1. Hire the right team
Steven and Bart started working on what would eventually become Accurat.ai a little over 3 years ago. From the very first day they were convinced the concept of providing insights based on real-world behaviour as opposed to simply asking people's opinions had huge potential. After working on Accurat with the 2 of them, along with various freelancers, the time was right to leverage the first growth by starting to build a genuine team.
After raising capital, Accurat took over the office of Bart's previous firm, True North. Even before finishing up the capital round, our first employees were onboarded. As any startup founder will tell you: 'Your first hires are crucial'. We were lucky enough to both (Steven and Bart) possess a large network so the struggle to find high potentials for both the data-team as wel as for someone to work on the business development was bearable. The former 'True North' office already seems to be getting to small and we'll be occupying another wing from May 1st, doubling our office size.
Besides the obvious - paying wages & buying the right tools and equipment - we also dedicate spending on team activities. We're making sure to have some sort of event on the regular. It's great to see how this is already paying off as all noses are headed in the same - growth oriented - direction.
The team isn't just Steven and Bart along with the employees on payroll. We constantly have freelancers working on all sort of projects, get the help of interns & student jobs. We're really glad to have seasoned entrepeneurs on board with Lorenz and Toon as well, completing the team on a more strategic level. Their experience and network is at least as valuable (if not more!) as the money they put in.
2. Perfect the product
Together with some of our first day clients we've built an awesome product effectively changing how retail brands make their decisions more evidence-based. Benchmarking with competitors is something none of our competitors can offer, at least not on the scale and with the real time factor we do. For our clients this has often been a real eye-openener enabling them to make the right decisions. Faster than ever.
The job isn't done however, our product isn't finished. We've got a lot more in our pipeline. Some features will be rolled out in the next weeks or months, others will take years. There's parts that we're re-engineering to have faster or more accurate results. Other parts are complete new builts. We make sure to give regular updates to customers or share the information on our status page.
The best part is a lot of the ideas we're working on come from our clients. They brought in a lot with: "Hey, you know what would be really cool?" or "Can you guys do that?". We're working on a transport mode solution as we speak. In a few months we'll starting testing our expansion module allowing brands to define the potential of a new location taking into account the millions of trips and place visits we have collected over the past two years. If you're not to sure on what's already immediately available for your brand check out here what our Brand & Category dashboard has on offer.
3. Expand our horizon
We're really proud of our sub-zero churn rate. All off last years' customers remain on board and are demanding extra services. Due to the scale up of our sales efforts we're signing up new clients regularly. We've got some great marketing ideas and use the money raised to spread the word on our solutions. We have became members of the Cube and Esomar communities and will be hosting talks on renowned events in both the retail and consumer insights industries in the future.
We're now active in the BeNeLux but our data-team is preparing a roll-out in Germany and France as we noticed quite some interest in our offering there. Tapping into new European markets is one of our top priorities and making sure we are ready demands data, tools and manpower to do so.
4. Next up? You...
We've got a whole lot planned and can use all the help available. If you're looking to join an ambitious startup making a difference do check out the possibilities on our careers section or apply spontaneously. If you are a brand, triggerd by our story, feel free to get in touch. We'd be happy to treat you on a coffee or invite you over for one of our pancake Wednesdays.