Is customer led approach right way to build a product?

By taxreco In Tax Automation, Tax Technology Startup, Tech Startup

13

Aug
2021

TaxReco is a SaaS tax platform to disrupt the way tax departments of Indian companies works. TaxReco has a vision to automate all tasks done manually in excel sheets and require an audit trail to be maintained by eliminating repetitive, non-productive activities. These manual activities can be anything where corporate tax teams are spending a significant amount of time (~30 – 50%), and still, companies carry many risks because the output of these processes depend upon

  1. Quality of data which is available within the organization due to multiple ERP systems or incomplete master data
  2. People – Manual tasks are completed by people whose skillset may vary and hence the workings and output. This may create a severe risk in case of an assessment

TaxReco’s ultimate aim is to ensure that qualified Accountants are spending their time on those activities only which are value add activities and organization’s risk is minimized from a tax compliance perspective, and audits can be closed in few days and not in few weeks

TaxReco’s idea was seeded based on market experience and the hypothesis that there is a problem in tax compliance that can be resolved with the help of technology. This hypothesis was further strengthened by early users’ excitement and feedback. Corporate tax teams have been regularly sharing their problem statements with us, we have been able to identify some interesting data patterns and have been able to solve few of them (we are working on other problem statements too πŸ™‚) for a broader user base.

While TaxReco has taken a Lean approach of building the product – it has its own Pros and Cons. Let’s look at them on a set of few parameters

Parameters Pros Cons
Product Evolution With continuous feedback from the users, product has evolved wonderfully and we are enjoying this journey led by our customers. We have been able to add new features that matter to users. With regular feedback, requirement flow never stops and product team is always having a list of backlogs which has to be always prioritized
Needless to say, same users are sharing new requirements once they feel basic needs are met (Maslow’s hierarchy in action πŸ™‚ )
Customer Experience Customers are always happy that they are being heard, product is built to address their needs and roadmap is shared with them With regular requirement flow, requirement fulfillment takes few weeks as any new requirement is incorporated in product roadmap after seeking feedback from a broader user base
Rework Once we moved from MVP to product, there has been a minimal rework as any new feature added is done in a Lean mode – some tweaks are always required after the feedback but nothing major Since, we have adopted Lean approach to build the product – we are steadily moving forward but we have lot of ground to cover as customers are forthrightly sharing what they need
Revenue Growth As it is a customer led product development – customers pay once product behaves as they have desired. Product built to suit the needs of a broader user base is a key enabler and it works While Product is evolving regularly, revenue growth can only be linked to Customer happiness (Always remember – Customer is King/ Queen ) and we are striving for it only
Parameters for Product Development

While there has always been a debate to scale up as Startup is all about execution. But we have consciously chosen to build it the way our customers want it to address their pain points.

We are not replicating any other software, we are building something unique and it requires patience & consistency.

If you think, there are any tasks in taxation – which are handled manually, please write to us and we will work with you to solve them!!

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