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Comment by shanedog | Hacker News Reader

Interesting to contrast this with other start up wisdom, such as “ignore process until you have product market fit”. In any business with repeatable admin activities (payroll, fundraising, market research, taxes, accounts payable, onboarding) it seems important to streamline your processes so that you can make time to innovate and sell.

But perhaps this situation is unique to capital intensive slow moving industries like commercial real estate investment and development. I can see how software companies can get to revenue without processing hundreds of professional fee invoices and 1099s and paying filing fees for multiple entities. These activities are table stakes for real estate development.

Edit: I’m a property developer

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No all that is the same in modern SaaS startups. If you're not in the business of HR you don't innovate the HR. So everyone goes and uses Gusto or Rippling. Everyone uses Github. Everyone uses a Mac.

But the parts that you're aiming to innovate on it doesn't make sense. And that's all the actual pieces of business: your software, your sales and marketing, how you do customer success, etc etc

All that process has commonalities with other companies but ultimately has sufficient difference that experience is worth it to spot what to do, but you can't just copy. It's just like software in that sense.

The only exception are the "copycat startups" which see someone else hit PMF and then fail to scale the solution to capture the market. In that case, you go after their market faster without any of their legacy (not just in software, they may have large customers they do special deals with etc).

The normal expression is of course "Minimum Viable Product" which makes more sense. There's an easy trap for technical founders to fall into and think that the technology is the product, while of course it's not - the product is the value that users get from using whatever you are delivering, and process could be regarded as part of that.

I don't think what OP is suggesting is at odds with "ignore process until you have product market fit", since he says "do things that don't scale" - basically ignore process efficiency until you have a proven product/engagement.

Generalized, there two types of process development types: non-differential and differential. Ones that are non-differential should be outsourced as much as possible, ones that are differential should not.

The conventional wisdom you mention is suitable for a pure software play.

However, for a business that includes other factors, such as outbound sales for instance, process also needs to be iterated upon.

Unless it's taken seriously, maybe even more than the tech, the business is going to be of limited value.

As I mentioned in a reply to another comment, part of the value is being able to demonstrate that you can efficiently onboard thousands of suppliers each of which might have hundreds of products. This process is part of the PMF.

Hey, I was looking to build something in the property space.

Would love your feedback if you have 15 minutes, email in profile

Thanks

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