Why we’re pivoting FirstFeature.one (and meet Bertie)

It was time to pivot and confess!

Okay, confession time.

Externally, we’ve been a little quiet, because suddenly, we are back doing what we do best, building businesses.

In fact, we’ve termed a new market category because, at the end of the day, this is what we actually do: we’re a business building studio. Get used to that term, because we’re going to be talking about it a lot.

We like building businesses, indeed, we are building a portfolio of businesses.

And our aim is simple: to design, build and launch self-sustaining businesses, taking them from idea to product/customer fit and once they are ready, we hire, train and motivate a keen management team to scale the business (ping us if this interests you and you would like to join our FirstFeature.one network).

We are not creating a venture studio, it’s important to note - we are the epitome of bootstrappers. Keep it lean, keep it tight and build a business, not a tech fest looking for a customer.

Before I go on, here’s the name of our first business out of the First Feature portfolio: GetBertie ( www.getbertie.com / https://www.linkedin.com/company/getbertie/ ) . You’ll have to read further down to understand what it does, but here’s a spoiler, Bertie is a Beaver.

First, the pivot.

We got the First Feature method out there and it went down well - we got a fair number of people coming to us for advice, but, how can we say this politely, a lot of people just didn’t listen.

Jack and the Beanstalk

It was the Jack and the Beanstalk problem all over again.

We don’t have any magic beans - we just have a method which is designed to lower the probability of failure for a startup by addressing the most common problems behind the 90% failure rate. Or put another way, increasing the probability of success, but importantly not a guarantee, nor magic.

We can’t give people a magic formula. What we provide is simple advice, based on decades of experience in building companies, advising investors and mentoring founders, mostly building companies.

But, as we talked to founders, it’s a message that nine times out of ten fell flat.

Founders mostly come to us when they have a problem. If things are going swimmingly, why look outside for external help?

And, again quite understandably, the problems were not that varied, ranging from funding issues, shortening runways, customer churn, inability to scale, or leadership/C-Suite problems.

Solution

When we looked closely, the solution was often straightforward. But implementation was the tough bit. Founders thought they were in a unique position and therefore needed a unique solution to extricate themselves.

The solution is often simple, but getting there is very tough. Founders must have the ability to stand back, look at themselves and the issues, and be prepared for some grunt work.

And it’s not that we don’t get it - we do. We’ve all been there, had those moments when the chips are down, the wolves at the door and you have to come out fighting.

So we got a little tired of saying the same thing, repeatedly.

As for our pivot, we blame Dan. During one team catch-up meeting, he said, bluntly: “I can’t do this anymore. I’m fed up with people who ask us for advice, but then don’t listen.”

Die cast

The meeting went quiet and the die was cast. We knew at that point, we were not cut out to be full-time business coaches. Some soul searching uncovered that in reality it is not in our DNA.

Well, to be accurate, we’ll help anyone who genuinely wants to listen and face the problems we’ve all encountered. Nigel and Dan already spend a lot of time mentoring companies and helping teams progress.

They do this not as part of First Feature, but give their time willingly, giving as much back as they can.

Yet when we set out to organise and formalise that help, to articulate a theory which could help founders, some of the love was lost. We didn’t want to build a business that just helped other businesses. We don’t want to lecture, we want to get our hands dirty - we want to get in there and join the fray.

We’re not happy on the bench, we’re happy on the field. We are builders.

Business building studio

So First Feature is now positioned as a business building studio.

Within that framework we use our First Feature methodology to build our own businesses from scratch.

And GetBertie is our first business out of the First Feature business building studio.

It won’t be the last, as we hope to start a portfolio of businesses that address real problems that customers want solved rather than tinker around with tech and hope we magic something customers will buy.

One of our mantras is: customers don’t buy tech, they don’t care that AI or Web3 or the latest tech trend is used, they pay money for something that helps them (in simple terms, an exchange of value between two parties). The tech is irrelevant.

Some of our businesses will succeed, some won’t of course. Just like everyone else, we’ll have successes and failures. And we’ll learn from both, because that’s what you do as a founder. But we believe that by combining our experience and our First Feature method, it skews the statistical bell curve of success in our favour and helps us identify businesses that need to be killed fast.

GetBertie

Okay, so let’s do a quick intro to GetBertie, centred on our Bertie the Bookkeeper platform and personified by our wonderful mascot - Bertie Beaver.

And, again, Dan takes centre stage here. Ever since he said goodbye to his startup Albert, successfully sold to Santander in 2019, he’s been itching to get back into the accounting/bookkeeping space.

Also, Nigel was on the advisory board of Albert, helping transform the original “HQ App” brand doing boring invoices into an personification of help, called Albert.

So when we agreed coaching wasn’t our bag, Dan said things really haven’t moved on since he and his co-founder formed Albert, in fact they may have gotten worse - especially for digital artisans who often have a rough time when it comes to financial admin.

Many coffees later and we had the basics of the Bertie Bookkeeper platform, a bookkeeper who quietly beavers away in the background gathering a digital artisan’s Stripe, bank and Gmail data, and untangles this mess to assemble their financial books. The result is a happy digital artisan who now has more time to focus on creating things and enjoying more time with their family and friends. Bertie keeps their books compliant and their accountant informed.

Beaver style

What more could you ask for?

Pivot executed and confession over. It feels good for the soul. Embrace the Beaver.

We now have our first new platform, fresh out of the FirstFeature.one business building studio.

So please check out the GetBertie website and join our waitlist, because Bertie needs some friends and by being on the list, you’ll be at the vanguard of change within the bookkeeping space.

So join Bertie now in his colony for digital artisans.

And remember, a Beaver is a friend for life.