The Tequity Way

Most startups fail, not because they lack engineering talent, but because they built something no one wanted. 

At Tequity, we make sure that never happens with our customers. 

Building a new product from the ground up is a thrilling journey full of ambitious ideas, passionate founders, and the dream of making a real impact. But as we’ve learned through partnering with a range of startups, the path from initial concept to sustainable success involves more than just great code. 

At Tequity, we have 3 foundational principles that shape how we work with companies to bring their ideas to life. 

The Tequity Way: 

1. Ideate -> Elucidate -> Create 
2. Partner, not a vendor 
3. Be the village that raises the child 

Lets dig deeper into these philosophies.

1. Ideate -> Elucidate -> Create

Trust The Process

Our first meeting with customers usually involves a founder with a bold product vision talking with 1 of our founders who’s trying to figure out how exactly we can help. At the end of that call, most of our customers feel we are 1-2 weeks away from starting a sprint cycle to bring their idea to life. 

But the reality is different. 

In Tequity, we believe that writing code is the LAST thing we need to do, and that’s something we push as far back as possible. In today’s world, code is a commodity - Understand the market dynamics deeply and solving customers’ problems is the real differentiator. 

• Are we really solving a customer's pain point? Or are we building a ‘good-to-have’ solution? 
• How deeply do we understand the problems being faced in this industry? 
• What are some industry dynamics that hamper the chances of building a $1B revenue company here? 
• Do we understand why the competitor who raised $30M got bought in a slump sale?

These are amongst the questions we try to answer in the IDEATE stage. 

Once we are past this, we move on to ELUCIDATE. 

• Can we document the pain points and problems clearly? 
• Do we have enough understanding of what a product led solution to the above looks like? 
• What are the screens that need to be built? 
• What are the business logics that need to be written? 
• What does the simplified version of the algorithm look like? 
• How many user stories need to be written? 
• What is the ideal user journey inside the product? 
• What is the best UX for the app? 
• How would we know that our designs are good?  
• What would the product analytics dashboard look like? 
• What are baseline acceptable engineering SLAs? 
• What are the test cases that need to be written? 

Along with refined UI/UX designs, answers to the questions above form the blue print of what will eventually be handed over to engineering. 

At this stage, in terms of output, it would look like we have next to nothing to show for weeks (or even months) of effort (No product yet - all you have is a PRD + Figma Designs), but if you NAIL this stage, the rest of the journey is a cake walk. 

Then we move onto the CREATE stage where engineers work on converting the documentation shared with them into a beautiful product we can put into the hands of users. This involves planning sprint cycles, writing test cases, optimizing page load times and API response times, arching over architecture diagrams, choosing the right frameworks, and much more. 

While this process seems long, we have gone from 1st call to product in market within 6 weeks (and this was with a REAL version too) but this usually takes 2-4 months in most cases. When we deep dive into the product along with founders, we force them to think about situations and scenarios they previously did not think about. 

So even if it takes a few extra weeks, the output is always worth it. 

Trust the process - that’s The Tequity Way! 

2. Partner, Not A Vendor

Product Market Fit Is The Only North Star Worth Chasing

We have heard stories of 7 wonders of the world - Pyramids, Taj Mahal, and others that are available for all to see. 

But there’s an 8th wonder of the world that doesn’t reveal itself to many, but only to a few. 

And that is Product-Market Fit. 

It’s super hard to define if you have PMF or not. Product managers pour over 90 day retention curves, favorable DAU:MAU ratios, free to paid user conversions, and 100s of other metrics in a bid to prove they have PMF. 

In our experience, when you hit PMF, you just know it :) 

• New users are signing up for your product even when you are not running any marketing campaigns 
• Existing users keep returning even if you haven’t shipped new features 
• You have a sudden influx of new users referred by your existing users 
• Your engineering team is asking for budget to upgrade servers and infrastructure as your current systems are not able to handle the peak loads anymore 
• CSAT, NPS, or any other survey you roll out to measure if your customers are happy all point up and to the right 
• You see your product getting positive reviews on Twitter 
• You meet random people who have used your product and love it! 
• A Partner (and not an Associate) from Sequoia lands in your inbox to learn more about what you are doing 

It’s a truly beautiful feeling and a quest that is 100% worth embarking upon. 

Many entrepreneurs focus on getting their product launched quickly, which is certainly important. However, the real measure of success comes down to whether your product truly resonates with your target users—and that typically takes more than a single sprint or MVP release.

In a great scenario, finding PMF takes 6-12 months, and in an expected scenario, takes 18-24 months.

There’s also an unfortunate reality that many founders fail to find PMF even after 48+ months in the market :/ 

At Tequity, we believe in long-term partnerships with our customers, as PMF is never achieved in the 1st version of the product. After launch, we stick around to help founders gather feedback, iterate, and even pivot when necessary. Because achieving product-market fit is not a box you can tick once—it requires constant learning and evolution to stay aligned with ever-shifting market demands. 

While there are many Dev Shops who are happy to charge $20,000 and ‘Build you an app’, we stay away from such engagements and choose to partner with customers who are willing to give us a chance to partner over the long run. 

The founder of a Unicorn directly calls one of my cofounders every time he has an idea for a new product/feature and discusses at length about viability, trade offs, GTM, etc. It deeply validates our approach of being a true partner to our customers - It is The Tequity Way! 

3. Be The Village That Raises The Child 

They say ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, and it resonates with us deeply as it takes a wide range of skillsets to take an idea and convert it into a product users love. 

While engineering talent is crucial, great products don’t happen through code alone. Time and again, we see founders asking for “just a couple of full stack engineers” to build their new idea. Well-intentioned as that may be, it overlooks the fact that successful product development requires people with multiple skill sets:

• Product Managers: to translate the founder’s vision into clear, actionable requirements 
• UI/UX Designers: to conduct user research, create intuitive interfaces, and refine user experiences 
• QA/Product Testers: to ensure every feature works seamlessly across various browsers, devices, and operating systems 
• DevOps Specialists: to handle cloud environments, deployment workflows, and ongoing performance 

These are apart from various engineers who’d be required to work on the project including Platform Architects, Backend and Frontend engineers, App Developers, etc. 

At Tequity, we offer cross-functional pods that provide all of these roles. This allows our customers to collaborate with a holistic, ready-to-go team that moves quickly and maintains high standards, ensuring their product is built for success right from the start. 

A typical pod could look like: 

In the example above, although there are 9 different people who are working on bringing the product to life, only 3 of them are working Full Time on the project and the rest are shared resources. 

This is a great win for our Customers who are able to utilize the skills of a wide pool of talent that’s available to them, but not requiring them to be full time engaged on the project if there is no requirement for it. 

Cross Functional Pods is a cornerstone of Tequity’s unique delivery model which thinks of a holistic approach to developing products, and not simply adding a few engineers to a JIRA board - That’s The Tequity Way!   

Does this strike a chord? 

For serious builders, we bring something truly valuable to the table. Not every studio understands product design & development the way we do. We hope the article above helps you get a glimpse of how we approach our business. 

Do our principles resonate with you and how you would like to build your product? Drop us a note on [email protected] or fill out our contact form and we will set up a call to discuss further!