Team Flashcards
Intro Tom
Hi, I’m Tom. I used to work in Fintech IB at Perella, and I lead growth & operations. Together, we’re building mixpanel for accounting firms.
How do you and your co-founder know each other?
We met in July last year through a mutual friend who thought we would hit it off due to our similarities and interest in having a bigger impact and building something
How long have you been working together and on the idea?
6 months full time
Why are you the right team to do it?
I have seen this first-hand from my time in accounting & finance – it’s a real pain point with no solution. My experience, plus Arthur’s work organizing complex data at Google, makes us the right team to solve this.
+ we want to have a bigger impact and build something
Why CO-CEO? Who in your team does what?
Arthur and I have the same values, low ego, open communication, willing to have an impact and we have a strong trust-based relationship. But opposite background and clear and distinct split responsibilities within Combinely. Arthur is in charge of product and tech development, I lead operations and growth. CO-CEO works great for us at the moment, as it allows us to focus on our own strengths and areas of expertise, but also gives us the opportunity to challenge each other, make better decisions as a duo. It gives us ownership and skin the game. We are first founders, so happy to get your views on this, we are keen to learn ultimately.
What’s the biggest mistake you have made?
Underestimating the diverse customer segment within the accounting industry, and therefore, we tried to build a product for all.
Describe a major setback you faced as a team?
To be fully honest - the accounting busy season was and is still a major challenge for us. From November to now it’s extremely difficult to get accountants on calls for demos, which slows down our sales cycle and ultimately progress. So every week, we improved the way we reach out to people, such as targeting other geography depending on the accounting season, trying to rely on multiple outreach channels, 100 different outreach messages ect - we tried a lot.
How long can you go before funding?
One year runway - With Combinely’s lean expenses, just managing our personal daily costs.
How do we know your team will stick together?
we have committed to direct and honest communication between us, and are loyal to each other - a true couple haha
Why do you want to dedicate your life to working on this?
For us, it’s either make Combinely work or pivot until we do. Corporate life isn’t for us, and we will try until making a great product
Are you open to changing your idea?
We believe in the pain point we are trying to solve. I experienced it first-hand and validated it with over 150 interviews. But we’re open to pivoting the solution to address it even better.
