“I felt like things moved very slowly - although it seems that feeling accompanies founders all the way somehow, all of our deadlines are always ‘yesterday’.”

I’m Pati, a 29-year-old Spanish woman living in NYC and CEO of KADO.

I’ve been raised in a family of lawyers, worked as an investment banker, married one, and have been surrounded by people from the services industries. It occurred to me early on that success in these industries is very tied to networking, relationships and trust, and not necessarily to technical knowledge. However, funnily enough, less than 5% of lawyers in the US use relationship management tools of any sort - and the same is true of the other verticals! Traditional CRM-incompatibility, focused on transactional sales and marketing, leaves business connectors and generators spending 50%+ of their time on networking, managing follow-ups post-initial contact and working on business development. This represents a big market gap and an opportunity to increase efficiency, billable hours, and times to closing.

KADO comes in as an AI-driven one-stop solution helping relationship-driven businesses:

• Activate clients and close follow-up gaps through interactive business profiles

• Reduce time to closing and increase value per hour through a fully-integrated and curated client manager.

Bizzspotlight catches up with Pati to get an understanding of how her business is shaping up…

Hi Pati! Tell us, and our readers, what was it like in the first week or two of starting your own business? How is it now?

I felt like things moved very slowly - although it seems that feeling accompanies founders all the way somehow, all of our deadlines are always “yesterday”. There was a lot of research involved, a lot of unknowns to solve for, no team and a big feeling of loneliness.

Right now, I feel like I’m in a race car with the gas pedal pressed to the floor. I have a small team but I still feel that I have to be pushing all verticals and remain very involved, meaning I’m constantly back to back on calls and pivoting to address company needs. My hours of sleep have plummeted, but the adrenaline boost keeps me always alert.

How did you fund your business in the initial stages and how has that changed as time went on?

I started putting some money of my own and my family also contributed, and we have had some angels step in. We still haven’t gone down the venture path, even though we are expecting to do so in the near future now that we are getting stronger metrics and traction.

What's the most important thing you're working on right now, and how are you making it happen?

We still are at the very early stages of our story, so go-to-market is our top priority and focus. We have conducted innumerable amount of demos and interviews with users, prospects and clients in order to understand what is it that excites them the most and brings them the most value.

Based on that feedback, we are working on a new release of the digital business profiles that will have incorporated media, socials, calls-to-actions, etc. This will be accompanied by our first set of integrations with email, calendar and LinkedIn, which will help our users better manage their connections going forward.

Tell us about your support network - did you have the backing of your friends and family?

I’m married to a French-American investment banker. He has always supported me, especially because he feels the pain that we are trying to solve in his day-to-day life! As for the rest of my family and friends, they have always known me as the crazier one so it didn’t come as a surprise!

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Knowing that I am fighting to solve a problem that has always been proven difficult to decipher. Many have failed in this sector, but that also means there is great upside and potential if things are done right.

Tell us how you got your first few clients?

Getting your first clients is a very bumpy road, especially because the app and features offered change so much from your initial idea.

We did lots of beta testing for free and interviews with potential clients while improving the app at the same time. And then at some point, we saw that we had an app that was worth paying for and we released a paid version. We continued offering it for free to individuals, as having some mass of usage is critical for SMBs and enterprises to move forward since potential customers often ask about the number of users or need some name-dropping to be convinced.

For our first paying clients, we started with discounted rates. It’s important to get some names in and at the very beginning, when the app is not as complete as you would wish and when you have no precedents as example, the best way to make your product compelling is by offering it at a competitive price point.

Can you give our readers some real tips on how to get through the first 12 months of running a business?

It’s key to have a 3-6-12 month plan with key milestones to ensure you are taking the company in the right direction. However, when building that roadmap, allow for deviations and pivot, because they will come. Have an open mind when it comes to original assumptions and be ready to adapt in order to reach your goals. There’s a high likelihood that you’ll reach them, but you may end up having to take a different path.

Take care of your mental health. I didn’t do it for some time, and it ended up taking a toll on me. Find activities that allow your mind to escape the constant fires that need to be put out. It doesn’t need to be mediation necessarily - although I never managed to get into that - but it can be something like going for a run, boxing or a night out with your friends.

If you can, bring along a cofounder. Entrepreneurship is a long and lonely road and bringing in a cofounder helped me share the weight and also have different perspectives.

What is your commercial or marketing strategy and how do you plan to make your business a success?

Being focused on B2B and enterprise, marketing is very tricky. Our target user is not impulsive in the decision making process and already knows what he or she wants when they go online looking for solutions. Therefore, ads or paid marketing don’t really work.

We are very focused on content generation and PR to establish ourselves as an authority in the space. SEO is another important tool, as these are people who already know what they want and will google to find it. Therefore, it’s key to ensure we appear at the top of Google results.

Together with the above, we need to start working on referrals and reviews, as that will be the second aspect companies will take into consideration.

Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 years time?

Right now, we are a small team and have our business focused on expansion in the US. In five years, I would love to see KADO reach international levels, with a strong team present all over the globe and having reached financial stability - meaning no more VC funding!

Your favourite motivational quote

“I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong. I asked for courage, and God gave me dangers to overcome.”

Visit www.kadonetworks.com for more info