to improve, to question existing structures (inside and outside) to be ready for the next wave.

Describe your typical working day from coming to the office to leaving it.

Getting ready by brewing plenty of coffee, calling our customers and new potential partners, getting in touch with media and PR, lunch meeting with existing/potential partners, team meeting to discuss next goals, plenty of laughing, maybe a beer and getting ready for another marvelous day at the office!

What do you look for in team members?

We’re not specifically looking for people with a lot of experience. It’s important for us to find someone who shares the same values we do — being passionate about the product, being adventurous and willing to take risks. For example, we like asking applicants to sell GoQuoty to us, as if we were service partners. We want good people who have a similar mind-set and believe in the product they’re creating.

Why would a talent join your team?

We surely won’t give you the template answer “because we are a young and dynamic team”. The fact is, yes, actually we are, but the real difference is that we are a big family with complimentary skill-sets. The individual has plenty of room to develop and to grow as a person, however, nothing and no one’s bigger than the club.

We want to change things, improve things – conquer the world with our product. For this reason we need the right talents to make it happen.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

Getting the first inquiries in, seeing user activity. I don’t think there’s anything better than seeing people use your product.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

Don’t waste too much time on your business plan and other formalities that could be better invested in your product. We’re taking a lot of inspiration from companies such as Slack, Lyft and Airbnb. They all have something in common: a great product that is an absolute pleasure to use.

In conclusion, there’s so many things that are more important than a business plan: Company culture, user experience, design, engineering practices – just to name a few.

StartUs Presents: GoQuoty

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