{"id":42578,"date":"2023-10-20T15:22:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/why-we-avoided-big-customers-and-growth-for-three-years-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:22:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:22:14","slug":"why-we-avoided-big-customers-and-growth-for-three-years-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/why-we-avoided-big-customers-and-growth-for-three-years-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we avoided big customers and growth for three years – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Real estate CRM provider Rex Software launched in 2010, but didn\u2019t hit their marketing stride for three years, putting product above profitability to ensure long term growth.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s working. Rex Software has tripled its revenue in the last 12 months and is now working with over 2500 agents.<\/p>\n

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But the real estate business management software launched with only 15 firms signed up. The small team worked closely with these initial customers to iterate the technology offering.<\/p>\n

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It grew gradually, mostly through word of mouth but also with an eye on if the new customer was a good fit for the questions and assumptions it was testing in its development.<\/p>\n

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Founder Anton Babkov told StartupSmart<\/i> it only recently felt ready to start chasing growth.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGrowth is hard and difficult to manage operationally. We needed to get the product market fit perfect, and also straighten up and reinforce our internal processes,\u201d Babkov says.<\/p>\n

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Rex Software used a traditional, outbound marketing approach to lock in their clients for most of their growth journey so far.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t do any email blasts or marketing campaigns because it wouldn\u2019t give us what we needed,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was important that every conversation we had was a quality one so we could learn and improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

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According to Babkov, there are between 10,000 and 12,000 real estate firms in Australia and New Zealand, Rex Software\u2019s immediate addressable market. He adds it hasn\u2019t chased one of the major firms and their many franchises yet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe realised as a startup, we needed to choose where we want to grow, and focus just on the right customers for our business. Picking up a big client early when you\u2019re as feedback focused as us didn\u2019t seem like the best idea as that would have really shaped your direction but they\u2019re an outlier, being so much bigger,\u201d Babkov says.<\/p>\n

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But now it\u2019s ready to grow. It has recently hired a marketing director and are shifting their customer acquisition approach from outbound calls and catch ups to more of a marketing campaign.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re a tech company but weren\u2019t great at marketing ourselves from tech point of view. We\u2019re organising our SEO and social media campaigns, so we can develop more inbound opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rex Software isn\u2019t profitable yet, but Babkov says they\u2019re focusing on growing fast first before it starts setting goals and timelines to profitability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Real estate CRM provider Rex Software launched in 2010, but didn\u2019t hit their marketing stride for three years, putting product<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}