Week 4 Recap at Vixul
Week 4 Recap at Vixul
What I've been working on at a tech consultancy accelerator
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I’m 4 weeks into Vixul, a tech consultancy accelerator.
And we are concluding the first “phase” of this 13 week program where we nailed down our:
positioning statements
value propositions
differentiators
and the unique services we provide.
This is in preparation for our “pitch session” next week where we each have 5 minutes to present our above work to the greater Vixul community including:
A case study showcasing our best work
How our engagement processes work
Next steps for clients
You can see the first slide of what I have prepared below:
As you can see, I’m planning a major positioning shift to only focus on building automation software for 3PL providers.
3PL stands for “3rd party logistics”, and you can think of them as outsourced supply chain management services.
For example, if you were a furniture manufacturer, you would likely specialize in producing furniture, but you wouldn't have the space to store all the furniture or the capability to ship them.
In this case, you would partner with a 3PL company that would handle all the storage and shipment of your furniture for you.
My consultancy would focus specifically on automation software solutions for these 3PL providers.
This includes building software to solve problems like paperwork automation, inventory control, and warehouse management.
Why I’m Focusing on 3PL Providers
I’m making this shift because I have case studies from successful engagements with clients in logistics already.
I am confident I can serve them well in the future.
It’s also easier for my experience to build on itself as each successive engagement is logistics related.
If my clients are all in different industries, then there’s less insight and work that is applicable from engagement to engagement.
This shift also utilizes my past experience at Amazon working on order management systems, and another partner’s experience working at Uber as well.
So there’s a cohesive story around why we are starting a logistics software consultancy as well.
I look forward to sharing this new positioning at this week’s presentation!
Mentorship at Vixul
Along with preparing for this pitch session, I’ve been active in the Vixul mentorship program.
They have a large community of alumni and founders in their network who are consulting veterans, and they paired us each with a mentor who we meet with on a weekly basis.
My mentor has helped significantly with preparing for the pitch session and given me invaluable advice on mistakes to avoid from their multi-decade career in software consulting.
Another big part of the mentorship program is Vixul’s community directory.
It includes a list of every advisor, alumni, and cohort member, and it’s been easy to get a warm intro to anyone there.
There are even a few people who worked in logistics before, and I look forward to chatting with them more in the upcoming weeks.
Everyone I have spoken to so far has been very generous and open with their time and advice.
It’s been inspiring to meet so many different consultancies from all around the world!
Where We Go From Here
I have 9 more weeks in Vixul with two more “phases” to go:
Phase 1: Foundation setting (complete)
Phase 2: Lead generation
Phase 3: Transition to managed advisory
Now that this foundational phase is coming to a close, it makes sense now why they discuss lead generation after we’ve nailed down our positioning and target audience first.
If we don’t know who our target audience is, then we won’t know who to even target for our lead generation efforts.
But once you’ve honed in on the persona you had in mind, targeting them becomes much easier as you can just create a list of those people to reach out to.
This specificity with the target audience and in my positioning is likely the missing piece from my sales efforts the last few months.
I can already feel the benefits of being much more focused on a specific audience and problem, as opposed to general engineering consulting.
It’s easier for me to decide what clients to take on and which ones are outside of my domain.
It also helps me develop more specific industry insights that give me a competitive edge over other general software consultancies.
Anyways, I’m putting the finishing touches on my practice pitch deck now.
Wish me luck for this week’s practice pitch session!
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