A non-technical founder shares the tools and process she used to launch her startup.
By Tara Reed (Founder, Kollecto)
This post originally appeared on Building Kollecto and is the first in a series. Stay tuned for more!
During the 11 weeks I built Kollecto, I probably edited 1-2 lines of HTML. But in general, I built Kollecto without an ounce of code.
Instead, I’ve built my business using:
30% Strikingly
My favorite website builder. I use it for artkollecto.com and galleries.artkollecto.com
30% Typeform
A free online survey and form builder (that looks pretty damn good). I use it to 1) build taste profiles for each of my clients, 2) to onboard artists & galleries & 3) to show art to clients in an innovative way.
30% Email
My advisors communicate with clients and galleries via email. I created a [email protected] email address, which gets cc’d on all advisor-client interactions. This allows me to gather qualitative feedback from clients, cull best-practices from Advisors and schedule war-rooms with advisors when something in the customer experience is not right.
4% Plasso + Stripe
I use Plasso to create customized monthly payment plan pages for each of my clients.
3% Paypal
to send money to artists and galleries.
3% VLine
A video chat solution where neither party has to download a plug-in. I started Kollecto assuming most people would want to chat with their Advisor, but I was wrong about that. Most people want to communicate via email so I’m phasing out my use of VLine.
When I started Kollecto, I envisioned a tech-heavy platform for matching first-time collectors with an art advisor. I’m so glad I didn’t start writing code for that… (turns out that first-time collectors don’t really care who their art advisor is as long as he/she can find them cool stuff). Spending 0% time on coding and 100% of time learning what my customers want has been really rewarding and successful.
About the guest blogger: Tara Reed is the founder of Kollecto, which helps new art collectors buy affordable art by pairing them with personal art advisors to find art and negotiates prices. Follow her on Twitter at @TaraReed_.
