While pursuing my master’s degree in business administration at Stanford University, I knew I had the entrepreneurial drive to want to technologically disrupt the wedding industry, but I also recognized there was so much that I did not know.
Of the many challenges I faced, two of the toughest occurred when first getting Weddington Way off the ground: (1) creating a technology-enabled experience without personal technical expertise and (2) appropriately investing the time to build a strong core team.
Lacking technical expertise
As a former Bloomingdale’s buyer, I was well-positioned to focus my startup on the bridesmaid dress market. Figuring out how to test, validate and launch a technology-enabled experience when lacking the technical expertise, however, was an early challenge.
I had so many questions: How long does it take to get a product off the ground? Should I build an in-house tech team or outsource? My experience, and how I overcame this challenge, can be summarized in three pieces of advice:
- Find a technical advisor. I found a technical advisor early on in a Stanford classmate who happened to be an engineer. He was tremendously helpful with the technical portions of the interview process and providing answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask.
- Be scrappy. The initial version of Weddington Way was a “paper prototype” and involved cobbling together resources like Survey Monkey and Google Docs. Customers actually tolerated that process and purchased their dresses from me, confirming that the idea had some real potential.
- Be ruthless about the definition of “minimum viable product.” I hired a contractor to build our beta version of the website, knowing it wouldn’t be able to scale and that I would need to build an in-house product team to do so. Displaying “coming soon” features and assessing their click rates, however, provided priceless input on what customers most valued and which features would be most important.
Building a strong core team
When building a business, it’s critical to surround yourself with employees comfortable with the unknown and resilient in the face of challenge. Not only was making the time to appropriately screen candidates difficult, but following my gut versus favoring necessary area expertise was just as challenging.
The intimate nature of startups requires getting to know your potential hires on a professional and personal level. For anyone reporting to me, I now conduct at least five reference checks — some provided by the candidate and others through backchannels where possible.
The key has been approaching the reference calls with an open-mind to truly inform, not validate, the hiring decision. Making the time and following your gut can be difficult, but a wrong hire can eventually be even more damaging.
Being an entrepreneur has been an amazing journey, but it’s not without its share of ups and downs. ●
Ilana Stern is founder and CEO at Weddington Way, a San Francisco-based social shopping site for wedding parties that offers brides and bridesmaids a collaborative shopping experience with data-driven personalization.
Learn more about Ilana Stern at:
Twitter: @Ilana_Stern
How to reach: www.weddingtonway.com or (415) 926-5925
