Show Notes
Validate your business idea before you build the full platform. Alberto Padilla started Briq.mx, a regulated real estate crowdfunding platform in Mexico, with a plain website and a progress bar he updated by hand. In this episode: Briq's first site was plain HTML, and when someone clicked "I'm interested," the team emailed deposit instructions and updated the progress bar by hand once their banker confirmed the deposit. In finance, a good-looking, well-worded website builds trust, and you can handle your first 10 users by hand before you need tools. Briq grew from friends to friends of friends to people who came through someone they knew, and only started paying for marketing after about two years. Alberto says the real sale happens when investors get their money back with the expected return, and that focus has kept Briq's total marketing spend under $1,500 in 11 years. Alberto is Briq's top user, and the "Todos invertimos" policy gives every employee 1,000 pesos a month to invest through the platform, which helps the team find bugs and real use cases. Guest: Alberto Padilla, CEO and Founder, Briq.mx Briq.mx: https://briq.mx Alberto Padilla on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertopadilla/ Briq on social media: @BriqMX Chapters 00:00 Meet Alberto Padilla and Briq.mx 04:55 Launching with a simple site and manual steps 07:12 Why looking trustworthy comes first 09:50 Growing from friends to strangers 17:15 The real sale is the investor's return 20:13 Be your own first customer 23:59 How funding goals and deadlines work 26:31 What developers get compared to a bank 32:04 Repeat investors and diversification 36:12 How developers build a community Episode page: https://webtalk.show/episodes/091-be-your-own-first-customer-the-power-of-using-your-own-platform/ Hosted by Armando J. Perez-Carreno. Learn more at https://perezcarreno.com
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