Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (January 08, 2020) Entrepreneur |
- Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (January 08, 2020)
- Mental health matters. Toxic positivity is a thing. Dont listen to Gary Vee and others who say you need to sleep 2 hours a night and never have fun. They are toxic, and they infest this space.
- How Exactly to Start a Window Cleaning Business. Step by Step Guide.
- Fundraising is just like dating. Halo effect goes a long way with a date, how are you guys building a halo around yourself to get a foot in the door and impress investors?
- I grew my agency to $556k revenue and $291k profit last year
- I've started a habit to enjoy the emotional rollercoaster ride of being an entrepreneur
- [Discussion] My Beta Test is a failure! How to find quality beta testers?
- Launching a website and would love some feedback, please
- Two Types of Expert Businesses
- Anyone used Alibaba?
- Tax planning for business success (VIDEO)
- The United States Postal system works for China
- Is sending Instagram DMs from a business account a good idea?
- Making a post that got over 11k upvotes - the process and traffic/conversion results
- Need some advice.
- Ideas/Work for a 17 Year Old
- Entrepreneur mentor training
- When the mind finally clicks.
- Opinions on how to layout this 'framework'?
- Trying to start Beta Testing
- Is there a place where I can hire a mentor in my industry?
- Google Analytics Email Reports as a Service?
- Quick tips for choosing best applicants for hiring. What do you look for?
- Analytics Software to Track the Health of Employee Populations
- Does anyone do social media marketing/MGMT for small businesses?
| Wantrepreneur Wednesday! - (January 08, 2020) Posted: 08 Jan 2020 05:10 AM PST Please use this thread to ask questions if you're new or even if you haven't started a business yet. Remember to search the sub first - the answers you need may be right at your fingertips. Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 12:55 PM PST This may be pretty controversial to lots of you here who hero worship people like Gary Vee and others, but it is important. The industry that has developed around entrepreneurship is infested with what I call 'Toxic Positivity'. It is dangerous and counterproductive. Here are some examples:
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| How Exactly to Start a Window Cleaning Business. Step by Step Guide. Posted: 08 Jan 2020 07:21 AM PST Below are the topics covered in the video with relevant timestamps. Many of these topics can be applied to a variety of different businesses. Market Research 0:38 -Competitor analysis -What is the local demand for the service -What to charge for window cleaning Name and Branding 2:18 -How to come up with a good logo and have it made -Naming your window cleaning business -Finding a domain for your window cleaning business -Finding similar names with www.synonym.com Getting Your First Window Cleaning Customers 4:30 -Purchasing supplies for your window business -How to market your window cleaning business First Customers and Cheap Marketing 5:53 -How to get your first customers to appreciate your hustle -How to fail and still win Building a Website 8:24 -Basic website builder options -Basic website SEO tools -Resources to design marketing materials -Google my business page, how it works and how it's set up -Using Google voice Quitting Your Job or Not? 12:39 -Not quitting too early or too late Legitimizing your Business 14:00 -Getting a LLC -Using your state website -Workers compensation insurance for your window cleaning business -General liability insurance for your window cleaning business Hiring Your First Employee 16:28 -Running payroll for your window cleaning business -Paying your taxes -The real cost of wages -Worker's comp insurance More Marketing Ideas for a Window Cleaning Business 18:11 -How to get commercial window cleaning customers - Marketing success stories -Dealing with rejection -Doing what others aren't Deciding Where to Take the Business Next and Hiring Tips 22:48 -Determining whether you even want employees -Tips on finding good help -Turning 100 candidates into 1 amazing hire Interviewing Employees 29:58 -The motivational interview -Qualities to look for in candidates Making it Easier for Your Employees to Succeed 31:06 -Simplifying Your Employee's Job Organizing payments, customers, and your life 31:54 -CRM for your window cleaning business Content Marketing For Your Window Cleaning Business 34:38 -What is content marketing and how to use it properly How to Earn More Per Customer With Upsells 36:27 -Why upsells are worth so much more -Upsell ideas Charging Enough 38:00 -Not needing to get every customer Equipment for Your Window Cleaning Business 40:14 -Buying used -Wrapping vehicles more cheaply Take Action. I hope you find this guide helpful. Thank you for watching and reading! Full Video in mention: https://youtu.be/B9vR6d095AU [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 06:21 AM PST Okay, so there I said it, when speaking of dating a rockstar is always going to be more successful than a regular Joe, even if the rockstar is a terrible person who cares little to nothing about their many partners and the average Joe is a sweetheart who'd put their (sole, unique) partner on a pedestal. Sociologists refer to this phenomenon as the "Halo effect", each and every human is subject to it and those who are affected the least better not discount the halo effect while building their model as it's real and can really hurt you (ask those who shorted Tesla discounting the halo effect around Musk). Speaking of Tesla, many things can be said, but both sides really do agree on something. The capability of Musk to generate halo around himself which exceeds the actual capabilities or qualities of the man and the company. Shorts will tell you that's disonesty and being promotional, Longs will tell you that's black belt salesmanship and they'd get to what they promise eventually In any event the halo effect is something which is there and cannot be ignored, and it's working wonders for the company in terms of fundraising (making it easier to essentially print money by issuing stock or by lowering interest rates in the bond market) I want to end this with a question: So given that fundraising is just like dating....how are you guys trying to build a halo around yourself? [link] [comments]  |
| I grew my agency to $556k revenue and $291k profit last year Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:09 PM PST Hey guys, I wanted to start by stating revenue AND profit as it's more honest. I share a post each year on growing my marketing agency. In 2019, we managed to hit $556k in revenue and about $291k in profit. It was a big year with a lot of optimizations. We hired our first full-time employees! We're now a team of 4 people. We hired a developer and a marketer to assist with our growth. My backgroundI've always been entrepreneurial. Ever since I was 12 years old, I dabbled in graphic design, made banners for Runescape guilds, and learned a lot online. I started a YouTube-channel when I was 16 years old. I made videos about gaming (what else?) and learned the ropes of SEO, video editing, writing titles, and designing awesome thumbnails (before the whole clickbait trend). When I entered college, I dropped out after a year. It went way too slow, and I wanted to learn skills faster. During this period (2014), I was designing landing pages, managing social media of small businesses, and was learning a lot about building websites. I got a project from a friend of my dad who wanted to have a new website. I didn't know how to code, so I asked a friend. After we did that project, we decided then and there to start a business. We didn't put a lot of thought into it. What's the worst that could happen? Our marketing agency Kreatix was born. We officially started in September 2014. I've written some posts in the past about our agency, where I explain what happened between 2014 and 2019. See post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/a4zc51/we_went_from_83k_to_227k_revenue_in_2018/ How did we grow from 227k to 556k revenue in a year?We started using our version of 'value-based pricing.' I learned that just selling your time for money won't let you scale. If you want to be a freelancer and pay your bills, it's an excellent approach, but when you want to grow an agency, you need to think outside the box. We always charged a flat fee for projects (building a website, starting a Google Ads-campaign), but it was hourly billing with a different name. We guessed our hours, added a 15% 'I'm probably wrong-tax,' and closed the deal. In 2019, we looked at it from a different angle. What if we calculated what the return of investment would be for a business when we build this new website or if we got them 15 leads each month? Let's say we have a real estate client that sells houses for $800k and takes home about $100k on the deal. A lead is worth a lot more for that client than a client that sells socks for $5. The value-based pricing approach works for both parties because we are more hands-on with the campaign and want it to succeed while the client gets more leads and revenue. We're very transparent about our pricing, so we didn't get any pushback. This strategy was very successful, we doubled our revenue and grew our profit by 8x. We increased our profits by being more conservative about our expenses. I spent less on cool gadgets and more on actually growing the business. We upgraded our office and hired full-time employees, but those additions to the team allowed us to take on more projects. Some other changes that allowed us to skyrocket our revenueWe made a change to the tech stack of our websites. We decided to stop using WordPress templates and started using Elementor and more custom PHP work. Hiring a developer that knows how to do this, really allowed us to take on more significant projects. Our sites are now more custom than ever. By upgrading the quality of our work, we can price it higher and attract more significant leads. I hired a business coach. This was one of the best investments in 2019. I was convinced that I was doing great as a founder. I was so wrong. We worked on my communication, the way I managed our employees, I learned about my weak points and capitalized on my strengths. A great business coach is like a shrink for your business. I believe that it helped us grow a lot. I want to be challenged, and my coach did just that. We learned to say no. A lot of entrepreneurs who are starting in the digital marketing space say yes to every client. That's understandable, you need the revenue and the experience. My mistake growing Kreatix was that I kept saying yes to projects that didn't feel right. Either I didn't understand the business and couldn't deliver a lot of added value, or the product was just wrong and wasn't marketable. We avoided that mistake (mostly, your gut feeling is never 100% right) in 2019. This allowed us to focus on our clients and deliver exceptional results. I don't have the exact statistics, but I estimate we did about the same amount of projects in 2019 as the year before, for double the revenue and eight times the profit. We stopped sending PDF reports. I like going in the opposite direction of what other agencies are doing. In an age of data, dashboards, and analytics, we call our clients monthly to communicate results. We also send them an email (not automated!) that is easy to understand and explains the results of our campaigns. This made a HUGE difference. Clients love building a partnership. We took the personal approach, and it paid off. What are we doing in 2020?We're doubling down on our all efforts listed above to maintain healthy growth in 2020. I don't want to scale as fast as the past two years, as it was challenging for me mentally. I'm only 24 years old, so it's a lot to deal with if you're that young. We want to maintain our profit margin because that allows us to reinvest a lot of money back in the business. I'd love to hire another developer and dabble with making a product. Having another stream of revenue is healthy for business and allows you to diversify. I'm also aiming to launch an English version of our website. I want to work with American clients and learn about their business. I love traveling through the USA and want to touch base there. As we currently operate in Belgium, our reach as a marketing agency is quite limited and I want to experiment more. I hope I provided some insights for you. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below. If you want to see me talk about it in a video, I recorded myself awkwardly trying to explain how we grew our agency. I'm exploring YouTube again as I feel like it's a great way to share a story and provide insights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QR5AF6H1QY&feature=youtu.be Thanks for taking the time to read the whole post, I'll see you in the next one! [link] [comments]  |
| I've started a habit to enjoy the emotional rollercoaster ride of being an entrepreneur Posted: 08 Jan 2020 03:19 AM PST Hi fellow entrepreneurs 👋 After 5 years of being an entrepreneur and founding two startups I want to share how this went so far and how I established a habit to cope with the emotional ups and downs. During university (studied Mobile Computing in Austria) I co-founded a startup in Copenhagen that was basically an "Uber for bike repairs". You could order a bike mechanic on spot and have your bike repaired. The whole team was remote and we had five mechanics working for us and a couple of orders. In the end, the team separated ways as some of us moved to different cities and we had no one on spot (in Copenhagen) anymore. My current startup is called Butleroy, it's an app that helps you to manage your time more efficiently. While working on that since more than 3 years I want to share how I felt as an entrepreneur during that time. As an entrepreneur, you are constantly on a roller coaster ride. While this sounds fun in the first place it can be tough in the long run. You have a lot of up and downs, sometimes just between a couple of days. You are going from "I'm building the next Facebook" to "how can I pay my rent this month" very quickly. It's easy to forget about the blue sky (I love that quote from Headspace, where they encourage you to think about the blue sky which is always there, even if there are dark and rainy clouds on the sky). But it's also tempting to think you've done it and there will always be the blue sky from now on. So it's a mixture of feelings and it can change very rapidly. To find out when I'm having certain emotions and what driving factors I have in my life, I started journaling in a Google Sheet. I quite liked the idea of the one-sentence journal to have an easy start. It turned out that this worked really well for me, to sit down in the evening and take 5-10 minutes to describe your day in just one sentence. One single sentence and "that's it" or how Austrians would say "Ein Satz. Punkt." It's a perfect way to filter for different situations or moments. If I'm super happy I can reflect my rougher times and appreciate the current situation even more. If I'm a little bit down I can filter for happy moments to brighten up my mood. I've now made this a side project, called Punkt, together with my wonderful girlfriend and we want to bring the Google Sheet to an iOS app. So if you are interested in "one-sentence journaling" I would love to hear your feedback or how you are dealing with it. Keep on building great stuff and making the world a tiny bit better 🤘🚀 [link] [comments]  |
| [Discussion] My Beta Test is a failure! How to find quality beta testers? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 06:38 AM PST A few weeks ago I created a private FB group for 20 beta testers of my target audience to test my online course product. Just FYI it's a Premiere Pro Basics Course for Photographers turned Videographers. I found the folks through a local photography FB group I'm a part of though not everyone in the group is local. I think my fault I did not explain well enough that I'm looking for feedback because I've been posting the lessons and.... nada. Not a single person ever responds with feedback to the lessons- which I ask for in each post where I upload the lesson material. I simply get likes. How do I go about finding quality beta testers who will actually do the beta test and give feedback? I'm looking to launch in the spring. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Launching a website and would love some feedback, please Posted: 08 Jan 2020 04:58 AM PST This hasn't gone live yet but I'd like to get some input from people on this. I don't want to say much about it here because I'm hoping the site explains everything about the business I'm in. I posted on here a few months ago and made some changes based on the feedback then. Would love to get your opinions on the things I've changed if you could take a few minutes and look through the site. [link] [comments]  |
| Two Types of Expert Businesses Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:14 PM PST So there are two types of businesses you can build when you're an expert at something. 1: Information contribution business. 2: Selling product through information sharing. 1: Information contribution business.What if I told you, that you can earn just by the knowledge you have. Information sharing can be a business. First to be an expert at something you need to learn the skill. The journey starts from your vision. The entrepreneurial vision, Your desire to learn something. You read books, you do courses, you do programs on that particular topic. Once you learn the particular topic you implement that on yourself. When that works on you and you see that is helping you to succeed in life. You need to now contribute that knowledge to the world where others can utilise those benefits. Your secret to success is your contribution. The more you contribute the higher you succeed. After implementing the knowledge you have, that alone wont help you succeed in life. You need to shift your focus on helping others with your knowledge, teach others what you know. You can design courses, podcast, write books. This is how you can contribute to the world, where you are sharing your information and help others succeed in life. You coach others. So information sharing can be turned into a business.
2: Selling product through information sharing.Lets say you have a product that you sell, be it a physical or a digital product. How can you use information sharing to sell your products with no upfront cost of acquiring a customer. You can make information on your product and sell the information not the product. When you share the information of the product, in the end people will eventually buy your product, Why? Because you educated them by sharing the information of the product. If you directly sell your product, people wont buy it, Why? Because you never educated them about your product. You need to first make information about your product, educate the audience who later will buy your product. What are the benefits of creating information about your product. 1: Your complicated sales becomes very easy because the information product will educate the customer about WHY they need your product or service. 2: When you share your information, you position yourself as an expert in the industry and people will pay more attention to you MORE for the same thing they could get somewhere else. This is how you can lead the competition. The resistance that people have will disappear and your sales will increase. 3: You can acquire more customers for free, without even spending any money on your traditional marketing. 4: You'll be able to grow much faster. If you guys wanna ask me any question related to the above article, feel free to write down in the comments. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:11 PM PST I know Alibaba is clunky and when finding a good manufacturer to fit your needs and get your product/prototype developed, what is the hardest part? Does Alibaba solve all your problems? What problems have you faced while using the platform? ALSO - how do you keep in touch with a potential SOURCING AGENT or Manufacturer throughout the process? [link] [comments]  |
| Tax planning for business success (VIDEO) Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:11 PM PST I found this video about preparing financially in the event your business IS successful to be very helpful. Check it out when you get a chance! [link] [comments]  |
| The United States Postal system works for China Posted: 08 Jan 2020 10:25 AM PST I shit you not this is true. It is cheaper to ship a package from China to my doorstep than it is for me to walk into a LOCAL post office ship the same exact package to my doorstep.. Even if I can produce a product cheaper in the United States I still can't get it to my customers doorstep cheaper than a Chinese producer WTF. Someone has to notify Trump. [link] [comments]  |
| Is sending Instagram DMs from a business account a good idea? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 01:32 PM PST I offer free samples on my website, I want to promote it more and I'm wondering if sending messages to potential customers is a good idea. It seems like an easy way to market but I'm worried that it would come off as spammy, or even worse, goes against IG guidelines and gets my account banned. Anyone have any experience with this? [link] [comments]  |
| Making a post that got over 11k upvotes - the process and traffic/conversion results Posted: 08 Jan 2020 01:25 PM PST This might be interesting to those entrepreneurs who are looking to get some traffic from Reddit in an organic manner. Here's an overview of a popular Reddit post (find it here) I created recently and how it went through its rise to a bit of Reddit fame. I also analyze what I got from it in terms of my primary conversion, which is getting some traffic that would result in Amazon book sales. I created this post for the /r/GetMotivated/ community and it's about overcoming procrastination. I usually post things related to productivity and Reddit is my main source of sales on Amazon. If the post gets some traction I leave a comment with the link to my book. This time, I made a simple text poster using Canva with a basic notion on which my book resides - using emotional awareness and acceptance to overcome procrastination. Here's how it hit 11k.
When I saw it's going well in those first hours, I left a comment with the link to the book and it got to about 300 upvotes during the poster's rise to fame. So, I'm guessing I got a lot of clicks and traffic from it to my page on Amazon. The results: I sold six books (four on the first day and two on the second, along with about 100 KENP pages read), so nothing to write home about. I'm guessing it's because people on the subreddit are interested in procrastination but not focused on it enough to buy books. I also got a handful of Reddit and Twitter followers, one random direct inquiry and some unexpected YouTube views on my previous podcast episode for the sheer fact that it was the post I left before this one. Overall, not the best results ever, but still an interesting experience. If you want to hear more details about this listen to them in the latest episode of my podcast, along with my Slavic accent and use of outdated catchphrases. Also, if you want to support me doing things like this, consider chipping in a buck on my Patreon page. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 09:31 AM PST I am starting my own digital media marketing company. My target market will be small business owners, i.e: doctors, lawyers, restaurants, dentists etc. I will offer social media marketing, email automation, content development for their websites, hosting their site, developing their site etc. My questions is: how much should I charge per month, or a tier pricing system depending on how much activity I provide them, i.e posts per month etc. Any feedback would he great. Thank you, [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 01:04 PM PST Hey r/entrepreneur! I'm here as a 17 year old from a very self/employed family looking for my own idea to earn some money on my own before I enter business school in a year for accounting and analytics. Any good ideas for this? All thoughts are very appreciated!! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 12:37 PM PST Could someone be interested in being my mentor and train me in becoming an entrepreneuer. Feel like i don't know what i'm doing. could use guidance and mentorship. Would like to also learn more on finanacial skills and handling money. Mainly would like to learn how to create value and new skills. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 12:00 PM PST It's weird man. You get older and the way your brain is wired just completely changes. A couple years ago my main focus was to be cool in school; wear the nicest clothes, be social, get drunk. You never once realize the thought of being on your own and what your going to do in life. You soon realize the value of family and how they aren't going to be here forever. You realize the value of money and how the world works. I'm now 20 and I'm more money hungry than ever and I've reached this odd motivational drive to be in charge of a large income based entrepreneurship. It's sickening the amount of opportunities that are presented to everyone to be rich and successful. I've reached this main consensus with myself that, it's really fucking hard to know where to start. The same Mon-Fri-7:30-5:30 ordeal just doesn't work for me. The same thing every day is just so fucked up for some people's heads. With my hyper active anxious mind it just constantly overwhelms you with a depressed unmotivated work day. Not everyone gets to experience life. I want to travel and be worry free and i don't believe you have to be 70 to experience that. I need a mentor if anything. Somebody that's going to teach me how to fish and not give me the fish that they catch. That's just not how things work. Somebody enlighten me or tell me something i don't know or that i should know. I'm a student just ready to take some notes. [link] [comments]  |
| Opinions on how to layout this 'framework'? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:58 AM PST I realize this is a rough draft, and all over the place. If you have any changes or things to add that would help. Or any direction towards making to a more effective and organized framework, would be more than helpful. Overview / microview Industry analysis and economic analysis(optional) Competitor analysis (brand & products strategy). competitors market share. customer brand preference. customer segmentation. Executive summary towards corporate goals, goals being met in departments and per employee. All plans leading towards brand positioning / mission / goal or 'wargaming' towards a competitive advantage. Micro view Porters Value Chain / department budgeting / department performance / fleshed out financial statements Department strategic plan that reach goals (marketing and sale, pr, product development, brand development, business development) support / governance performance review, issues within a business(don't know the name of this), hr, legal, change and growth report [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:58 AM PST Looking for any advice on what the process is/how to develop an app to begin beta testing. The app would have an interface similar to reddit, but serve a different purpose. I have the business model and most of the front end pages completed. Also what price range would I be looking initially? [link] [comments]  |
| Is there a place where I can hire a mentor in my industry? Posted: 07 Jan 2020 09:07 PM PST I don't know where to post this, so here it goes. I've started a web development agency recently and we're doing fine. Better than fine actually. However, I'm finding myself pretty awful at the initial conversation with the clients and translating that awkward conversation into a plan for their site. Obviously the best thing would be to hire someone to do this for me! Except I don't have the money to do this right now. I could also just struggle through and learn through reps. Admirable but I'd rather not. I'd like to pay someone for an hour of their time to walk me through their SOP when communicating with a brand new lead. I can't exactly message my local competitors and ask what they do. So I'm wondering is there a place where you can hire a business consultant in your industry? I'm brand new to all of this. [link] [comments]  |
| Google Analytics Email Reports as a Service? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:45 AM PST Hi everyone, with the every increasing number of projects - I am searching for a Google Analytics E-Mail Reporting service. Google's own is not detailed enough and I don't like the file formats. I'm looking for:
Is there a service out there? If not, would you use and pay for such a reporting tool? Thanks in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Quick tips for choosing best applicants for hiring. What do you look for? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:40 AM PST Hello all! I posted job openings for my company and we were slammed with applicants. I work 90 hour weeks and I need some suggestions for weeding through them. Applicants submitted online and came to me in an email response where some attached resumes and CVs. These people are not customer facing and need to be organized and detailed. Here's what I think I need, but give me more suggestions Good candidates will: Spell everything correctly with proper grammar Respond with interest and includes personal notes about my posting that shows they read it rather than just responded with a copy paste Have relevant experience Anything else? I need to narrow 300 applications down to 15 and interview to pick 5. Thank you for your consideration! [link] [comments]  |
| Analytics Software to Track the Health of Employee Populations Posted: 08 Jan 2020 10:13 AM PST Rod Reasen and I started the Healthiest Employers awards in Indiana in 2009 with a goal of understanding what employers are doing in corporate health and to recognize leaders in corporate wellbeing. Today, the designation is conducted in over 45 U.S. cities with 10,000 participating employers, including 72% of Fortune 100 companies. With a front-seat to employer wellbeing, Rod and I identified a common thread: Employers lacked the information to make and measure key decisions in the health of their population. In 2015, we launched Springbuk, a Health Intelligence platform. Now, 8,000 employers that represent 60 million employees later, our purpose has remained the same - to provide actionable insight into managing population health. When Rod and I realized the gap in the marketplace, identifying an opportunity to understand an employer's health data, we realized we had a chance to meet a need. Initially, we took this thesis back to employers in the marketplace to gauge interest, and from there, we learned that employers didn't need more data, they needed direction. By seeing the need through the lens of the Healthiest Employers Awards, we had the confidence to forge ahead with their idea, and build the product - Springbuk's Health Intelligence platform. By initially taking the product to local employers in the Indianapolis area, we were able to find the validation needed to build a meaningful tool that is able to change lives. Who is Springbuk's target demographic? One of the strangest things I experienced when first starting out was potential customers not wanting to pay for the beta product. When Health Intelligence was in its infancy, it was still very new. Fortunately for Rod and myself, the product has proven itself time and time again to be worth the investment. How did you find your early employees? As hindsight is always 20/20, I stress that the best tip for finding employees when you're first starting out is to not undervalue the importance of having an authentic vision for the company. In the early days, people take risks to join an unproven startup. People don't quit their day jobs to take a pay cut, work out of someone's basement, or be uncertain by what the future holds. By finding a unified, motivating factor for employees, it allows everyone to see the end goal and the vision for what you're trying to accomplish. Did you run any companies prior? I started a marketing agency in 2007 that I stayed with through 2013. In fact, this was where I met my Springbuk and Healthiest Employers co-founder, Rod Reasen. Prior to the marketing agency, Springbuk, and Healthiest Employers, I was working for a major Fortune 100 financial services company. While this might seem like a dream role for others, I felt as though by working in such a large company I wasn't able to see or feel the impact I was having. Often times in conference rooms and seeing a lack of speed or change or adaptability, I felt as though I must be the one doing something wrong. But rather than changing my mindset to match my job, I decided to change my job to match my mindset. When I first started out, there was some level of apprehension from my friends who were less entrepreneurial. However, I was willing to take the risk and if it failed, I could always go back to what I was doing before. However, I didn't look at it as taking a risk, I looked at is as making an investment in myself and my worth ethic. By the time Springbuk came around, my third venture as a founder, my support team knew I had what it would take and trusted my vision if I said it could work. However, as with many that work in health tech companies, my network still isn't always quite sure exactly what Springbuk does. What have you learned since starting a business? What motivates me when things go wrong is knowing that usually means things are about to go right. In the life of an entrepreneur, each day sees high highs and low lows, often within the same hour. There's almost the "dog year" mindset that each week is equal to seven, due to the amount of movement, adapting, and activity that can happen in a single week. However, seeing the work pay off makes it easier to not get too hung up on the lows. My best advice for someone starting out is that you cannot spend too much time with your customers. It sounds obvious, but with rapid-fire change if you don't have constant feedback, even when it might be negative, there's no way to learn and grow. Applying that feedback to your business and your product is the best way to create success. What apps do you use on a daily basis? As with most companies, Springbuk heavily utilizes its CRM system. It is the backbone for scaling the company, drives the marketing initiatives, and is key to engaging with the ever-important customers. For the purposes of internal communication and company culture, Springbuk also commends Slack as an essential tool. What's next? In the past five years, Springbuk has been focusing on responsible growth that is good for the team, customers, and stakeholders. With the continued vision to "prevent disease with data", we are still focused on growing Springbuk for years to come. After several years of working to create a superior product, the current focus is to scale and continuously improve it. If you enjoyed the interview, the original is here. [link] [comments]  |
| Does anyone do social media marketing/MGMT for small businesses? Posted: 08 Jan 2020 10:11 AM PST I'm a small business owner and have gotten pretty good at the above. I'm looking to start a side gig and am curious if anyone here has experience in doing so? [link] [comments]  |
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