Perfection is the enemy of progress
James Layfield
CEO - Clearfind
Creating a business that fulfills a need is crucial
Way back in the winter of 2017, I sat in the New York office of Rise – a business I created to drive software adoption for Barclays bank. I’d been scratching my head on why the seemingly successful project, which has been running for around five years, wasn’t delivering the traction I thought it should.
Questions kept popping into my head. Why was it so hard to find out what software actually does?
What prompted business people in a multi-million dollar bank to resort to phone-a-friend style techniques to pick new software tools?
And, ultimately, should it really take six to eighteen months to choose a software?
This crazy whirlwind of questions became the spark that created Clearfind.com – a business that helps companies understand their software ecosystem. A year later, I left Rise to set up Clearfind as the company’s CEO. This sounds like a big title, but we’re a small company right now, meaning I do a bit of everything, including product development and sales.
Starting the business has led to some great highs, like signing exclusive deals with the world’s largest software reseller, one of the world’s most-prominent tech companies and some of the world’s biggest banks. Though, hilariously, Barclays have yet to buy the product.
As with any venture – and this is my 10th – it’s not all plain sailing. We have had so many things to deal with. It’s taken years to get the product to the place to gain traction.
We’ve had no end of wasted meetings with venture capitalists as our approach doesn’t fit with their model, and we’ve had to really rethink our business model a few times.
Throughout it all, I’ve learned some crucial lessons in how to work on a digital-only business – after all, there are lots of different approaches compared to running a physical company.
One important piece of advice: beginning the journey with an early-use product is not bullshit after all, but an essential part of the startup journey. Early customers will try a badly designed product, so don’t waste cycles perfecting the Pantones and pixel pushing. You can polish it later.
Perfection is the enemy of progress.
We are not out of the woods yet, but we are now very much on the right path, so when you next need to evaluate software, or just see how much you can save on what you already have, please come give Clearfind.com a try.
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