When Maite Muniz from Truora joined us on the Latitud Podcast last year, she recounted this:
"In our 100 days of product build, we had 2 main customers and we were building exclusively for them. So, we were listening to their issues, talking to them, and whatever they needed or required, we would go, research, do, and launch an MVP."
A couple of days ago, the importance of customer feedback in the product development process was addressed again in the pod.
This time, concerning a fancy, magical, and hopefully not one-of-a-kind disruptive unicorn product in LatAm 🦄.
We're talking about Meridian by Latitud, a business account made t… Err, nope, that's not… Wrong script… Not yet. We meant Nubank's card. Nubank's.
Hugh Strange, former Product VP at Nubank, shared with us that when Nubank launched its first digital card, there were 3 main pillars around the product:
Now, you gotta understand that Hugh Strange is not only Nubank's former Product VP + former HR Manager for a year because why not, but, most importantly, he's one of Nubank's early days’ employees.
And what's good about being one of the few firsts of a startup?
Focus.
"Because we were paying almost freakish attention to the whole journey and the customer service piece. We were really watching that early feedback like a hawk.
In the early years, it created this habit of being really attentive to how customers were feeling with every part of the experience, especially on the negatives," said Hugh.
Of course, we're talking about a moment in a startup's life when you can actually read every feedback you receive – raise your hand if you're at that stage ✋ – but as they grew, they needed better mechanisms to stay close to the customers’ feedback.
💡One initiative was re-structuring the squads in a way that brought senior managers closer to the customers' issues and, in the later years, building a user research team that worked alongside the customer service and the PMs at the same time.
"As the company added different levels of scale, we just tried to develop new ways to do the same thing but in a less manual and more scalable way.
As a result, I think today customer service still is one of the most valuable things we have."
This episode had a lot of 🔥fuego🔥 for the product gang, so if you're interested in:
… Go give it a look 👇
VLS São Paulo 2023 is gonna be greater, stronger, and juicier, and while it's not yet around the corner – or is it? –, you know what they say about early worms…
Pre-register now to avoid the FOMO of being the only LatAm entrepreneur without a clue of what the F is going on – we had a couple of those last year, shame 🔔.
So that we can e-mail you when the ticket sale begins🕺
We'll be posting about it on our LinkedIn as well, so if you're more connected there, you know what to do 😉.
🌽 Recipe #4: Have the right corporate structure
We know you wanna get rid of the legal work asap, BUT if you dedicate extra time and patience to your corporate structure from the start, you won't be burning what you cook.
By that, we mean that you won't lose money from taxes (just like our CEO Brian Requarth did) and you won't lose possible investments because VCs are not comfortable with your legal structure.
Oh, you didn't know that could happen? We've already talked about this in a previous edition and in our guide for you to start with the right corporate structure for your startup.
TL;DR: when you raise larger rounds or raise with international investors, having only one local operation can worry them about unexpected financial and legal obligations.
And unexpected is not a nice word when startups are risky enough already, right?
🏦 IPO? We don't do that
Rappi co-founder Sebastian Mejia said to Bloomberg Línea that no IPO is planned since the company has reached breakeven and ruled out plans for new funding. *Snap, snap*.
🤖 AI to YC
Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch had 11 generative AI-focused startups. Just 6 months later, its Winter 2023 cohort has 59. CB Insights analyzed all 59 of them – available for customers only.
🌽 No waste
Aravita co-founders, Marco Perlman, Aline Azevedo, and Bruno Schrappe have been able to secure a US$ 2.5M investment earlier this year, co-led by Qualcomm Ventures and 17Sigma, to help Brazilian supermarkets control food waste.
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