(1) Describe your startup.
Cratic is a SaaS software suite designed to help large enterprises grow their culture rapidly, using measurable frameworks and proven psychological techniques.
(2) What inspired the creation of the startup?
We saw that there was a need. We saw that the current tools in the market were unexciting, slow, and ineffective, and we believed we could do better.
(3) What differentiates your startup from the competition?
We are the only culture solution that guarantees to measurably advance the culture. Teams using our tool report that they feel happier and more at ease with each other, they “see” each other more clearly as individuals, they make better quality decisions together, and it rapidly diffuses miscommunication and workplace friction.
(4) Who is the target market?
Large companies, with 1000+ employees. We are also very focused on Canadian Oil & Gas sector, where the majority of our clients are today. We chose that as our target market because we observed that the personnel in that space are often quite technical, and many work remotely, and we thought if we could make a product that helped them, it would be a fit for lots of other circumstances.
(5) How did you grow your presence in your target market?
Entirely word-of-mouth. We do no formal advertising, but we do maintain an active LinkedIn presence: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cratic. (Follow us!)
(6) What stage are you at?
We have a working beta product and are in trial-stages with a few large clients. None of them pay for the product yet, as our agreements are for feedback and case studies at this point. Additionally, we have established research cooperatives with a few universities.
(7) What are some of the biggest challenges that your startup has had to overcome?
We are doing something very new and quite advanced technically, so we’ve had two unique issues on that front: (1) we struggle to find the right expertise to support the development of the product, (2) we struggled a lot in the early days to explain the value proposition to customers. Luckily, with persistence and lots of small wins, we’ve nearly overcome both.
(8) What is next for the startup?
We are asking ourselves that. We have the luxury of plenty of personal runway, very supportive clients, and we have all of the right people in our team now to keep advancing the solution. We have been approached by investors, and we are talking to accelerators, but mostly what we want to do is keep improving the product.
(9) Where would you like to be in the next 5 years?
Personally, I want to claim victory in the battle for workplace culture. That looks like having a fully mature product suite, with a vibrant community, passionate team behind it, and lots of customers-turned-ambassadors! I want eventually to expand into more languages. We were talking to Volkswagen a while ago and lost out on the opportunity because we couldn’t deliver the solution in German. Volkswagen has over 650,000 employees, so that was sad.
(10) If you had to give one piece of advice to an up-and-coming startup what would it be?
DO NOT QUIT. Take breaks, change course, change strategies, change teams, change cities, change networks, change focus, change, change, change,… until you figure it out. It may take years, but do not quit.
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