#021 Track Zach Marshall #2: Focusing on customers, building MVPs, and creating trust as a new startup.

Welcome to the second episode of Track Zach, a series of quarterly podcast episodes in which we will be following Zach’s journey as he starts and scales his private security marketplace, Conterra. We will check in on how the previous goals Zach set are going, hear about what he’s learned and how he’s pivoted, and see what he is looking to accomplish in the next quarter in the huge, fragmented, and heavily middle-manned $50 billion industry of private security. 

This quarter, Zach’s target was at least ten customers, 300 professionals to sign up on the supply side, and a new website launched by October 1st. His original thesis was to collect the supply side of the marketplace first. The website ended taking up longer than expected, which made him think he’s building the wrong thing. Zach stopped pushing for signups and though he didn’t get 300, there was a ton of word of mouth and recommendations going around. Zach was “collecting no’s” the second-best thing to yesses, and from the no’s, he was able to listen to what customers want, learn from that, and alter how they go to market. 

He highlights that one of the main issues in the security industry is a lack of trust amongst providers/security professionals and a fear of being taken advantage of. With this, he found collecting demand to be proving to be more difficult, while the supply side is coming easier, prompting him to alter his original thesis and focus more on the demand side. 

With all these observations, Zach says he gained clarity, and now things are starting to come together. He intends to focus the business on being the connective tissue and reputation for the major players in the space, and by doing so, they can cut out the major middlemen and reallocate that cash to those in the industry that should really have it. He is also shifting expectations and being clearer on focusing in on the things that will impact the business in a greater and faster way rather than the things that won’t have as much impact, and he is getting better at vetting and hiring. 

Zach explained his new technical roadmap as a process that starts with building a wheel, then a skateboard, then a scooter, then a bicycle, then a motorcycle, then a car. He explains that at this point, they have built skateboards.

During the next quarter, Zach expects to be neck-deep in fundraising and finding the right partners, and he is aiming to be confident in knowing the right amount of capital he’ll need. He predicts the team will look a little different as he continues to recruit for an operations person. For the next 90 to 180 days, he will be mainly focused on operations, and he hopes to learn exactly what a world-class security recruiting company looks like. 

Links: 

Conterra

Workrise

Zach on Twitter

Jeremiah Rogers Coaching

Attivo outsourced accounting

Ben & Jerry’s vs. Amazon: Strategy Letter

Additional Episodes If You Enjoyed:

Kevin Espiritu: Bootstrapping Epic Gardening to 8 figures by mixing Media + D2C Biz models. Oh and Poker, Pink Pineapples, and Male Models

Introducing "Track Zach" with Former Navy SEAL Zach Marshall

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