Introduction 

Yencil has kicked off 2023 focused on one thing in particular: traction. While the Marketplace has grown to over 450 products, we are getting feedback from Ambassadors and early adopters of The Document Store, launched in January 2023. With a growing inventory of helpful templates and enthusiastic sellers creating their own stores, we are on the path to achieving product-market fit. However, as we continue to press forward on traction, we’ve had some lessons learned over the first quarter that will be critical in expanding our customer base and our product selection.  

In a break from our traditional blogs, we sat down with the Yencil Founding Team to hear about the progress to date.  

Question 1: What are Yencil’s primary goals for the rest of 2023? 

Gboyega (CEO) - Our primary objective is to validate our product-market fit in 2023. To achieve that my focus is increasing site growth, meaning consistent month-over-month growth in sellers, products, and traffic. With the right amount of volume, we will better understand our target customer, our thriving categories, and where to bet on scaled growth in 2024.  

Les (CTO) - While traction is our overarching focus, we need to focus on those early adopters. By securing early adopters who are passionate about the product we can gain traction while also improving the site. Our Yencil Ambassadors have been utterly amazing at this, and we intend to keep learning from our users and moving forward with that. 

Question 2: What progress has Yencil made in the first quarter of 2023? 

Marc (CCO) - We’ve hit some key milestones after experimenting with different marketing tactics. We surpassed 100 sellers on the platform, increased the marketplace to over 450 products, and seen over 130 product downloads. As we discover effective tactics, we are doubling-down and focused on steady month-over-month growth.  

Question 3: What is Yencil doing to improve the site for users in 2023? 

Les (CTO) - Getting more sellers and products on the site. With more contributions, we will enhace our buyer’s experience. We have made ourselves attractive to sellers, but to keep them excited about the platform, we need to get them buyers. One feature we recently released was the ability to request a template if you cannot find it on the site. This provides us with more feedback on buyers and helps us better serve our sellers. We will also be A/B testing different landing pages based on feedback that we have received.  

Marc (CMO) - We have been off to a hot start in 2023, we released The Document Store and Google Docs Integration earlier this quarter. And we are continuously taking in customer feedback and prioritizing our product backlog. Some exciting features for both buyers and sellers that we are working on will be Integration with Notion and incorporating generative AI to enhance user experience (i.e., ChatGPT).  

Question 4: What is a challenge that Yencil has faced this year and how was it solved? 

Gboyega (CEO) - Falling into the trap of “build it and they will come.” At this stage, our growth is directly tied to our ability to go out and pull users onto the platform. Achieving network effects is hard and we must make it happen, the product will not do it alone. We have identified customer acquisition tactics that work, and we are doubling down on those; while we continue to play the long game with search engine optimization.  

Les (CTO) - I would say our biggest challenge of the year has been our team not having sales and marketing expertise, which has meant doing research and testing to find what works best for us. Early on, we created social media accounts and posted without a “real” strategy. But after some focused learning, we built a strategy and that has brought clarity and purpose to the work we are doing. I would say our 2023 success in customer acquisition has been because of our improved knowledge and strategy around marketing. 

Marc (CMO) - Two of our three founders are still working full time, and therefore it is easy for things to slip through the cracks. Getting help was one of our top priorities coming into the year. As a bootstrapped startup, we are not able to outsource to expensive agencies or freelancers, so we looked for interns that could bring in a mix of skills we were missing, perspective that we lacked, and a desire to learn with us. Our interns joined us in January and have been incredible additions to the team, helping us work on critical projects and uplifting accountability across the team.