All successful entrepreneurs have risen through adversity and perseverance. Before becoming established, all firms must go through the starting phase. They have to start somewhere, too. Ask any ambitious entrepreneur, and they’ll tell you about the exhausting, persistent process that has kept them awake countless nights.

It’s fascinating to learn about the beginnings of significant corporations that have become household brands. Others of them came from humble beginnings, and some of the well-known firms have founders with fascinating backstories.

In this interview series, we spoke with 53 business owners and executives in the United States to learn how some of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs and leaders faced adversity and triumphed. We have also gone over several strategies that you can utilize to overcome any obstacles that come your way.

INTERVIEW HOST

The host of this interview was Jed Morley. Jed Morley is the CEO of a leading payment processing service provider called PlatPay.

Table of Contents

The question we asked:

Can you tell us the difficulties that you faced on your journey to becoming an entrepreneur/CEO?

Kristina Alexandra Kovalyuk

The difficulties with becoming CEO are many and it is a journey not meant for all. As Elon Musk said, “being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and looking into the abyss”. Some of the challenges I faced in becoming a CEO have been:

• Leaving a comfortable well paying job on Wall Street that provided a salary, benefits and security and going into the unknown. Not knowing where or when my next ‘paycheck’ was going to come from.
• Marketing. Knowing what my product and service is, is one thing, but how to get it to my target audience, getting it on their radar, marketing, pitching, doing PR.
• Establishing corporate governance, accounting, operations, structure, CRM.
• Hiring talent. Probably one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur is finding talent and then being able to give them the freedom to do their work and not micro-manage and let go. This was a very tough part as an entrepreneur wants to instinctively do everything themselves.

Matt Post

Whenever I am confronted with difficulties and challenges as a leader, I always remind myself that great leadership is forged in the fire of adversity. Yes, difficulties can sometimes discourage you from pursuing your goals further, but if you adopt a growth mindset around them, you will learn to embrace each challenge as an opportunity to grow. That is what I have continuously tried to do throughout my career as a serial entrepreneur.

Chris M. Walker

The hardest part for me was learning to lean on other people.

I waited literal years too long for my first hire and once I did it changed the game for me overnight and let me take things to the next level… but I still didn’t learn.

After that hire I was able to add more offers, grow more products and help more people… until I plateaued again, and had to be convinced to hire further.

This was a vicious cycle that I eventually broke out of long after I should have. I have now finally learned that not only can I not do everything myself, but I should do very few things myself so the things that I do, do get me at my best.

Your business is your creation and it is normal to think no one can do things up to your standard, but you can’t do it this way for long if you have any level of success, it will lower the quality of your work, make you hate what you do, and prevent your from rowing.

I am fortunate now to have a great team that handles most everything for me to the point that I joke that I am just the face on the sign like Colonel Sanders… but it took me a long time to get there, and if I hadn’t struggled with this I’d be years further along than I am now.

Brett Larkin

One of the biggest challenges I faced on my entrepreneurial journey was prioritizing work-life balance. When you start a business, it is hard to focus on anything else, but this hyperfocus can actually cause a lot of fatigue and stress that can lead to burnout.

The key to being a well-rounded leader and business person is to figure out how you can balance your professional life with your personal life. External factors, like friends, family and your social life can actually benefit you hugely by providing comfort and support on your entrepreneurial journey!

Kate Lombardo

The journey to becoming an entrepreneur, also a Yoga Director at YogaRenew Teacher Training is one that is filled with constant challenges. While I’ve faced all the typical ones– from conquering self-doubt to navigating bankruptcy as a result of the pandemic– I think the biggest difficulty I’ve faced is learning to accept that things are always going to change.

When it comes to being an entrepreneur, you have to be open to always learning and growing and learning how to pivot as things around you change. Every time you think you’ve finally got things figured out, something else shifts in the world and you have to adjust in order to stay relevant.

For example, right before the pandemic began I finally felt like my yoga studio was in a good place and then we had to close and learn how to teach online. Thankfully by then, I had already gotten comfortable with needing to always be able to pivot, but that took a long time for me to learn how to accept that I’ll never be “done” when it comes to being an entrepreneur.

The exciting thing about that is that it means you can never truly fail. You just need to keep trying until you find the way that works.

Adam Rossi

Many entrepreneurs have similar stories on their way to the top. Everyone has problems they face on a daily basis, but what separates those who are good from those who are great is how they deal with the adversity that appears in everyone’s lives.

I’m no different. I’ve faced the same issues, dealt with the same issues of people not believing in me or in my journey toward success. The only difference between me and those who haven’t reached their success yet? I didn’t let any of those problems stop me. That’s the big secret to being a successful entrepreneur. Don’t stop.

Don’t let anything get in your way. You’re going to have problems. You’re going to have haters. It’s inevitable. Don’t let it stop you. Let it fuel your fire. Prove them wrong. Prove everyone wrong.

Devon Fata

The core of my journey to becoming a CEO was the slow realization that it was the only way I would be able to work in a way that fit my vision and values.

I started in the web design business right out of college as a salaried employee at a big design firm. While I learned a lot about the industry and built my skills, I found that there were a lot of things I wanted to do differently, but lacked the power to change.

This led me to becoming a freelancer. This gave me a greater degree of control over my work and the freedom to find clients for myself and start acting a bit like a business instead of an employee, but I was still limited both by the clients I could find and by my inability to bring together teams for bigger projects. That’s when I launched Pixoul. Now I can finally implement my vision on entire projects, from start to finish.

Dain Dunston

One of the biggest difficulties I faced during my career journey was failing as a leader at a tech company, where I lasted only four months. It shook me to my core. The worst part was I knew in my bones it was a bad decision before I accepted the job, and yet I went ahead with it anyway.

I came into the role feeling so uncomfortable for so many reasons that I surely would have come across as inauthentic and even just a little weird. I left feeling crushed, humiliated, and defeated. I had no idea where to go next, yet I was determined to find the answer to one burning question:

How had I become so lost? The experience fired me up to find out why I had made such bad decisions and how I could rewire my mind to be the awesome, inspiring human being I always wanted to be (but secretly doubted I was worthy of becoming). Who among us hasn’t found ourselves in the wrong job, or feeling that we didn’t belong, or wishing we could stop making decisions that took us into dead-end career moves?

My failed job experience allowed me to look inward, and over time, with daily personal practice, I rewired my mind to be the leader I know I could be. Along the way, I helped many other leaders do the same, from CEOs to those just starting out in their careers. Nothing I’m doing today would be happening if I hadn’t gone through that and a few related experiences. All experience happens for one purpose: to increase our awareness.

Ryan Yount

Establishing a clear direction for the business was the most difficult challenge I faced. Developing strategies that will lead the business in the right direction is not easy, especially when starting from scratch.

You must always be ahead of time to avoid losing the relevance of the business. One of an entrepreneur’s most important responsibilities is to bring what has yet to be done into the present. An entrepreneur is also tasked to find solutions to other business issues, such as poor customer service, which is a challenge due to a lack of experience.

Keeping up with business trends and changes is another challenge I faced. When starting a small business as an entrepreneur, you must adapt to the changing trends in the business environment. Trends create or destroy businesses at their initial stages. Seasoned business owners recognize that a trend is a friend, and they are always ready to adapt their operations to the current trend quickly.

It isn’t easy to keep your eyes open for trends while you are on your journey to becoming an entrepreneur, but the real challenge is always the ability to capitalize on these trends rapidly.

Thomas Mirmotahari

The difficulty I faced was the challenges that accompanied the commencement of this pandemic. Overcoming those challenges meant finally taking a leap of faith to start my own business which I did in 2020. Fast forward to 2022, I have 7 full time employees and 2 part time employees on my team. We are dedicated and focused on producing great results that continue to sustain the enterprise.

I am a Business School graduate and my knowledge on what it takes to be a great leader started at college. So for me, making my way to the top of my own company meant hard work at strategizing a business plan that was relevant to the market, taking the bull by the horns and finally getting down to implementing a marketable solution.

Starting your own business is gutsy. It involves many long hours of hard work. So I could say that developing a higher treshold for discipline, and time management was an initial challenge. I believe that if you truly believe that you have a viable solution to a business problem then test it out and go for it. But have a willingness to work hard. You must be willing to put some skin in the game to make anything happen in life and business.

James Parsons

Digital marketing was already a highly competitive niche in 2018. It was a big challenge to market my company since many digital marketing agencies existed.

The best solution was to offer business proposals to my existing connections at more affordable rates with excellent data-driven results. I hired experienced offshore writers and marketers to save me some money and invested in dependable project management software to boost collaboration and increase productivity.

I created a website for my digital marketing agency and marketed my content marketing services across different online platforms. These steps tremendously improved the company’s online presence, gaining decent traffic for the first year and overwhelming content orders the years after that. More client referrals came in because of the soaring 700% increase in our average clients’ conversion rate in 2020.

William Cohen

One of the issues I had to deal with regularly was criticism. It could be about business concepts, small biz decision-making mistakes, or even launching a firm in the first place.

My business was continuously reminded about the different ways it may fail. People would be jealous of and intimidated by me, so these critics would get personal sometimes.

It’s also quite challenging for any new firm to acquire customers, especially if the company has a limited marketing budget. This concern was always on my mind, and the fact that consumers want to stick with well-known brands made it more difficult for me to advertise.

Tim Absalikov

Being a digital marketing agency, we did not vividly sense the negative effect of the pandemic. We have a mixed staff – both onsite and remote employees – so, we did not have to significantly change the mode of the work. At least, the effect of the changes was not painful for us as we didn’t have to adapt to changing market conditions. We were already practicing remote working, at least part of our staff.

Gian Moore

I’m a single mother. So, Building a business while my daughter was growing up was a huge task for me.

Emily Cooper

Hi Jed,

I’m Emily, the founder of Oliver Wicks, a luxury Italian menswear brand with an online presence.

Being a business leader requires a lot of social responsibility and accountability. There will always be challenges and setbacks present. The only thing that is within your control is your mindset and attitude towards things.

I value integrity and resilience the most in running my business. Enjoy the journey ahead and use the difficult times as fuel to perform better. It’s totally fine to fall down sometimes. The important part is getting back on the saddle and learning from your mistakes.

The first few years of establishing the business are usually the hardest. You are finding your footing, and grappling with growing pains at the same time. It really helps to center on your “why” in venturing into your business, as well as having the right team in place. Never be afraid to ask for help, and always give credit where credit is due.

I hope you find these inputs helpful. I will be happy to elaborate more on the topic, should you need more information.

Warm Regards,

Michael Dean

One of the main difficulties I’ve faced while being an entrepreneur is keeping up-to-date on current marketing trends. I never realized the absolute importance of marketing and SEO strategies until I started my own business.

You can have a fantastic idea, but without good marketing tactics, building an audience for that idea is next to impossible. Successful marketing requires an understanding of your brand, and solidifying your brand at the beginning of your business journey can often be challenging.

As someone who is not naturally savvy with social media, I have had to really put in effort and research into understanding how to use it as a business tool. Social media is one of the most accessible and valuable marketing tools out there. If you’re not prioritizing social media and digital marketing for your business, you are missing out on tons of engagement.

Becky Brown

I have 20+ years of experience in business, but becoming a CEO took more effort than I could ever imagine. My entrepreneurship journey began remotely when I took control of ShoppingKim, and I had to put in a lot of effort to make it all work.

The initial difficulty was learning how to navigate the online space, getting acquainted with the technology, and learning how to utilize it to grow my business. I had to learn a lot about website development, content creation, e-commerce, and digital marketing.

Managing a remote team was another difficult issue to resolve because I had to learn how to rally my employees to do their best work so that my business can grow.

All things considered, it took a lot of time and effort to learn and understand how everything works in order to make the best decisions as a CEO. Every CEO has to learn the inner workings of their business, but there’s also the need to acquire people and leadership skills to succeed.

Sherry Morgan

The hardest challenge I faced in my road to becoming a business owner and CEO is actually starting the journey. I had a lot of self-doubts and I always thought that maybe I shouldn’t start since I’m sure that there are always people better than me out there.

I got stuck in the planning stage for a long time, always visualizing what I want to happen but not taking any action towards it. Eventually, I decided not to pursue my ideas anymore but then my closest friends talked some sense into me.

They reminded me about the problems I want to solve and why I wanted to start my business in the first place. They also gave me a lot of advice and support and made me feel that I can do anything that I put my mind to.

There may be better people out there, but what’s important is looking at my own progress and aiming to be better than who I was yesterday. This motivated me to finally start and now whatever challenge I face in my business, I’m now brave to face it.

Stephen Keighery

One difficulty I faced on my entrepreneurial journey was keeping my head out of the competition.

Aside from the struggle to stay competitive in the marketplace, you also have to be aware and not get lost in the competition, which may influence how you conduct your business and offer your services.

It is challenging to stay level-headed, especially if you see your competitors earn more than you despite providing the same benefits as you do. You have to learn to extract yourself from that mindset, focus on the quality of services you offer, and establish a good rapport with your clients.

Devin Schumacher

The transition from being a technical consultant or contributor or employee to a full blown businessman providing payroll to others is a large step and it is not always a smooth road to walk on.

The growth pains of building a sustainable business in its infancy on top of a highly irregular business climate with covid-19 is a real challenge. I worked by developing grit and having systems, making small decisions on a daily basis that build into great results.

Here are the things that helped me:

Discipline through a Regimen or Workout
I was able to develop grit and resilience by training in the boxing ring for fitness. This really helped me show up for myself and my business rain or shine.

Center on a Natural Industry of Interest
You can zero in on so many materials when you are incredibly passionate about a subject. So the sucess comes more naturally on the things that feel and seem appealing to you.

Have a Why or Purpose
Ultimately, I thrive in serving clients by making them more digitally visible for revenue. I take pride in being close to the revenue line of my clients and that empowers me everyday.

Erik Wright

Any new enterprise has a significant risk because there is always a fear of the unknown. The worry that I carried with me was leaving a well-established and stable job to pursue my dream of being an entrepreneur.

As there is no in-time or out-time while running your own business, it is hard to manage a job and a new business venture at the same time. For the business to succeed, 100 percent devotion is required.

It’s difficult and scary to leave a well-paying career, but if your instincts tell you that being an entrepreneur is the best fit for you, go for it. Do something that makes you happy at the end of the day, and if becoming an entrepreneur is your desire, work hard to make it a reality. That is exactly what I did.

Bryan Scudiere

When I think about my journey into entrepreneurship it almost happened by accident. My father lost his job in the ’08 crash which removed college from my option list, and I had to get a job in sales.

With no degree, the only type of sales job i could get was a commission-only D2D position – so I had to completely trust that I was capable of producing results. I spent 4.5years in the ups and downs of a commission based sales role some weeks making great money others, not so much. My first hurdle in my career was actually learning to manage cash flow, so I could survive a dry spell of sales.

This was where I learned budget based/profit first type of budgeting. In 2016 Once I opened the doors of my first franchise, I was off to the races and grew extremely fast in just 30 days, shooting up to a 30 person organization. I was young, audacious, and exceptionally loud haha I was running a sales floor in a Class A office building with incredibly thin walls next door to a 100+ year old Law Firm.

The music blaring and sales reps on the phone trying to close appointments made the owner of the building quite upset. He stormed in, and in front of my entire sales team screamed, smashed my speaker, and proceeded to aggressively kick everybody out.

So about 4 weeks into opening my first business I was banned from ever coming back into that office building [to this day] and had to find another location on the fly, while saving as many reps from quitting as possible. I managed to hold onto 12, find a cheaper bigger office space, and still put up over 300,000 in sales in the next 90 days and over a million the following year.

Garnering me the #1 franchise spot in the company for new business created in 2017. Just one of the many wild stories from owning a small business. Hope this is inspiring and helps people who are on the verge of quitting, I know i sure was back in 2016.

Kathleen Steffey

The difficulties faced on my journey to become an entrepreneur/CEO shaped me into the successful business owner that I am today.

When 9/11 happened, I was working as an ex-pat overseas in the Netherlands and I was part of a reduction in force for the European operation. All of a sudden, I found myself unemployed and so far from home during a tumultuous period for our nation.

This was a very pivotal moment for me to stop and reflect on myself, what I want for my future and quality of life while growing my career, similar to the behaviors and decision-making that you see in our current “Great Recession”. This is when I really began to ask myself “What do I want to do?”

I took that hardship and evaluated my life. This hardship gave me a wound to look back on but also to look ahead to new beginnings. Without the events that struck the nation that day and the immediate impact it had on the world and my career, I wouldn’t have had the fortitude or even moment to reflect on what I could make of myself.

I am so glad that I took the entrepreneur road (less traveled) instead of getting back into the corporate rat race. Here I am today celebrating 20 years in business!

Paul Sherman

The key challenge that I faced in my journey to the top was growing my network. The higher you go, the more you run into groups of people that are closed off to newcomers and like things the way they are. They’ve climbed up the ladder and pulled it away from under them, so to speak.

Breaking into such groups and thus moving my career forward required me to grow my network, but it was a vicious cycle. I couldn’t grow my network because these people often didn’t welcome newcomers, but I couldn’t break into these groups because my network was so small. The solution for me was pure luck. I met someone, who I consider to be a mentor, who vouched for me and helped me break into these networks of very high-achieving experts in the field.

Once I had my first break, it was, ironically, a virtuous cycle of my network growing, being accepted into more business professionals groups, my network growing even further, and so on.

As the saying goes, your network truly is your net worth.

Dragos Badea

A little over ten years ago I was your standard software engineer working at a design agency when I had the bright idea that it would be great to be able to digitize offices – really make it so that every aspect of the office was interconnected via software rather than all of the random clunky systems and paper-based processes that dominated the office at the time.

A good place to start, I reasoned, was a digital meeting room booking tool. As luck would have it, the concept caught on and here we are in 2022 with a rapidly growing hybrid workforce management solution business that’s been ranked as an industry leader by G2.

Naturally the way to get there was paved with it’s own fair share of difficulties. At the time everyone thought I was crazy. “Why would I pay to stick a tablet to the wall just to tell me whether the meeting room is busy?” is a phrase I heard more than once, which is not a great motivational help after you’ve taken your leap into entrepreneurship.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that I was, as I mentioned earlier, a software engineer. I knew next to nothing about the business side of running a company, but thankfully you really can learn just about anything online these days. I was putting together the tool, gaining our first clients and taking an online sales course on our way to bring in our first million of repeating yearly revenue.

What I took away from this is that not knowing how to do something or going against the way things are done are no real excuse for not giving your idea a try. Find the way to make it work and change the industry paradigm as you’re doing it.

Pati Recarte Iguaz

Patricia Recarte Iguaz is the founder and CEO of KADO Networks, a remote networking company. Pati created KADO during the pandemic as a way for businesses and individuals to grow meaningful relationships through a remote app you can download to your phone.

You can learn more about KADO by going to www.kadonetworks.com. Here’s what Pati has to say about some of the difficulties she’s faced on her journey to becoming an entrepreneur / CEO:

“On a personal level, preserving my mental health was an issue and still is, but to a lesser extent. Not managing my personal anxiety and stress levels ended up taking a toll on me. It’s key to find activities that allow your mind to drift away and escape the constant fires that need to be put out. It doesn’t necessarily have to be meditation. It can be anything from going for a run to boxing, or even a night out with friends.

Bringing on a co-founder can also help with the feelings of solitude and stress management. Entrepreneurship is a long and lonely road. Bringing in a co-founder helped me with sharing the weight and also helped with having different perspectives.

On the business side, setting a clear go-to-market strategy and getting our first clients was a real hustle! How can you convince people to use your app when no one else is using it? How can you convince a company to pay for your service when you have no referrals or reviews?

At the beginning, we did a lot of beta testing for free and interviews with potential clients, while also improving the app at the same time. To encourage usage, we’ve been offering it for free to individuals. Having some metrics is critical for SMBs and enterprises to move forward. Potential customers often ask about the number of users or need some name-dropping to be convinced. We are still at the very beginning of our story and this is still one of our key challenges, but we are getting better and improving every single day. “

Kunal Gandhi

Kunal Gandhi is the founder and CEO of EZPT, a new at-home fitness app. Kunal’s app tracks movement using your phone’s camera and corrects form using AI technology to prevent injury and encourage a safe workout experience. You can learn more about EZPT by visiting their website at www.ezpt.xyz.

Here’s what Kunal has to say about the personal difficulties he’s faced on his journey to becoming an entrepreneur and CEO:

“Every day is a new challenge. The fun part about building a startup is that we are constantly faced with obstacles that we must learn to jump over while also running at top speed. One of the biggest challenges that I faced as a founder was building product, talking to customers, and staying focused. As a young (& first-time) founder, there were tons of experienced founders and investors out there providing their advice on which direction to take the company. Our technology had a great problem – there were so many industries to apply the technology to.”

“Everything from sports, fitness, physical therapy, warehouses, truck drivers, day-to-day consumers and so many more. Learning about all of these industries and the market opportunity for each has really helped us evolve our roadmap. Focusing in on our core vision and brand values has allowed us to focus on building a movement health platform creating injury specific workouts for patients and providing data to care providers. We’ve also learned along the way to listen to customer feedback first, rather than jumping to the next industry. Talking to customers is a major key.”

Lauren Petrullo

I think the biggest difficulty I faced on becoming an entrepreneur and CEO was realizing that my unique set of skills in Facebook Ad has like one tenth of the skills that I would need to lead a team because I have to figure out project management, account management, reporting and every other course service that we offer.

We service lead generation and e-commerce clients which I can do all day long and Facebook ads. We extended our services to include marketing automation with emails and SMS, Google, Bing and Amazon PPC as well as the host of other services and having to mitigate the ability to know enough about services we offer to speak at it at a high level to build our client as well as to hold our team accountable.

The biggest difficulty was like to figure out how to manage a team, manage a remote team, manage a diverse remote team so that when my name, my face, my company is at the forefront, everything we do with every pack member equally represents the same level of quality my customers and clients came to know when they work with just me before I was a CEO.

Barbara Bolotte

The pandemic forced a majority of businesses to have to change the way in which they were doing something in order to adapt to their new environment.

At Clean Creations, we saw this as an opportunity to expand our services to help more individuals. During the height of the pandemic, fewer people were going to the grocery store or eating out. In response to this, we doubled down on keeping our staff safe and healthy which included COVID safety protocols like hand washing every hour on the hour.

We have an obligation to our community to keep them healthy and we wanted to maintain our service, especially for those who might not be comfortable leaving their homes to go to the grocery store. The pandemic has only fortified our mission of changing people’s lives with clean eating. We are grateful to be able to continue our mission during these times.

Renee Dominguez

I had struggled from very early on and it has been a journey to get where I’m at today. I was a high school dropout that never truly felt that I would have what it takes to be successful. As the years went on, I learned from many of my positions and I ended up going to private colleges earning multiple degrees. However, I continued struggling with imposter syndrome and feeling that I would never be educated or skilled enough to hold a high-ranking position.

Again, I underestimated myself. I have created glass ceilings for myself that I have also shattered. Now, I teach others to do the same. I went from a statistic to a bad-ass CEO and continue to prove to myself that I can do hard things!

Tapping into my intuition has allowed me to energetically attract the right type of clients. I grew up thinking I didn’t have any skills or talents. I seriously thought GOD missed me when it came to assigning these to babies. It took me nearly 40 years to realize I didn’t just have a skill or talent, I have a superpower. Now that I know this, I don’t doubt my decisions or waver on them. This superpower has guided me to create transformations not just for myself, but also for my clients who are now able to tap into their next levels of success, with ease.

My clients are women in Leadership who are ready to empower themselves and claim their seat at the table. I work in collaboration with you to develop your own unique leadership style in order to be heard, seen, and respected in the workplace. I have created strategic development tools to uncover your core values, true worth, and passions that will lead you to success and future endeavors. My clients are then excited and prepared for what lies ahead for them.

Joseph Gardzina

I’m Joseph, the CEO, and founder of ADAPT Programs which provides outpatient treatment services for substance abuse disorders. I’m a licensed US DOT Substance Abuse Professional along with a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor. Throughout my professional career, I have worked in several agencies and have worked as the Program Coordinator of their inpatient adolescent treatment program as well as the Director of Programs for Phoenix House in San Diego, CA. I have faced many difficulties in order to get to the position of a leader.

The trek up to leadership.
The journey to becoming a leader is much harder than it seems. Transitioning from a manager or employee or starting your own business is a completely new experience and that difficult part about that is no one ever teaches you how to become a real leader, it’s something that you only learn from experience. The journey towards leadership is one with obstacles at every step.

In my personal experience, when I was working as a manager and the next step was a promotion to a director, every day was a challenge. What differentiates a good leader from a bad one is how quickly you bounce back. Problems will be common in your role as a leader. How swiftly you deal with them as well as stay motivated throughout is how your become a good leader.

Dealing with the challenges.
The hardest part of becoming a CEO was taking the position of a leader. Deciding on goals for the entire team was something that was relatively new for me. I was used to defining goals for myself but forming goals for the entire organization was a challenge. Moreover, the added responsibility of so many people is a huge burden as well. I am responsible for the culture of the workplace and the execution of creating such a culture is a daunting task especially when you want to create a healthy and motivating environment.

The best way, in my opinion, to overcome difficulties on the way to the top is to find mentors and allies. Your support system is what will make or break you. Engage with your mentors who have ideally been in the same position as you and gather their insights on the process. Learning from their mistakes will prevent you from making your own.

One more thing I learnt is to not put off difficult decisions. As a leader you will have to make hard decisions every day. Surround yourself with people who are there for you in these hard times but also encourage you to do the right thing. The journey is not an easy one but staying focused is what works.

Lastly, one of the greatest challenge while on the journey to becoming a leader is learning the art of patience. It’s a removal of the ego and you cannot lash out on anyone if you are in a rut. You must always be calm and collected and embrace tough times as they come. A positive mindset and mindfulness goes a long way.

Will Cannon

How Do Leaders Cope with the Challenges
Leadership is what everyone is aiming for. Aside from the power that you are entitled to, it is also a door for more opportunities. However, it does not only take overnight to become one. A lot of successful leaders have endured the hardships that may come along with their careers.

There is no exact formula on how to be a leader. And, there is no precise number of levels of work needed for leadership. Some leaders have to spend a lifetime to attain success. But there are explications to achieve the goal.

How do leaders cope with the challenges?

1. Face conflict positively
2. Always stay calm in every situation
3. Look for opportunities
4. Reach out for help when needed
5. Be proactive and creative
6. Make sure to have a personal time
7. Leaders possess humility. They always remain humble even if they are on top. This characteristic keeps them in position.

Adit Jain

As you progress through your entrepreneurial journey, the kind of challenges that you face keep changing. For example, right now our biggest challenge is how to scale the business to $100M in terms of revenue. But for us, we were hardcore techies, so learning sales as just a three-person team, without the money to hire a team was the first challenge we faced.

During those early days, it was about product-market fit, and after that, it was about hiring the best people to build the best solution. That said, hiring the best is a constant challenge throughout a business’s journey.

Now, coming to overcoming these challenges. As I mentioned earlier, we were hardcore techies, and sales were something we had to learn from scratch. But we gradually learned. We understood how to sell to investors and customers alike. To add to that, we were dealing with the fear of “What if someone says no?” But over time, we’ve learned that you have to be comfortable in your skin because 99 out of the 100 times you hear a no. The day you get that lodged; you improve.

That’s one, now coming to the challenge of product-market fit. Product-market fit tells you whether you should start scaling or not, and it is critical because it tells you whether or not your business idea will be a breakout success.

So, we decided to go back to our customers to understand their needs and figure out how we could effectively solve their problems. It is important for entrepreneurs to go back to their customers and understand their requirements. As soon as you see repeatability in your customers, you know it is a fit.

Jonathan George

At the age of 26, I was named the Grand Champion Winner on Ed McMahon’s “Next Big Star”. It was the highlight of my career and my dreams were coming true as a brand-new record deal slid across the table… and then they discovered I was gay. I was left with no deal, no direction, and my dreams shattered.

My team tried to get me married, they tried to change my music, they tried to change everything about me. All I heard was…“You’re. Not. Good. Enough.”
You see, I had already spent a lifetime of being relentlessly bullied for not being a sports kid. Also, as the son of a preacher, I was told that I could never fulfill the purpose I knew I had in my life.

Again, “You’re not good enough.”

I didn’t know who I was or how to show up in the world. And no matter the accolades, I truly felt I wasn’t good enough.
That’s when I said “no more” and vowed to become the kind of coach I so badly needed in my own life. I needed someone who wasn’t going to CHANGE me… and make me different from who I was. Instead, I needed someone to help me ROCK the person I already was.

Since then, I’ve spent over two decades developing celebrity personal brands for entertainers, influencers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and professionals. As the CEO of Unleash Your Rockstar – Personal Branding Agency, they now call me The Human Hitmaker because my clients have over 150 million online followers.

My battle wounds gave me purpose and helped me impact the world around me.

Dan Voss

Thanks for putting this query out, hope you are doing well! It is true that every leader has faced difficulties and challenges, and continues to do so, that’s what a leadership role is about. As a leader, you are going to pave the way for your team, company, industry, or sector, and it comes with a whole lot of challenges.

One of the biggest I’ve faced in my years of working is ‘people management. Working together synergetically to achieve the best outcome, or to make sure everyone is productive and contributing to their fullest. Initially, it was thought that having the best players in the industry on your team would automatically mean success, but that’s not all that matters.

You need to be able to lead that team, navigate negative attitudes, bring direction, monitor outcomes among the other intangible things, like job satisfaction, culture, work-life balance, loyalty, etc. This for me was a big challenge and learning for me when I started out, but once you get a hang of it, it can be one of the biggest driving factors to your success.

Corey Tyner

GETTING PAID DIFFERENTLY
Real estate’s financial and technical dynamics were the most challenging aspects when I started as a new agent. Because I was used to salary work, it was a financial challenge. After putting in a certain amount of labour, I was used to receiving a paycheck every month. I only ate what I killed in real estate.

WEARING MULTIPLE HATS
For the first time, I considered marketing budgets, marketing tactics, branding, and lead generation while also attempting to pay the bills. During my real estate schooling, I received training on performing specific tasks and the regulations that govern them. Still, they did not provide me with training on operating other areas of my business. To remain afloat, I quickly understood concepts like lead generation, how to follow up with leads, and organizational procedures.

NO OFF-HOURS
Off-hours work is one of the most challenging aspects of the real estate market. My working hours are opposed to those of my friends and family who work the regular 9-to-5 job. People who purchase and sell houses work full-time throughout the week and are only accessible in the evenings or on weekends. This entails working throughout your friend’s and family’s vacations. Knowing that you are required somewhere else while others enjoy a weekend BBQ can be depressing.

WORKING ALL THE TIME
As a real estate agent, I’m in charge of establishing my business. I have absolute control over my business, which means I can make or break it based on my efforts. There’s always more work that has to be done. This leads to a desire to work as hard as possible and a sense of slacking off when attempting to rest.

Keron Howe

I am passionate about helping people and also love real estate. A friend bought me Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The book made me focus on the idea of building wealth and freedom through real estate, and ultimately led me to co-founding Property Nation in 2011.

The journey has been incredibly rewarding, and I really appreciate that I can help people who are facing financial difficulties. Admittedly, at the start of the business, I had a very steep learning curve and faced many challenges.

Initially, I relied heavily on my business experience, research, and instinct. Real estate investment encompasses a lot of different aspects. Understanding renovations, repairs, and building a list of fair and reliable contracts were some points I needed to learn fast.

Seeking a mentor helped me meet those challenges. I learned it is unnecessary to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Finding the right mentor for each stage of my journey, to learn from their knowledge and experience, lowered the learning curve whilst motivating me to succeed.

Finding a mentor can be a challenge, but by networking within in the industry and expanding your personal circle, it is possible to find your perfect match.

Sophie Chiche

The greatest difficulty I faced as an entrepreneur is, ironically, also my greatest strength The fact is, when you’re running a company or starting a new business venture, you have to devote virtually all of your time to it.

You have to eat, sleep, and breathe your business; to truly be successful requires an almost 24/7 commitment. But despite the never-ending dedication that your business requires, you still need to find time for yourself – some time to get away, to forget about the business or venture for a bit. Most people can only do so for short snippets of time here and there, but even these tiny respites will help to recharge you and keep your mind and soul fresh.

Unfortunately, as I was getting my business established, I found myself unable to follow this advice. I was completely consumed with growing the business and “keeping my eye on the prize.” I did grow my business – quite well, in fact – but it took awhile for me to learn how to step back and occasionally relax, putting aside all work-related items to “smell the roses.” I’m sure I would have burned out if I hadn’t been able to adopt this mindset. Even if you give 99% of your time to your business, you’ve got to save at least 1% for yourself. That 1% can go a long way towards helping you maintain your sanity and your focus.

Erin LaCkore

1. Following through.

This is the most common challenge a leader faces in their life. They can get busy so much that they won’t even have time to look into every problem. So it is important that a leader creates a priority list that includes which task needs their most attention. This will help them to pay attention and overcome any challenge.

2. Dealing with stress and anxiety.

Having a busy life can cause stress and act as a hurdle in achieving your tasks. So it is important that you take out some time to meditate to deal with your stress and anxiety. When you have dealt with it, you can pay more attention and put all your focus on the work.

James Simmons

James Simmons is the founder and CEO of GameApart, a new online gaming platform. The platform connects users to loved ones via their favorite card game or board game by using virtual software such as Zoom, Teams or FaceTime.

Simmons created GameApart during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for loved ones to connect virtually. You can learn more about GameApart by going to www.gameapart.com. Here’s what James has to say about some of the difficulties he’s faced on his journey to becoming an entrepreneur / CEO.

“The biggest challenge was learning when to take risks. As a senior leader (but NOT the CEO) you can suggest or advise tough courses of action, but the ultimate decision on whether to bet the deal, the lawsuit, or the company fell on someone else, and there was always a little bit of comfort in the fact that someone else was making the final call on the really big issues (and also a bit of frustration!).

When it’s all on you, the fear of making the wrong choice can be crippling or, conversely, actually making the wrong choice without due consideration can be catastrophic; learning to handle this and find the right balance of caution and boldness (still working on it!) has been a huge part of my personal founder/CEO journey!”

Shawn Plummer

In my journey to becoming a CEO, I struggled with transitioning from a corporate environment where I had a lot of resources and people to support my work to starting my own business where I had to do everything myself.

There were a lot of things I took for granted and having to get everything in place on my own was difficult in the beginning. However, I’ve never looked back. I greatly value working for myself and investing in my own growth.

Stephan Baldwin

At the start of my CEO career, I dealt with internal conflicts regarding the conditions of existing care facilities. Many of these centers are well-decorated and promoted with excellent advertising, but they often lack financial support to sustain senior dependents. Some people might say that the negatives drove them to achieve successful businesses, but that disappointing reality nearly deterred my plans.

That experience taught me to leverage the power of research as a professional marketer. If we commit to learning about our competitors, we should also dedicate time towards recovering the facts about our industry of interest.

I realized that Assisted Living couldn’t be better or stand out in an uninformed environment. So I spent months performing a deep dive into senior care facilities, learning about each company’s history and retention rates. My choice to take a journalistic approach to healthcare marketing allowed me to uncover more than 19 000 care centers in the U.S. and Canada that I partner with proudly today.

Here’s the bottom line: If you want to be successful, you need to be willing to accept some hard truths and build on them. Entrepreneurs who shy away from the nitty-gritty work miss out on the foundations for thriving businesses.

Benjamin Rollins

The difficulties I faced in my journey in becoming an entrepreneur / CEO was learning to focus on other people instead of myself and not being secretive about the problem I was trying to solve.

I thought that if I talked about the problem I was trying to solve, people might steal my idea or take advantage of it. I was focusing only on myself and wondering why I wasn’t achieving the success I wanted.

After I got over myself and started focusing on helping others, and I started talking to others to get feedback on my idea, I was able to build a better business.

Froswa Booker-Drew

When I started my business, it was the result of dealing with a boss who was threatened. Instead of nurturing what I brought to the organization, my willingness to grow and learn, she saw it as a problem. This experience along with others taught me to value my team and create the space for them to unleash their talent. Insecurity is a trap that destroys your possibilities and the confidence of others.

I was already being asked to provide consulting. I walked out on faith believing I could grow my business. In a year, I exceeded what I made at my job through my business. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, ebbs and flows. I initially struggled with understanding my value and worth which I cheated myself financially. I undervalued what I brought without accounting for my lived experience and education combined. When you aren’t clear on that, you’ll attract clients who also will not see your value.

Over the years, I’ve had my business in a full or part time capacity but I’ve never stopped. I’ve learned the importance of surrounding yourself with others who can offer support so you can focus on what you are good at—you can’t do everything all the time. As much as the grind is important and working hard to make your dreams a reality, you must take time to focus on building yourself.

You can’t grow stagnant and you must keep learning. Self-care both individually and in community is necessary. It’s important to take time to relax and rest. I remember pushing myself so hard that my health suffered. If you aren’t well, your business suffers. Learning to prioritize is paramount. Relationships are important and neglecting those that bring you life only hurts you.

I’ve learned so much because of the lessons I gained over the years. Your mistakes are lessons. Use them as a foundation to grow and bless others.

Lauren Carroll

In my industry of real estate, my biggest challenge would be where I operate, as potential clients often associate experience with age. As a young entrepreneur, it was a challenge to prove myself as an expert in my market.

Typically in this field, they say it takes seven years to get your business up and running. Of course, this is different for everyone. However, in Real Estate you do have to hustle and find different avenues in which you can generate revenue until you are off the ground. One takeaway from my experiences is that persistence and consistency are essential for new business owners.

Lauren Cohen

AN ANOMALY IN THE LEGAL AND REAL ESTATE WORLD!

Lauren Cohen is recognized as a premier International Legal Expert and Global Expansion Strategist. She operates several international companies focused on delivering full-service solutions for business owners.

She helps expand their global impact by facilitating the logistics of moving businesses and their owners across the country and around the globe. Her superpowers rest in anticipating challenges before they happen to ensure a painless and efficient transition and build sound, goal-oriented business strategies — legally, structurally, and physically. She takes away the worry and the sense of overwhelm away so her clients can stay in their lane, focus on building their business and achieve their version of the American Dream.

After her husband’s deportation on the return trip from their honeymoon, she was devastated. Although the marriage was not meant to be, the turn of events was traumatic and life-changing. She knew she had to make some changes and find a way to have a more significant impact on others to help them avoid suffering a similar plight – or worse. So, she turned to the ever-changing and dynamic world of immigration and international law to help others avoid a similar fate.

As a Canadian immigrant, Lauren received her U.S. green card in 2007 and started her own business in 2008. She gave birth to her son, Zevi, two years later, at the age of 43. Being a single working mother and entrepreneur was challenging. Lauren initially struggled in her career path, especially when balancing her two hectic work and home lives.

Lauren battled with ongoing pre-conceived notions about women in the business field and not having the right to have a “seat at the table” while developing her own. But, with the help and advice of trusted advisors and her determined and gutsy approach to life, Lauren managed to refocus her energy to become the successful business owner and single working mother she is today.

Since its founding, she has transformed her company, e-Council Inc., from a one-woman-operated organization to a small but thriving business. Her expertise as the founder of e-Council Inc. is in advising business owners, entrepreneurs, and investors on immigrating to the U.S. and helping them develop business plans based on visa processes and gaining access to foreign capital. She has since expanded her expertise into other areas of business and advisory services.

In 2017, Lauren founded “Find My Silver Lining,” a 501(c)(3) organization that inspires single mothers, working parents, and “mompreneurs” to focus on the bright side as they strive to lead fulfilling lives. Lauren offers strategic guidance and legal advice to simplify complex business matters. She aims to help her clients develop a business plan, find a work/life balance, and discover their business. She also helps others develop and grow their non-profit entities as they strive to expand their reach and impact.

Lauren since has developed her signature program, “How to Immigrate Through Real Estate,” which exemplifies her years of expertise in moving or investing into the U.S. and international markets. She also has sponsored numerous coaching programs dedicated to teaching women how to invest in real estate worldwide.

She has also created a program where she helps investors establish a path towards a visa through various business models, has partnered with multiple Canadian and American law firms, and maintains active law and real estate licenses. Her mastery lies in building top-tier “power teams” for each client based on her intrinsic understanding of the scope of professional expertise needed for each situation to protect assets, minimize risk with cross-border expansion, and ultimately achieve the client’s short- and long-term goals.

Although her list of accreditations is long, Lauren utilizes the specialized expertise of various vetted professional partners to guide each unique situation on a path to seamless success.

When faced with challenges, Lauren has persevered and thrived time and again. She has continued to create unparalleled international alliances through personal and professional obstacles to offer her clients borderless, quality, conscientious service.

Indeed, the economic and other worldwide challenges faced in 2020 saw Lauren overcome adversity and continue to expand and enhance relationships, develop new partnerships, and teach others how to access funding and strategies for business and investment opportunities. She equally applies her unwavering tenacity to represent her clients’ interests. Lauren’s satisfaction comes from the personal changes she can actualize for her clients through her turnkey suite of services.

In light of the current COVID19 crisis, Lauren pivoted her business once again. She now offers a wide range of services related to business continuity, the coordination of funding solutions, and pivoting strategies for business owners across North America from governmental and private resources.

Having experienced the challenges of immigrating first-hand, Lauren is passionate about helping others – citizens and immigrants alike – to successfully expand domestically and globally by protecting the soul of their businesses so they can invest, live, work, and play anywhere in the world.

How Leaders Overcome Difficulties on Their Way to the Top

Being a leader does not mean that you will consistently achieve the desired outcome. Being a leader means that when you don’t accomplish that goal, you have learned from your mistakes and, most importantly, improved from that moment onward.

All leaders in any professional field are going to encounter difficulties. Whether it is in the industry, you have chosen or your personal life, it is inevitable. There are many skills all leaders must be equipped with when confronting difficult situations. But I believe these to be the main ones: 

The skill of Confidence:

If you don’t believe in yourself and your service, no one will do it for you. It is of the utmost importance that you be confident in what you are doing because confidence alone can open various opportunities for you even when undergoing a difficult situation. Don’t be afraid to take the next step in your career because it may be difficult. Do it, and do it with confidence!

The skill of Communication:

Nowadays, we communicate in so many ways – e-mail, text, phone – it’s hard to tell when nobody is communicating something anymore. When you do, it’s essential to know your audience, but most importantly, to be respectful. I cannot tell you how many times a person has been rude intentionally and even unintentionally. When confronting challenging situations, never respond out of anger. Take a second to cool down, and remember, you are always talking to another person. Be kind to one another, and don’t burn bridges unnecessarily.

The skill of Balance:

Having a work/life balance is crucial for mental health and emotional connection. Spending quality time with your family and friends (and your dog) is essential. Don’t ignore these emotional connections in your daily struggles because they will be your support system through thick and thin whenever you need them.

The skill of Prioritization:

You will have many instances where you are juggling numerous things at once, and perhaps all within the same deadline. Setting a list of tasks and events you prioritize and moving things around will save you from having a mental breakdown. Don’t be afraid to say, “no, I can’t meet with you on Thursday, but I can meet with you next Tuesday.” No one expects you to be available 24/7. You’re only human – don’t put that much pressure on yourself. But, be reliable and be punctual.

The list can go on and on about things leaders can do to overcome difficult situations on their way to the top, but these, I believe, are the most noteworthy.

Michelle Diamond

Starting my businesses was not hard because I got a lot of advice from others who were successful in my field. However, navigating and managing the ups and downs during the years was the challenging part.

The ups and downs did not always necessarily correlate with the economy or external factors. Sometimes it was partnerships that had to end and other times, pivoting to new territories, and expanding or ‘fine-tuning’ my target customers and customer base.

However, through it all, I understand that embracing and understanding change, along with updating my mindset to make room for it, has been the key to success.

Logan Mallory

One challenge that many people face when they become a business owner is learning how to guide their team to become great leaders. The best way to build leadership is to give people opportunities to lead. Provide guidelines and consult, but don’t take a directive approach all the time.

Of course, you need to manage when there are performance or attendance or handbook issues, but otherwise you should act like a coach. Let your team members test their limits, try new things, and fail without being punished.

Mark Pierce

One way to overcome difficult times as a business leader is to improve your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence can help leaders approach challenges from a more nuanced perspective and use that nuance to find better ways to resolve the issue.

Emotional intelligence helps people not only better understand the emotions and feelings of others, but also control their own emotions and emotional responses to situations. This can help to defuse tense situations, find ways to connect with people to resolve challenges, and in general stay more in control of a situation.

Marla Cormier

I never wanted to be my own boss. I grew up watching my parents slave away to make their own business successful, and even after all of their hard work and dedication, after 13 years, they had to declare bankruptcy and close.

That entire experience made me think that owning a business was far more work than it was worth. My parents were honest, hardworking people so if they couldn’t make it work, what chance would I have? Many years later I met my husband, a serial entrepreneur who had started his first successful business at age 17. For him, owning his own business was the only option and he started encouraging me to carve out my own path.

At first I thought he was just being nice, you know, telling the new girlfriend how capable she is and taking an interest in her passions. But he never let up. In fact, after we got married he only encouraged me more. Then one day I realized that if I did start my own business, I’d be able to work on all of the things I love without all of the things I don’t. It took a few years but eventually I created my own training company.

I’d love to say that I was a huge success right out of the gate, but like most success stories, there came some huge failures first. My first failure was one of timing. I was selling escape room learning, highly engaging mobile escape room experiences that I would build and host on-site for clients in a training or conference room. It was the most fun training I’d ever developed and the results were remarkable with participants remembering and using what they’d learned months after they attended.

It as a great vehicle for participants to learn essential skills from time management to communication, and collaboration to listening. Unfortunately, I was ramping up right when COVID came on the scene. Within a week, my business model was irrelevant. Businesses were going into lock down and the idea of putting employees in a room together without social distancing was unthinkable. Almost overnight my fledgling business was on the verge of demise.

Since COVID was quickly becoming a long-term concern, I knew I had to make a change if I was going to keep my business going. I decided to abandon the escape room training model and instead, develop virtual training that allowed employees to learn from wherever they were. At a time when companies weren’t sure how to manage return to office, training that could be done virtually was a good solution. I expanded my content to include all the previous topics and many new ones in an effort to capture as many clients as possible.

That brings me to my second failure. I’m a people person so meeting new people and maintaining relationships comes easy to me. Everyone says that should make me good at sales. Well, it didn’t. I had no trouble making contacts and opening up conversations about my services and the benefits to my potential clients, but when it came down to talking money, I got nervous.

In those early days, I didn’t know my own worth and because of that, couldn’t speak to pricing with confidence. Instead of closing contracts in one conversation, it would take me three or more. Rather than being able to adjust offerings and pricing on the fly, I would need to regroup and go back with a new package and price for services. It was exhausting and ultimately had me leaving money on the table while creating a lot of extra stress.

I started to worry that business ownership wasn’t for me but I just wasn’t ready to give up. Afterall, I’d navigated COVID by changing up my offerings and switched from escape room learning to virtual delivery for various topics including leadership and customer service training. I had a small but loyal client base and I really wanted to believe that I was only steps away from figuring out the key element that would take me from surviving to successful.

And then, after a couple years of struggling against my own nature, I realized that I could be hugely successful if I changed my business model. What if I stopped trying to be all things to all people and just focused on my greatest passion, developing emerging leaders? That would eliminate all the packaging and repackaging of services which took up a lot of time and created a lot of anxiety. What if I put my pricing right on my website so I didn’t have to mix and match calculations on the fly? I would probably be able to close more deals more quickly and eliminate all of the anxiety around money.

So that’s what I did. I built a program for emerging leaders and outlined it on my website. And unlike other training companies, I posted my pricing right there for everyone to see. As soon as I made the shift, a giant weight was lifted and I was freed up to do what I’m great at, telling potential clients about my services. It’s amazing the impact this has had on my outlook and how it’s given me the confidence to sell now that price is essentially off the table (or, on the website as it were). I have better discussions with potential clients and close more contracts, most within one call, than I ever could have imagined.

The truth is, deep down I had always wanted to be my own boss. I grew up thinking that I’d take over my parent’s business so when it closed, I was devastated. I somehow took that experience and generalized it, deciding that I couldn’t run my own business. I had so much fear about business ownership that it held me back from dreaming big. That’s the biggest failure I had to overcome. I’d convinced myself that working for someone else, collecting titles, was the safer route.

Thankfully, I married a man who dreams big enough for both of us and eventually, with his support, and his constant push to help me see things differently, I decided to put fear aside and focus on my own happiness and fulfillment. Because I did, and because of my failures, I now have a business I’m proud of, that makes a difference in the lives of employees and in their abilities to grow their careers. I get to do what I love every single day.

Peter Ord

I’ll focus on three major difficulties that I have faced during my journey as the CEO of GuideCX and those are:

1. Creating a new software category (Client Onboarding)

Those who have successfully created new software categories know that a great deal of patience and intuition is required to be successful. Because your product is so new and innovative, you don’t have prospects seeking you out yet. We’ve had to build a strong outbound selling motion to overcome this.

2. Staying no.1 in our new category

It’s one thing to create a category, but it’s another thing to lead it. We are grateful that competitors have popped up. They have helped us feel validated, spread awareness for the problem that GuideCX solves for, and migrate our sales motion into a competitive sales process versus an education-based sales process. These are all things that are needed in order to help our company and category grow.

3. Grow our team

I’m a big believer that the first 50 employees define the long term trajectory of your culture and brand. I’m thankful we were patient in the early days by not just hiring people that would be great to “work with” but holding out for people that are great to “be with” and “work with” as well.

Shaun Connell

I built a small media company in 2014 that went from 0-to-1m per month in one year. I was only 25-years-old, so it was quite a ride. My greatest challenge, hands down, was learning how to build a reliable staff fast enough to keep up with growth.

Up until that point, I’d never hired more than one freelance writer at a time, and suddenly I needed writers, editors, a CTO, COO, etc.

I learned to integrate a simple strategy that worked very well for my situation: hire fast, fire fast. It was a brutal year, but one I’ll remember forever.

I sold that business a year later. I also still build small passion projects for fun, especially for investors. But I’m not looking to recreate anything on that scale.

Brianna Socci

As a startup founder, you face a lot of challenges during your journey. One of the things I’ve had to learn along the way is being able to bounce back and grow from the failures. Entrepreneurship is a long, bumpy road, and you can’t let the hard times dictate your attitude to advance. Move quickly, fail fast, learn from the experience and do it better the next time.

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The post 53 Stories of Successful Entrepreneurs From USA that Will Inspire You on Your Journey first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jed Morley

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Success is a process, not an event. To do any great task, you must first begin from somewhere. This could be the start of a new idea, a new road, a new approach, or a new business. In our everyday life, we frequently end up focusing on achieving what others consider to be a success rather than returning to our original goal or purpose. In this interview series, we spoke with a variety of entrepreneurs and leaders from around the world to learn how some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and leaders faced adversity and succeeded.

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” Arthur Ashe

INTERVIEW HOST

Hello, my name is Jerome Knyszewski, I’ll be the host of your interview today. I am the CEO of HeavyShift. My specialties are online reputation marketing and SEO. Looking forward to reading your insightful answers and publishing your featured interview.

Table of Contents

The question we asked:

Can you tell us the difficulties that you faced on your journey to becoming an entrepreneur/CEO?

Sweet Ha

First is the income threshold. Many bosses are the backbone of the company before starting a business. They are highly appreciated by the boss and are naturally worth a lot. However, due to various reasons in the early stage of the business, after a year of hard work, the income obtained is far less than that of part-time jobs. “This vast income gap is a cruel reality that every early-stage entrepreneur must face and accept.​​

Second, family ties. The impact of the decline in income will gradually spread to the family. In addition, entrepreneurs work day and night without taking into account the “internal affairs” of the family. At this time, the family’s resistance tends to increase day by day. At this time, entrepreneurs need to withstand the pressure and work hard. Disagree, keep going.​​

Third, lead the hurdle. There is an essential difference between management and leadership. Entrepreneurs must have specific management skills and strong leadership skills to lead the team in the right direction, continuously create benefits for the company, and benefit team members. More importantly, entrepreneurs can make mistakes in management, but they must not make leadership mistakes; otherwise, the company may encounter danger.​​

Fourth is the human bond. In the early stage of starting a business, entrepreneurs will encounter setbacks and blow in various aspects, especially criticisms from others.

Valentine Okoronkwo

Family
One big difficulty I faced on my journey to become an entrepreneur was pressure from my family to stick to a 9-5 job and not venture into entrepreneurship.

My family never wanted me to become an entrepreneur. They got really depressed and disappointed when I quit my job. This got to me as well. It affected my productivity and also affected my belief in myself.

I noticed it was getting to me, so I had to avoid communication with them for a while to focus on making my business work. I made sure I put in work every day to accomplish my goals to my dream a reality.

Till today, though I earn 10x what I earned in my last job, my parents still encourage me to get a job and still send me job opportunities and offers. However, I am happy they have gotten the fact that this is what I want to do.

But to be honest, it’s just my mother that is happy with the path I chose to take. My father is still disappointed with me because I disobeyed him and went against all the plans he had made for me. So this is a difficulty I still struggle with today.

The thing I have learned from this is that: against all adversity or motivation you have, just to do something every day, no matter how small, that can take you closer to your goals. The action you put in every day will bring results, and those little results or wins will help you believe that you can actualize your dreams, which will also motivate you to put in more work.

Action => Inspiration => Motivation

Mapesho Mukanga

Running a platform that is centered on creating content which inspires people to improve their lives is always difficult because each person is going through something different but the best way to stay original and authentic is to use your own experience as a map to serve as inspiration for others.

Putting yourself out their in front of others is always going to be challenging but when you think about the lives you get to impact, it becomes much easier for any individual to feel the freedom to speak freely.

Nate Tsang

The biggest challenge in running your own business is in hiring. You first have the immense difficulty of finding the right person for your specific job.

You’ll find many great marketers out there, for example, but are they informed and experienced enough to market your business in your niche to your specific buyer personas?

I recommend working with a hiring expert who knows your field. It’s an expense, but it also saves you a great deal of time in sourcing candidates. And they can teach you enough about the process to where you can run it more independently in the future. But building those initial skills takes time and expertise.

From there, you also have to give your new hires the right responsibilities. A lot of entrepreneurs I know (myself included, admittedly) have trouble with delegation at first.

They’re accustomed to doing everything themselves and only want to delegate the tasks they have little to no experience in. Recognizing that you’re not the best person for this task—at least in the long-term—takes some self-reflection and involves making tough decisions. But that’s what being a business leader is all about, and if you trust your talent they tend to thrive more than they fail.

Alex Bryce

When I reflect on my journey, I believe the biggest challenge has been making the right decisions. As a business owner, you will be responsible for making all of your company’s major and minor decisions on your own.

The burden of making decisions is real and unavoidable. One of the common challenges I believe every entrepreneur faces are making decisions on their own while being conscious that making the wrong decision can result in losses. However, I believe that experience improves your ability to make important decisions.

Another obstacle for me, I believe, was pivoting my business during the pandemic. But it taught me one important lesson: everything works out in the end.

Aquif Shaikh

The difficulty I had to face while launching my own business was obtaining funds, securing finance is one of the most difficult tasks for new entrepreneurs. Raising funds and obtaining loans was a difficult undertaking for me.

Even the most experienced entrepreneur will have difficulty obtaining financing at first because many capitalists are unwilling to participate in new enterprises.

However, this is only a temporary setback because, if the business idea is innovative, fresh, and compelling, getting an investor to provide startup funding is not a difficult undertaking. As a result, as an entrepreneur, I had a well-thought-out strategy and business model to present to investors and banks to persuade them that their money was being invested wisely.

Meera Watts

Our lives were turned upside-down by the pandemic. We changed the way we used to approach challenging situations in the past.

We had to use a variety of methods to teach our students as teachers. We concentrated on offering them online yoga courses. We emphasized tutorials, live sessions, and even fun activities to encourage students to practice yoga at home.

I’m quite pleased with how things are going right now because my learners are enjoying their classes and learning something new every day.

Baidhurya Mani

I am Baidhurya Mani, and one of the greatest challenges I have faced towards becoming the CEO of my own company was whether or not I should pursue this lifelong dream.

My biggest enemy was no other than myself. I spent a lot of sleepless nights riddled with anxiety during the week before launching my company. You see, my business is far from the usual, and it will either be a hit or a miss. I was so full of self-doubt, but I am incredibly grateful for all the support I got from my family, friends, and even my previous boss.

I believe in the theory that to overcome this, you have to be careful with the stories you tell yourself. You should stop the self-loathing and start telling yourself that everything will be fine even if you take a giant leap of faith.

One thing I would always tell myself every time things don’t go as planned is that “I stumble, and I rise.” It’s a tremendous mindful practice to keep you going. You have to repeat this to yourself even in the minor errors or mishaps that occur throughout your day so that it doesn’t snowball into heated anger and frustration, which will not help you at all.

Through this, I earned the confidence, and now, I am in my 6th year of running my own company. A dream I never thought would come true.

Smita Das Jain

After 14+ years in leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies, last year I decided to pivot my career to transform my passion of mentoring people to become the best version of themselves into a professional pursuit for coaching, and founded the ‘Empower Yourself’ Coaching Program-a customised set of personal clarity and executive performance enhancement coaching interventions.

The first challenge was the resistance that I encountered from my well-wishers who dissuaded me from leaving a stable job for an uncertain future. It took a lot of willpower, and not insignificant time, to listen to my inner voice and move ahead on the path that my heart was set on.

Then opening my business while simultaneously undertaking three certification programs as opposed to the usual norm of starting a business after completing your certifications was a leap of faith that entailed straddling different time zones and plenty of workload. My time management skills held me in good stead here.

Then came the challenge of a successful Go-to-Market. Given my background, Executives and leaders were more willing to hire me as one of their team than entrust me the task of coaching them or their employees. I decided to focus on Life Coaching to start with and put Executive Coaching on the backburner.

Having a structured yet productive day is a constant challenge for an entrepreneur who is her own boss and works her own hours. So far, I have managed it well by ensuring that I open my laptop at the same time every morning as when I worked for someone else (even though the work hours stretch much longer sometimes), and planning my key priorities for each day of the week, a week in advance.

Discipline, Patience and Consistency has been my mantra to overcome any challenges that I encountered in my business. With less than a year and close to 150 coaching hours, webinars, and live learning sessions, Empower Yourself has positively impacted the lives of many working professionals ranging from entry-level to the topmost hierarchy, I can say that this mantra has worked for me.

I enjoy doing what I do, have never been happier and earn more than what I used to do in my corporate role. Success is not called success unless it entails overcoming challenges.

Adam Jacobs

First, entrepreneurship could be a journey — but often times, it’s a rollercoaster. A journey indicates that there is an end, but in entrepreneurship, that’s not the case. There are highs, lows, ups, downs, twists, turns and then the process repeats itself.

There are so many obstacles you have to overcome, such as the bravery to go ahead and pursue your goals, especially when people tell you that you don’t necessarily have what it takes or that you won’t succeed. The first obstacle is to have a reasonably good idea, and many struggles with this.

Saying you are going to create the next Netflix with no money, no concrete idea on how to make it happen, and without a team to back you up.. this is no surprise, but man, that’s not happening.

The second most pressing obstacle I’ve had is to secure funding or capital. Followed by finding a team: Either in the form of partners, staff or both. Once you’ve got some start-up cash, a plan on how you are going to tackle it, and then a team.

Now take this: People will always be your biggest obstacle – your customers, your staff, your stakeholders. You will have to balance yourself with your staff, staff will have conflicts with you, with each other and even with your customers.

Difficult customers can drain your energy and your cash, and learning to manage them quickly and well will be one of the biggest obstacles that you will have to tackle and need to revisit regularly.

Going back to entrepreneurship being a journey and a rollercoaster — I am sure of one thing: obstacles, big or small, are just bumps on the road to goals – be resilient, be persistent. Know when to zig, know when to zag, when obstacles come up, run through them, over them, and know when to avoid them altogether. Obstacles could be big, they could be small, but just believe that you’re on a monster truck to conquer them all.

Craig Schulze

My name is Craig Schulze and I have been in business and an entrepreneur for over 20 years.

In short I left home at 15, been financially independent since 17, fired my boss at 21 to follow my dreams and passion.

Started a fitness club which led to be 5 and 22 franchises. I have built business online, been in coaching and consulting throughout the last decade.

I am an investor. Two of my biggest challenges. One was the lessons learned throughout the global financial crisis.

The second was my wife and I losing our first son stillborn which inspired me to build a brand around peoples “One Shot” at life.

I have travelled the world and been to over 120 different cities and gains huge perspective from that experience.

Ashley Bellino

As an advocate for mindful modern living, I launched home decor and styling brand, Stoned Crystals, in an attempt to re-position and redefine the role of crystals in modern society with a focus on ethically sourced a-grade crystals that are used as functional pieces of art. I believe we sit on the knife’s edge of spirituality and design offering decor, furniture and jewellery made from crystal.

Our physical retail store endured 262 days of closure during the pandemic in one of the worlds most locked down cities, Melbourne. Despite this, we were able to increase sales thanks to our virtual live-sales model. To say the retail landscape has changed in the last few years is an understatement.

The global pandemic in particular forced businesses to diversify their business model. Thankfully, we were ahead of the curve in establishing a very successful virtual live sales model. Whether our bricks & mortar location is open or not, we’ve been able to maintain and actually increase our sales through online shopping. And, with social media impacting the way consumers interact with brands, we were able to take advantage of this evolution and create the next generation in e-commerce.

Stoned Crystals further leveraged the virtual live shopping on social media by developing an App that allows for an uninterrupted shopping experience for the customer, while giving control back to the brand. The result is a less static and more immersive experience that allows for a more authentic and personalised shopping experience.

The concept of selling over live video was established with my partner, Jeremy LeBard, in 2017. We have since taken those learning and tuned them into their own Omnichannel App and plan to make this available to like-minded brands. We essentially redefined the bricks & mortar store through an innovative live sales model that turns our space into a virtual showroom.

Our customers can tune in from anywhere in the world and receive VIP service from our Crystal Concierge team who offer styling advice as well as mindfulness and intention setting tips. In a declining physical retail world we were able to transform the intrinsic value of a physical space into the online world. Our live sale business model alongside a message of mindfulness and hope has generated great interest and found itself a very pertinent strategy that saw us continue to take flights, even in the face of adversity during a global pandemic.

Bree Stedman

The biggest obstacle I faced in my journey towards being an entrepreneur was my own internal insecurities – particularly around feeling like a fake and a fraud. That devil on my shoulder consistently told me I wasn’t good enough, despite my accomplishments.

The second part of this difficulty was finding someone who could help me to irradicate them without having to explore the WHY….. as an ambitious entrepreneur, I already knew the value of Personal Development and growth, however didn’t ‘have time’ to spend hours on hours exploring all of the possible reasons why I felt like I did. And I didn’t want to have to ‘keep working’ on myself. I just wanted a resolution that worked with who I was as a woman, that could get to the root of these insecurities, so I could move forward.

Acknowledging and working on these saboteurs have helped me to confidently build a business while authentically being myself to the point where I now facilitate the training of others in an International company.

J.D. Drayton

After running a locally based branding agency in Melbourne, Australia, I too, was forced to adapt during the pandemic in early 2020.

90% of my clients cancelled their contracts because suddenly we were all stuck in lockdowns (in the city that ended up spending the most days in lockdown, 260 days within 18-months).

I couldn’t survive during the lockdown, so I closed my business. Overnight, I lost all my income! Days later, I launched my coaching and online education business while also launching a new online-based branding agency to serve online-based female CEOs.

The online world was thriving during the pandemic, but I had no idea what I was doing at first. Traditional marketing was not the same as online marketing. Yes, it was similar in some ways, but it was different. It pushed me to think outside the square, but it was not easy, after 20 years doing traditional marketing and seeing clients in-person.

I invested all my savings into online courses and business coaches. Slowly, I started to work it out and to transition online. Transitioning was difficult, as I attempted to translate everything that I had known to the online space.

I was either going to swim or sink, and for a long time, I was sinking fast! I felt hopeless. Defeated. And very lonely, now working from home, without that in-person interaction with clients.

I missed the human-to-human connections, but eventually, I choose to swim as a tiny fish among some big sharks. I became obsessed with self development and online learning and turned to the big names such as Amy Porterfield, James Wedmore, Lewis Howes, Jenna Kutcher, Jasmine Star and Rachel Pedersen.

Marty Spargo

With the changing marker conditions that involves increase in competition within several industries, our yearly sales massively declined in comparison to the past years. It was indeed a tough time for the business and almost left us bankrupt.

But we didn’t allow this setback to stop us, we formulated a strategy that could help us get our numbers back up again and with everything we’ve got, we rose up to most of the competition and even led the market for some time.

Toby Schulz

As a young entrepreneur, co-founding a house cleaning business with my brother when I was 21 and he was 26, the biggest challenge I faced was convincing others around me of the goal I was working towards.

Explaining to family and friends that I had to say no to a lot of plans was not easy or readily accepted. I had to make many sacrifices on the personal front to start a successful business.

When you rely on self-motivation to get an entire business off the ground, if you don’t make the time to do something, it won’t happen.

It was a learning curve to figure out where to spend my time, and how to handle things that I’m not the best at, yet need to be done.

Bronwen Sciortino

I am an International Author & Simplicity Expert.

Having experienced mental health issues after suffering from burnout, and a complete breakdown as a result, I wrote my first book during my recovery which received international critical acclaim and 5-star awards.

During my recovery, I learned a lot about the role that stress and exhaustion play in our lives, and the way that we accept them as a normal way of living. As I pieced my life back together, I made the choice to find the simplest steps for me to move forwards in a way that supported both myself and those with whom I was working.

With burnout on the rise all around the world, this saw me create a global business teaching people there’s a very different way to live so they can tailor-make the life that allows them to lead happy, rewarding AND successful lives.

From burnout to global business happened within 3 years.

There’s nothing normal about being constantly stressed and exhausted AND there are simple and easy ways for people to do things a little bit differently. Everyone deserves the opportunity to create their own life, in the way that is absolutely perfect for them.

Because I live my life governed by simplicity principles I have not been affected by the chaos being experienced around the world and I have been able to easily adapt and quickly move forward in a different way.

Women, in particular, are carrying the load and research conducted pre-COVID showed that they were suffering from burnout more than men. COVID has only exacerbated these statistics.

All three of my books provide individuals with tools and activities that they can apply to their own lives, so they can find their own answers and move forwards on the pathway that is right for them.

I recently launched an online platform to assist busy, professional women to reduce stress and beat burnout. I launched this program (and continue to run it) at a 96% discount so that as many women as possible can access it in these tough times. I’m currently building mini-programs around self-care, stress and energy management so that people can access the information they need to move forwards in bite-sized pieces.

I’m also currently building new online mini-programs that help people to tackle their stress and improve their health and wellbeing in a bite-sized way.

I work with people globally through my books, corporate programs, leadership development programs, conference platforms, retreats , professional mentoring and in the online environment. I share practical and easily implemented steps and inspire individuals to simplify their lives.

I also guest blog regularly for membership platforms around the globe, have been featured on the TODAY Show, Ticker TV, James Miller Lifeology Show and The Author Show and contribute regularly to major online publications such as HuffPost and Thrive Global (Arianna Huffington’s new platform).

I am also frequently asked to be interviewed through global radio, podcasts, vlogs, YouTube, Facebook Live, print media and blogs.

Elley Hudson

The first difficulty I faced on my journey to becoming an entrepreneur occurred when I was 17. I had dreams of breaking into the real estate industry, but I was turned away for being too young. However, I was determined to prove myself, so I worked as a property management assistant for the next 2 years. My persistence paid off and I eventually landed a career as a real estate sales agent.

Unfortunately, that’s when I faced my next challenge, as I quickly discovered the position had a quick turnaround of relationships. As someone who loves to maintain close connections, I was left feeling dejected and depressed. This, and the ridiculous pressure caused by the GFC, led to me leaving my position. Instead, I returned to my roots and spearheaded the company’s property management division.

Soon after, a new difficulty arose with my superannuation. Long story short, I left the company, made my way to Townsville and became the co-owner of a local agency. However, their staff were poorly trained, and their owners were losing money. The worst part was that despite my position, I was helpless to change things. At this point, I started to believe the difficulties would get the best of me and I was ready to give up.

Thankfully, I remained strong and told myself that if I’m having an issue, I should do something about it. All I wanted was a job that allowed me to create great relationships and work in an environment with well-trained staff. I figured the best way to do that wasn’t to rely on finding the right agency but to become an entrepreneur and create it myself. After all, only you can make your dreams come true.

Ellie Pietsch

With a marriage imploding, an 18 month old in and out of daycare – leaving a ‘safe’ job halfway through a global pandemic, to join a team of business owners whose model involved face-to-face delivery seemed like a stupid decision on paper.

But deep down, I knew it was the right time for me to step out of the shadows and into my own light. Pivoting an entire delivery model dependent on building meaningful and trusting relationships into a virtual space virtually overnight seemed crazy, but with a deep commitment to our purpose – helping leaders and teams achieve high performance – and a conviction to live our trademark as colleagues – go the extra yard- , we achieved the unthinkable.

Our business grew 25% during the pandemic, recruiting new team members and building our expertise. And I became the person I always wanted to be. A people-focused, outcome driven business leader who helps leaders and teams improve their performance.

Connor Ondriska

Finding product-market fit was the largest challenge I had. Prior to launching SpanishVIP, I dabbled in some different business models that worked but did not easily scale with my skillset.

This journey, which is quite normal for most entrepreneurs, entailed significant testing and analysis to determine where to focus my energy.

It’s also incredibly important to be a great leader. If you want to do something truly innovative, you will need many smart people to build towards that goal. Understanding how to attract and work with a talented team was something that I struggled with. Studying leadership has and will continue to be of immense value.

Victor Fredung

AI and ML were relatively new concepts when I got into the industry ten years ago and here I am today, CEO of Shufti Pro, an award-winning AI-driven company that seeks innovation and has 5 international offices.

The way to becoming a CEO of a company is absolutely not easy. It may look like a piece of cake from the outside but when you really get into this game, you realize that there is no such thing as “time-limit,” you have to work day in and out to turn your passion into reality. The same happened to me.

Talking about the difficulties, I had my fair share of challenges along the way. The biggest challenge that came my way when I started out was to make my business flourish between the big giants that were already associated with the industry. To make your space in an already packed room is difficult of course, but I believed in resilience and trusted my team that soon we will be giving them competition, and boom, here we are. A company serving in 230+ countries and territories.

Another challenge that I encountered was my belief in the thinking that I can get everything done single-handedly. I was of the view that only a few teammates would suffice for my company. However, this is not the case. One cannot be the expert on everything and you do need a team of highly skilled people in every department to ensure higher levels of productivity. I am glad that I understood it on time and saved my company from becoming a victim of this thought.

In the end, I would like to say that it’s like to be living in a fool’s paradise if you think that you are headed on a journey of becoming a CEO and would not encounter any challenge. Or you have a smooth path looking your way. No, it does not happen in real life. Challenges are a part of every entrepreneur’s journey. CEO’s/entreprenuers must take these challenges as a stepping stone and motivate themselves to keep doing more and better

Paul Peros

I spent over 10 years in management consulting being part of GEA (a “pre-McKinseyan”) strategy boutique in Milano, mainly working on new product and brand development and engaging with global leaders in numerous consumer product categories.

This is where I realised that the majority of the business leaders and models are working in the same way, bringing the same old solution to a problem. I believe this was one of the biggest challenges I faced at the beginning as well – to develop critical thinking skills in order to bring a true and meaningful innovation, one that will address the real concerns of consumers.

Many years of experience has taught me that you need to be adaptive, resilient, always evolving, and going with your instinct, especially during the COVID-19 time. A true entrepreneur should have the courage to see things as they are, the vision to organise resources beyond the way things were done before, and solidarity to trust in one’s and our colleagues’ abilities to tackle challenges.

This critical thinking allowed me to be a true disrupter as a CEO in the beauty tech world. I have been pushing the industry and growing brands from start-ups to companies with more than $1Bilion annual revenue. I am now at the helm of RÉDUIT and our innovative thinking is pushing the high-tech beauty industry further to find the most advanced solutions to skincare needs.

We have merged the laws of physics with beauty to create the world’s only smart and customizable skincare innovation – BOOST. This device and its accompanying app, customize your favorite skincare products, ensuring your skin receives the actives it needs most and provides four times more absorption than fingers alone, to give five times better results.

We launched via Kickstarter and in less than one day secured more than $60,000 in pledges, which is a true testament to how innovative and desirable our solutions are.

Indiana Gregg

Indiana Gregg is the founder and CEO of WeDo, a new app that simplifies work for small business owners, gig workers and freelancers. In Indy’s app, users can connect, make and receive payment and network within their community. Indy created the app during the pandemic and the Great Recession.

You can learn more about the app by going to www.getwedo.today. Here’s what Indy has to say about some of the difficulties she faced on her journey to becoming an entrepreneur / CEO.

“Entrepreneurship isn’t ever easy. It takes grit and belief. When I first started out, probably the biggest challenge was being a woman in tech. It was very difficult. You’d be the only woman in the room talking about a build, and the guys would act like you should be out getting them some coffee. Even now, as the CEO of a fintech, I’m told that I won’t be needed on a tech call even if I’m the only technical person in the conference call.

The second most difficult thing was raising capital on those early rounds. Again, a lot of investors are still skeptical about investing in a female led tech company. Only 2% of VC investment goes to female led companies and even with an outstanding team, a track record of success and innovative scalable fintech, it can still be difficult.

So, from an emotional point of view, that can be very frustrating. I’ve learned that persistence wins over the years and that if you want to make it happen, you will find a way to get through those barriers. Another difficulty was being too early to market, learning that timing is everything and understanding that sometimes you have to keep working on something until the market is ready and the time is right and that the myth of ‘fail fast’ doesn’t always apply.

I think at the beginning, new founders and entrepreneurs are learning as they go, so over time with years of practice in building companies, you learn to be intuitive to the point where you know what your business needs next. This doesn’t always come naturally, so I had to go through a few failures before I had my “overnight success”.

Some people think there’s luck involved in it, I’m telling you, you make your own luck. Overall, I wouldn’t trade my failures for anything. Knowing that you put something out there and learned from your mistakes always leads you to your next success. In leadership, I’ve learned to gather the best people on the planet who align with the mission of the company. That wasn’t always the case with my first couple startups.

You live, you learn. I have a funnel of ideas and a quality filter now that I didn’t have when I started out, so I only create things that I believe will leave the world a better place and help millions of people.

Rafał Młodzki

It was a challenge to stay ahead of the crowd. My brothers and I decided to start a business during our studies. I broke away from the typical way of studying – corporate job – next career ladder. Several people discouraged me and told me it wouldn’t work.

They said we have no experience so that we won’t succeed. It caused me to doubt my ideas, and I was on the verge of resigning.

However, thanks to the support of my friends and family, I was able to survive that social pressure. The experience taught me resilience. Now I trust myself and stand by my decisions. I discuss critiques with people I trust and do not worry about others’ opinions.

Tomek Młodzki

My journey to becoming an entrepreneur required one big sacrifice. In my twenties, I was studying law. You can imagine that this is not a simple field of study and consumed most of my time. Simultaneously, I wanted to pursue my passion – my first online product, Fiszkoteka.

The idea was simple – my website offered customizable flashcards to learn English and other languages for free. Together with my brothers, I used flashcards to study when we were kids, so I transformed them into the online world!

Fiszkoteka was getting better and better, and I realized I would have to sacrifice something – a secure, respected job as a lawyer or what I really love doing. I don’t believe in the efficiency of partial engagement. You do or do not.

Fiszkoteka’s small successes and listening to the voice of my heart made me choose to abandon the law. At first, I felt guilty, but then I realized that it was the right decision with time.

Johannes Larsson

One of the biggest difficulties in my career was when I had to start over from scratch after months of working hard on my first business. I ran several websites that relied on ads to generate revenue, and it took half a year of hard work and not getting paid to finally make a consistent albeit modest amount of income.

I was happy that my work was finally starting to pay off, but things quickly derailed when my advertising account got banned for reasons I still don’t know. Not only did this prevent me from accessing my earnings; it also got my websites blacklisted.

Fortunately, the skills and experience I had already gained let me start over and work up to the same income in a relatively short time frame. I also decided to change my business model to something more stable to avoid the possibility of getting banned again.

The main thing that got me through this hurdle was the knowledge that I had already succeeded before. I knew that if I worked hard and used what I learned to my advantage, I could build something better that would last for the long term. Today, I’m happy to say that I was right.

Christiaan Huynen

Proactive management. Even before a problem arises, I acknowledge the threat and attend to it immediately. Prevention is certainly better than fixing a wide-scale damage in the future.

As a leader, I stay on top of the game through assessing possible difficulties that may be perilous to the business. For example, if a trend on tech is booming, I analyze its connection or relevance to my company. The visionary in me seizes that opportunity to either advance or protect my business from its effects.

Jake Smith

The biggest challenge I faced in establishing Absolute Reg was self-doubt amid uncertainty. As a new entrepreneur, I was anxious to make business decisions outside my comfort zone. However, to be a CEO, I need to conquer the fear of apprehension and teach myself when to take a risk.

Success requires a high level of critical thinking skills. Most often, this aspect is what most business-minded people fail to develop. The ability to decipher calculated risks from foolish ones makes an excellent CEO. Only those who possess such immense skill to discern situations worth risking make it to the optimum peak of their careers.

On my journey to becoming a CEO, I trained to be resourceful and mindful with all my decisions as I am my company’s brain. My command is powerful since I have the final say in every transaction we make. One wrong judgment about when to take risks can put my business at stake.

Lucky enough, I have persevered and treated every downfall as a lesson to progress. I have defeated my fear of the unknown and become the successful person I am today.

Nanditha Vijayaraghavan

The biggest challenge I’ve faced in my executive journey so far has been more internal than external.

I’ve had to frequently challenge myself to step out of my comfort zone, as often as I could, dipping my toes into roles that weren’t fully within my job description, and essentially working the role/position ahead of me.

David Bowen

The main difficulty I faced, is feeling like I had to do everything. There is a lot of competition out there, and often, it feels as though you have to be on top of every single opportunity in order to succeed. Especially because everything is so fast-paced nowadays, and people expect your business to cater to absolutely everything.

However, I learned that it’s best to prioritize and focus your efforts on a smaller niche, and to then build a strong management team to help you keep everything on track! That’s certainly how I ended up developing my own business, and not only did it make things easier, it built a more reliable target audience too.

Daniel Foley

The most difficult thing I found managing was maintaining a healthy work-life balance:

When I launched my business, I could not afford to take breaks. Running a business added to the burden of achieving a work-life balance. Unfortunately, all entrepreneurs are subjected to this strain.

This is because when you started working on your own business, you were only busy during office hours, but once you started working on your own business, there was no clock to regulate.

You are always working without regard for the time of day, and family time is lost, but in order to achieve something, you must make many sacrifices, and things are now in a better place.

James Dyble

Time is frequently one of the most difficult challenges I had to overcome when ascending the echelons. There is frequently the perception that there is not enough time to perform the necessary activities for growth, and this was often the case for me.

As a result, delegation was one of the most critical skills I developed early in my career. Delegation allows for more time to work on the most important tasks and allows for more to be accomplished in the short and long term.

Anthony Mixides

When I first started my business, I experienced a variety of problems. Different difficulties and possibilities need different answers as a firm expands, and what succeeded a year ago may no longer be the ideal approach.

All too frequently, avoidable errors convert what could be a fantastic company into a flop. If your organization is to keep expanding and thriving, you must recognize and overcome the usual problems connected with expansion.

Importantly, you must guarantee that the actions you do today do not cause new problems in the future. Effective leadership will assist you in making the most of the opportunities available to you, resulting in long-term progress.

I believe, confronts a variety of hazards, including insolvency, financial risk, competitive risk, environmental risk, reputational risk, and economic risk. So, in response to the query, I worked on team building to avoid such a danger because a team is the pillar of any company, and I understand that I am not the best to face any difficulty.

We needed experts in specific fields such as financial or demand planning, and I don’t believe an entrepreneur can do everything or be the best in every field, so I worked on team building as a strategy to avoid business difficulties.

Gilles Bertaux

When Livestorm was launched back in 2016, we had a few challenges to face: our brand awareness was non-existent, many large competitors were already present in the market and our SEO traffic was weak as we had just launched the website.

We built an early website targeting specific keywords and created a lot of content around our chosen topic. But when it came to prospects further down the buying process, we didn’t have any content to attract them to our website. In January 2018, we came up with the idea to create comparison pages on our website to address that problem.

Our objective was to present Livestorm as an alternative to our main competitors, in a tone that was as neutral as possible.

This project was a success: the comparison pages generated 6% of Livestorm’s organic traffic and they generated links from over 130 referring domains.

Also, we realized that there were quite a few people asking for advice on the Quora platform on how to organise webinars. I took the time to give very detailed answers, which brought credibility to my profile and made Livestorm known by providing answers to some people’s challenges or needs. In addition, these answers were upvoted and he had more visibility on the platform.

However, after a while, a lot of people started to adopt this technique/hack and it was not really useful anymore. Also, Quora is not used much anymore, but it was something that worked quite well in the beginning of Livestorm to give credibility/visibility, and it was a free technique.

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The post Various Entrepreneurs From Around The World Tell Stories Behind Their Success & Accomplishments first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

As a result of the outbreak, many businesses were forced to pivot and adjust to changing market conditions. Some were able to make the necessary adjustments, while others were forced to shut down. We spoke with 20 business owners and leaders to learn how they made changes to their companies and all the challenges they encountered during the pandemic.
We’ll also go over some strategies you can use to overcome any obstacles that come your way.

INTERVIEW HOST

Hello, my name is Jerome Knyszewski, I’ll be the host of your interview today. I am the CEO of HeavyShift. My specialties are online reputation marketing and SEO. Looking forward to reading your insightful answers and publishing your featured interview.

Table of Contents

The question we asked:

What is the greatest, unexpected challenge you faced with your business, that you’d like to warn new entrepreneurs about? Please share your advice on how to overcome it.?

David Ciccarelli

You’re going to hear no a lot. “But that’s not unexpected.” Sure, you probably expect to hear no. But you likely aren’t expecting to hear no quite as often as it actually happens, and it can be a devastating blow to morale to new entrepreneurs after hearing it over and over and over (and over) again.

Here you are, a new entrepreneur with a fantastic new idea or improved way to do something, and you just know it’s going to be revolutionary—or, at the very least, successful enough to become a profitable business. You’ve done your research, you’re ready to pitch to investors, you’re ready to find business opportunities and partners, and you’re ready to take on the world, bolstered by hope and excitement.

And then the NOs start rolling in. “It’s not a good time.” “We don’t typically take on projects like this.” “This isn’t a good fit.” “You just don’t have the data to back this up.” “Do you really think this will work?” “Is there even a market for this?” These statements keep piling up, most often accompanied by a resounding “no.”

Be ready for this. Be ready to hear no 50 times for every yes. And, perhaps most importantly, don’t take no for an answer so readily. As a young, green entrepreneur, hearing “no” can be disheartening and is often easily accepted, because who are you to be questioning established business folks on their “no”?

Sometimes, no means no and the door is closed, but in business, “no” can actually mean “not right now” or “there’s no room in the budget this year.” Hearing “no” can actually be an invitation to get creative and find ways that your proposition will be of benefit to your intended business partner or investor without breaking the bank or creating additional work on their end.

Rejection can also be an opportunity for you to re-evaluate your position and the information you’re putting forth. Are you missing something? Does something need to change in order to better resonate with your intended audience? Analyzing the potential shortcomings in your planning will help you to better approach it next time.

Better yet, don’t be afraid to ask for genuine and transparent feedback from those who said “no” in the first place. Ask for clarity and an explanation as to what exactly made them reject your proposal so you can take that away, fix it (if possible), and come back stronger. In short, seek ways to turn “no” into “yes” and don’t accept defeat so easily.

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Samantha Odo

I am Samantha Odo, a licensed real estate expert at Precondo. We take pride in adhering to high-quality journalistic ethical guidelines, and we retain journalistic integrity to assist in making the best decision per necessities.

With the pandemic and the following restrictions, entrepreneurs and business owners faced several challenges. I, as a realtor, was one among many others who stuck at home, not able to mark my presence in the industry. As a realtor, it was challenging for me to meet both sellers & buyers.

However, technologies stepped in as a big help. Meeting my clients online and giving them a virtual tour of properties they are interested in was convenient for me. It resolved many problems I was facing.

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Loren Howard

When I first started as an entrepreneur I did not understand the importance of marketing your business. You can do everything ‘technically’ but without the proper marketing and sales funnel in place your business will never take off. Invest time and money upfront into marketing your business for a successful launch!

Alex Gastle

As entrepreneurs we are excited about our business and what it can do for paying customers. This excitement and the potential we see is often what drives us in the early days to work harder and persevere through the tough times getting started.

In my experience, the side effect of this excitement is that entrepreneurs struggle to remove themselves from their own excitement and view their business from their eyes of their target customer or user persona. Tech entrepreneurs love to focus on the fancy features of their new app in everything they do without having a crystal clear understanding of the problem their product solves and how their target users are solving that problem now, without their new app.

This doesn’t mean researching your competitors, that’s different because you’re all trying to solve the problem in a new way. Speak with as many people as you can to discover what they are using now to solve the problem and then apply that back to your own business.

Your perspective will change on things like what features are most important, often the features that an entrepreneur is most excited about aren’t the features that target users will gravitate to. If you can get a handle on this, your product development time, sales and marketing will all become much easier.

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Adam Millman

As an entrepreneur, being able to be nimble is key. You quickly learn that you can’t get too attached to certain ideas, and being able to pivot accordingly is an incredible strength for any business.

More often than not, the first iteration of any product/business may not be the best — it takes countless versions, tests, and ideas to get to the end product. Down the line, you realize how necessary every step was in order to get to your final product/business.

My advice on how to pivot with the most ease is to build a strong team. A cohesive team that compliments each other’s strengths is a perfect recipe for a nimble, quick-thinking business. You need several voices trained onto one razor-sharp vision, bringing perspective and ideas to the table without clouding the end goal.

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Lisa Richards

Constant fatigue was perhaps the most unexpected challenge I encountered when starting my business. The crazy hours, the intense work involved, and the pressure to make sure the business succeeded really took a toll on me, physically, emotionally, and mentally.

However, as the business grew, I was able to find a pace that allowed me to keep the business thriving while still managing to protect my wellbeing. I also learnt how to delegate more effectively, which enabled me to rest more, and to focus on the areas in my business where I could make the biggest impact.

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Lillian Brummet

I’m not sure how far you want the story to go back but here is a brief overview of my life: My mom married 5 times; 2 of those were abusive… and so I was on my own at 13.5 years old. My 2 older brothers were on their own before I was, both left at 16.

I supported myself, paid rent, worked hard labour jobs to get by and partied hard – often sheltering young people who needed to get away from their home life, giving them a place to stay until they figured things out.

At 20, I put myself through a university level of grade 12, meaning I took the extra hard, more advanced courses in math, biology and science, etc. so that I could qualify for university. At the time I was thinking of becoming a biologist. Met and married my husband Dave around this same time, and started a business providing home maintenance services for upper-class clients.

Ran that successfully for 6 years before being in the middle of a 3-car pileup that had me in full-time physio (5 days week, 4-5 hours per day) for over a year. I had to close my business – and fell into chronic depression, something I struggled with most of my life, and developed an anxiety disorder (which I struggle with today). At that point I changed directions – began studying the world of writing as a profession, and haven’t looked back yet.

I chose this career because I needed to feel like my life had value, that I was leaving a positive legacy and using every moment I was given to the best of my ability. I entered this field in 1999 as a freelance writer, later becoming a staff writer, columnist and assignment writer.

My greatest adversity early on in the career was having the confidence that my voice had value in the clammer that already existed. I overcame this by ensuring what I wrote was unique – researching recent writings about the topic to find out what was missing, what wasn’t addressed, what I did or did not like about the published materials, and then I would find an angle that I could write about filling a negative gap.

Both my parents (mom & step dad) committed suicide in 2009, forcing us to reconsider the direction of our lives and reminding us of the tragedy in waiting for a tomorrow that may never happen. Instead of buying a home in the big city, we moved to a smaller city about 3 hours drive from our home town.

Since then I have worn many hats; at one time I wrote book reviews professionally; donating over 700 books to our local literacy organization because of this task. I also wrote product reviews professionally, and still offer this service on our blog.

I ran a popular talk radio show for about 7 years or so; it ran 3 x per week, 1 hour per episode, called Conscious Discussions Talk Radio. Around this same time period I also ran the Author’s Read podcast for a few years. About mid-point in our career we had another crisis.

Dave had been working shift work while we both worked ourselves thin refurbishing our first home and running the business. Both of us were exhausted, diminished by the weight of heavy grief after the suicide of my parents and the cancer diagnosis of his biological father (the last of the parents).

The stress was beginning to affect our marriage. We all decided, the dad included, to move to our dream location before it was too late. Life is just too short to wait for tomorrow to live your joy.

So after a year of looking at properties we sold everything, packed up, bought a house (another fixer upper), and began our new lives here as of 2012. This also meant revamping the business so that it better represented our current projects, including a few book updates or publishing new editions. That was 10 years ago.

Since moving to our dream location (in the Kootenay Region of BC, Canada), and caregiving for the dad who passed 4-5 years ago; we have been methodically converting the abused lot over to the little park it has become – and in doing so have gained certification with bee, pollinator and wildlife organizations. Our home, too, has become energy efficient via the many upgrades we have done.

Our business donates 10% of the profits to wildlife, bee and pollinator, pet rescue and seed saving organizations. Our business includes Dave’s music studio, percussion accessory products and services, as well as numerous award-winning non-fiction books and 2 popular blogs.

In 2020 we relaunched the business with a new look, logo, colours, design, new bio’s and profiles and updated everything from social networking sites to our main website. We also launched Dave’s Drum It With Brummet blog. We realized we needed to learn better skills to deal with changing business needs.

Starting in 2020 I began taking a number of online courses to better understand SEO, Keyword Management, E-commerce and online advertising (Facebook & Amazon Ads).

In ’21 we released 2 books and due to all of the marketing and other efforts I am proud to say that we appeared in the media more than 125 times that year and our main blog, Brummet’s Conscious Blog, has had a huge increase of visits as of late.

In December (a 31-day month) we saw #143,000 visits, in January (also a 31-day month) this increased to #346,788, and so far in the past 9 days of February, we saw #134,547 visits. The blog has helped us solidify long term networking relationships and discover new ones, because of kinds of submissions and interviews that we accept.

For instance, just last month I put in a few weeks of work following up with the 940 connections we made last year. For those we had a positive interaction with, our message simply stated our gratitude and interest in continuing to network and offered a few ways we might be able to support feature them on the blog. For those who did not reply, we were able to reach out again with a slightly different approach.

I find I get about an 8% additional return on investment using last year’s work. Four years after the dad’s passing we are finally in a place where we can face the emotional journey of publishing his work. We are currently working on what we hope to be a trilogy, celebrating Dave’s late-father’s lifetime collection of poetry, short stories, family memoirs and photos.

I speculate that the first 2 books will be published late-spring ’22. This is our way of honouring his dad, and doing our part for future generations of this family. Bio: Lillian and her husband Dave are the team behind Brummet Media Group, high-fiving cheerfully as they pass each other on the way from checking off one item or other from their long to-do list.

Their business includes Dave’s music studio and percussion accessory products and graphic design work as well as numerous award-winning non-fiction books and 2 popular blogs. Find them online here: https://linktr.ee/LillianBrummet

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Danny Neeson

What I’ve learned through each entrepreneurial venture is that the biggest challenge can oftentimes be yourself. When you face obstacles or challenges, your determination and work ethic are what will either make or break you. Business owners need to dig deep and face the battles within themselves to transcend beyond their self-made limitations and see the potential that others might miss.

Confidence isn’t always a natural thing; it takes strength and courage to show up every day and believe in what others won’t. Know what you bring to the table every day!

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Ravi Davda

“I was young when I left my corporate job to start my first business. I was earning a great salary in a banking role, and I left it to start with nothing. If there’s one challenge entrepreneurs should know about, it’s getting through those first months or even years without taking a proper salary.

Even if/when you do make money, it’s likely that you’ll be reinvesting some, if not all, of it back into your business. This is tough, especially for people who have never been there or have always had a stable salary. It takes a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of determination. Don’t underestimate this if you’re starting a new business.”

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Alessio Lorusso

My name is Alessio Lorusso (Forbes 30 Under 30) and I am the founder and CEO of Roboze (roboze.com), the most accurate 3D printing technology in the world for high-performance super polymers. Roboze is a startup based in Houston, TX, and Italy.

As an entrepreneur who has built a successful company starting in a region of the world where there are few investors (Southern Italy), attracting initial outside investors was the most unexpected challenge, and I can share some lessons learned.

Looking back, I realize that one of the reasons for my success was because I had confidence in myself and the strengths of my innovation which I built when I was 17 years old, by developing the world’s first 3D printer without belts.

This innovation, de facto eliminated the issues linked to the rubber belts regularly used in desktop 3D printers: distortion, wear, inaccurate repeatability, and the need for frequent calibrations. It was thanks to this invention that I then founded Roboze, which now employs over 100 employees, has facilities in Italy, Texas, and Germany, and has attracted numerous investors and key strategic partners.

For startups like mine that are not located in the more traditional hubs, it is a greater challenge, and it often takes longer to attract initial investors, than for startups located in Silicon Valley, Israel, or the UK. That is why, in order to start growing relying just on initial funds from my savings, I needed to outline a growth path that had very little margin for error. This can be accomplished by learning in-depth about the market you are in, having a clear vision of your goals and what it takes to get there.

Typically, especially in early stages, there are fewer people who support you, believe in you, and help you when you want to create a new innovative company with the intention to disrupt a segment of the market. So, you must be focused enough to know when to take risks, believe in yourself, have the courage to do things differently, and not be afraid of failure.

Failure must always be taken into account, it’s part of doing business. However, staying focused and having a direction that you pursue consistently (avoid the “shiny ball syndrome” at all cost) without ever losing motivation despite obstacles will allow you to grow sufficiently to become attractive to investors, wherever they may be.

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Humza Khan

All of us, and especially business leaders find discomfort in uncertainty. Because of the pandemic, supply chain struggles, and labor shortages, uncertainty is more pronounced today.

Those unknowns lead to short-term myopia. Many people shy away from long-term planning in favor of immediate concerns. Uncertainty drives business owners and executives to hunker down, and customers to stop spending.

While this might feel right, failure to strategically plan and stay focused 10, 5 or even 3 years into the future can end up eroding tremendous value. The world is simply not going to end. Plan well. Be agile. Yet don’t lose sight of the milestones and goals you intelligently set in the first place.

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Taylor Ryan

A risk management plan! When you run a business, be prepared for more significant losses than you initially anticipate so that the company can survive in the event of a crisis.

This was certainly one of the hardest parts of starting and running my own business. Life is full of surprises, especially in business. There’s almost certainly going to be a few expenses that you did not anticipate – tax changes, changes in the financial market, new competitors, a global pandemic.

Small businesses often generate relatively low income. Therefore, even small financial turbulences can lead to their complete collapse. It’s crucial to factor risk management into your financial plan: Be prepared for the worst, and a crisis will cost you much less. This is the best advice I can give anyone who is planning to start a business.

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Ellenor McIntosh

One of the greatest challenges I’ve had to learn is effective time management. More often than not, new entrepreneurs can find all their time being consumed by the new business venture they’re pursuing. You work tirelessly to make sure this becomes a success, that you forget about everything else.

All your energy and time go into your business that can ultimately end up working against you. Pouring all of your energy into work, you forget to take time for yourself, and you realise that other important aspects of your life will eventually take the backseat.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate that less can be more, and apply this to certain aspects of my business. Overworking yourself is not adding benefit to your business’ success, but rather you’ll find yourself feeling stressed and overwrought. Learning how and when to ‘switch off’ has been such an indispensable lesson and is something I have come a appreciate more and more as my business continues to grow. Switching off can mean different things for everyone.

For me, that means taking time away from work to do a completely unrelated activity. Whether that was going out with friends, starting up a new hobby or just taking time to myself to decompress at home – carving out the time to focus on just you are something I firmly encourage all entrepreneurs to do.

I find by doing this, it can significantly affect your mental and physical wellbeing for the better. When you’re in a good mental space it reflects in the work you do. You are taking the time to ensure that you are in the best shape possible to successfully run your new business venture. Some of the methods I’ve found that has greatly helped me overcome this has been setting feasible deadlines with certain tasks and projects, and effective time allotment on tasks set for myself and others under my management.

I realised that while setting deadlines is a great start in managing my time more effectively, I also had to learn to discipline myself in sticking to them. It can be so easy to find yourself doing a little extra on that one project or working a little later than the time you set for yourself, but once you fall into the habit of constantly working overtime, it can be extremely difficult to come out of.

This is why it’s so important to implement these ‘guidelines’ for yourself near the beginning and act in accordance with them. Once you learn how to stick to the guidelines you’ve set, whether it’s to do with time management or something else you struggle with, you’ll notice how much smoother and more efficiently your business venture operates. Ellenors Bio: Just to introduce her, Ellenor McIntosh, is one of the few young, black female entrepreneurs in the UK, and is paving the way for others to follow.

Having graduated from the University of Bedfordshire with a Bachelor of Science (BSc), Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Elle has used her science background to create the formula for her innovative creation – Twipes. Twipes is the world’s first truly flushable and biodegradable wet wipe, that’s 100% plastic-free! When flushed, Twipes are completely dispersed in just 3 hours, and will fully biodegrade within 7 days. Co-founded with her long-time college friend, Al Borz, they boldly set out to start their own business.

And after 5 years of much research and development, their resilience paid off with the success of Twipes. Elle has been the recipient of multiple prestigious awards, namely the Princess Diana Award in 2017, awarded the Forbes 30 under 30 in 2020. She has even been recognised by the Mayor of London and featured in Time-out Magazine in 2021 for her (and her co-founder’s) innovative product. She is not only making strides in the entrepreneurial world as a successful young, black woman but also in the world of single-use items, with her cutting edge and ingenious creation of Twipes!

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Cliff Auerswald

My name is Cliff Auerswald, President at All Reverse Mortgage, a top-rated financing and mortgage company.

The greatest challenge new business owners are going to face is when they hit the bottom of the J-Curve. At that point, business owners find out that most of their initial assumptions about their product and market are wrong, so they don’t see much return for their effort. And then the money and morale start to dry up.

In order to escape the bottom of the J-curve to enter the periods of steep growth and traction, new business owners need to be open to changing their ideas. They might need to change their ideas about the product, market, or strategy (sometimes, all three) in order to keep the company alive.

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Rachel McMichael

When first starting out and trying to build an audience, it’s easy to believe that any visibility means your business is doing well, when getting in front of the right audience (those who need your product, program, or service the most) is actually the true goal.

So many beginner entrepreneurs try to create content that attracts the most people (quantity), rather than creating content that attracts their ideal customer (quality). But a popular business does not necessarily equate to a profitable business. A larger group of followers might get your business plenty of “likes”, but a group of qualified ideal customers is what will give you the sales and conversion you’re looking for.

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Christiaan Huynen

Shift in people’s buying habits. The next level of online shopping has taken over the ecommerce industry. More engrossing digital experience is now the trend in selling.

Consumers are shifting into an “experience economy” wherein they want not only the item itself but also the act of the digital purchase. Products are big because of their curated content and with the influence of social media, the fear of missing out is fostered in the e-commerce business.

This trend changed the way our company designs logos, websites, brand identity and many more. An appealing graphic design is not enough to increase lead generation nowadays.

Alexej Pikovsky

“The greatest and unexpected challenge was the lack of paid traffic opportunities on platforms such as Google, Facebook, and Tiktok. Our initial business idea was to build a CBD marketplace with a diverse growth channel mix including pay per click.

Not having the ability to pass through Google and Facebook algorithms was an unexpected challenge and prevented us from growing as fast as we wanted to. The way we overcame it was by doing a lot of search engine optimization and influencer marketing. We have invested a lot into content and technical optimization, as well as building up a database of influencers.

In addition to that, we scaled up revenue from adding a services business providing value add to brands on our marketplace, as well as acquiring non-CBD brands under our alphagreengroup.com banner.”

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Ryan Walton

“The most unexpected challenge for me, which applies today and when I started the business, is how obsessive you become with working and how hard it is to switch your brain off.

It’s really prevalent in my life – that addiction to work is a really big challenge because you’re suppose to live a life of balance which encompasses and embraces relationships and friendships outside of work. You can easily find, without knowing it, that your business can take over your life. My advice to new entrepreneurs would be to try and create a balanced life ahead of time before starting the business, form those positive habits and not experience burnout as a result.”

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Alice Ojeda

“One of the big challenges we faced as we grew was scaling our systems. By systems I mean, how we built our website, where we hosted our subscriptions platform and our email marketing provider. When you start, it’s easy to go for the free trials and cheap start-up offers on digital providers.

It’s worth bearing in mind though the cost of switching as you grow and whether the platform you’re about to choose is the one you really want to lock your business into for the long-term. For example, we’ve migrated our subscription platform twice now and it was a real headache. To save this, do your research and choose carefully – start as you mean to go on.”

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Pavel Stepanov

In the last 4 years of operation, some of the major unexpected challenges we have faced are finding and retaining good talent and leadership. It can be hard to find people who think similarly to you and want to see the company go in the right direction.

Finding employees who understand the company’s mission, and have the company’s interests in mind has been a struggle. It’s also been a challenge to find good leaders who can lead by example, be good trainers and mentors, and build up team morale and productivity.

Hiring someone can be scary, as you are taking the chance to trust them with part of your company. That’s why in the beginning, it was hard for us to let employees go, as you do invest and put faith in them that they will do well. When you let someone go, you’re letting them and yourself down, at least that’s how it felt in the beginning.

I ended up finding out that when you hire people who don’t think similarly to you, it can be harder to take on new projects together. Again, hiring was fast and easy – even fun and exciting. However, there have been times when people proved they didn’t have what it took, and it took a long time for us to decide to let them go.

For aspiring entrepreneurs that will hire someone for the first time, please keep in mind that they should not be qualified on paper only. Assess whether or not they were a good fit for the company. Make sure that the people you will hire always have the best interest of the company in mind. Bring on hard-working people who have a vision for your company and want to grow with you.

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The post 20 Entrepreneurs From Europe & North America Interviewed On The Challenges They Encountered During The Pandemic first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

Many businesses have had to close as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, while others have had to adapt their operations. Many firms were prompted to pivot for pandemic success and adapt to changing market conditions as a result of the outbreak. We interviewed 26 company owners and entrepreneurs in the United States to understand more about the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on businesses and how it affected their operations.

INTERVIEW HOST

The host of this interview was Jed Morley. Jed Morley is the CEO of a leading payment processing service provider called PlatPay.

Table of Contents

The question we asked:

The pandemic encouraged many businesses to pivot and adapt to changing market conditions. How did you adapt? Did you introduce additional product lines or services?

Jessi Beyer

As a speaker, the pandemic could have sent my business crashing to the ground, but instead, a simple pivot from in-person presentations to virtual presentations allowed my revenue from speaking gigs to skyrocket during the second half of 2020 and beyond. While this pivot seems obvious, there were two key things I did that made this pivot as successful as it was.

First, I put some serious thought into how I could make virtual presentations as engaging as in-person ones. People were already sitting on Zoom all day, so I didn’t want them to just sit there and listen to me blab on for an hour.

Secondly, I sold bulk copies of my book to event and conference hosts that booked me to speak so that, firstly, attendees would have something they could physically touch and engage with after my virtual presentation, and secondly, the revenue from each virtual gig would be increased.

After so much time doing virtual presentations more frequently than in-person ones, I have to say that I like virtual ones more! They’re more accessible for attendees and less time consuming for me, and they allow me to speak at multiple events across all parts of the country in the span of a few short days.

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Lucie Chavez

Here at Radaris, we had to pivot in a big way in order to keep everyone safe and secure, while also continuing with the forward momentum we had leading up to the pandemic. We seemed to have a communication issue between departments and different levels within the company. A specific team was very communicative with each other, but there was an issue in continuously relaying progress and specific updates to the rest of the team in a timely manner.

This caused some delays and confusion among different teams who were waiting on the other for a specific item or answer. We also struggled to figure out an effective communication line from the managerial team down to part-time employees and more junior-level employees.

We had to find a way to connect everyone for important communications and also figure out how we can relay messages to other parts of the company. It came down to finding the most effective programs for us and making sure everyone was on the right page. Once we found these platforms and put them into effect, we had an easier job in staying on the same page, but there was definitely a learning period.

We had to find out who would do what and how they could do it to be effective. I think we had to stumble a bit early on in order to find our way and make sure we are as effective at communicating virtually as we needed to be. After that, things were much easier for us!

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Manville Chan

I founded The Story of Ramen in 2016 in San Francisco. We host ramen cooking classes as corporate team building events. We welcome company teams to our facility and make ramen as an offsite activity.

The majority of our customer base tech companies such as Uber, Facebook, Google and Salesforce which see great value in team-building activities for their employees. Prior to the pandemic, we hosted an average of 800-1,000 people per month.

We found our niche and market our business mainly via SEO traffic to our web site as well as positive word of mouth. Obviously with the pandemic, in-person events ended and all customers canceled their events in March 2020. By April 2020, we introduced virtual ramen cooking classes, which includes an instructor-led Zoom session and ramen kits delivered to our customers’ doorsteps.

It has become a hit as companies are desperately trying to find ways to motivate remote/work from home employees. When we first introduced virtual classes, we had a steep learning curve in knowing how to package and ship perishable food ingredients across the country and how to make the experience more interactive and engaging. We have learned and adapted very quickly mainly through feedback from our valued customers and simply making mistakes!

As the pandemic continued, we found ways to expand our business beyond the Bay Area as we host events all over the US and globally. We are also no longer limited to the capacity of the facility which seats 40-45 people. We frequently host nationwide corporate events with 100+ people.

Our virtual business grew from 150 guests in July 2020 to close 1,800 in December 2021. We recently launched an udon class that allows us to ship ingredient kits internationally; and we’re getting a lot of traction lately.

I do think that the stress brought by the pandemic actually helped us to think outside the box to grow our business, turning lemons into lemonade. Previously, we were in our comfort zone and we were too busy to innovate.

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Rohan Kadam

Hello, I am a marketing consultant and an established entrepreneur. I run a successful Niche website called Biking Know How.

I would like to share how I quit my job as a banker at JP Morgan Chase and started my blogging business for less than $1000 and turned it into a successful business. I started my blog just as a hobby.

I scaled my business, especially during the challenging COVID pandemic, and made it profitable in a short period (From the first month itself). I focused on doubling down my efforts on growing my niche website, which was initially just my passion project.

I would say that my online business has helped me stay occupied, motivated, and financially stable. I love the outdoors, biking and camping. I always wanted to share my unique experience with people. Initially, I would maintain a diary and would write about my outdoor camping endeavors.

Thanks to social media and my website, my audience over time has increased significantly. With social media and my website, many more people can access my adventures and plan their own.

This gives me immense joy and fulfillment. Some of the details on my blog are as follows.

1. Bikingknowhow.com is my third blog (I run 2 blogs currently, all in different niches. I sold my first blog) that I had started. And it today gets approximately 5,000 monthly unique visitors. I earn money through two Ad-Networks namely, Google AdSense and Media.net which show ads on my website. (I make a minimum of $200 per month with both ad networks combined).
2. I also partnered with Amazon via an affiliate partnership, and I promote the products and services of Amazon on my website (I make approximately $100 per month) by promoting products on my blog.

Challenges
As far as the hardest part or challenges are concerned, I had to face many, but two challenges stand out the most. They are as follows.

1. Time Management:
This was a very significant challenge because I was managing and growing my blog while having a full-time job. I would use my weekends and holidays to educate myself on skills, especially web development and digital marketing.

My blog allowed me to have multiple streams of income. As I saw decent cash flow coming in, I was interested to upskill myself on digital marketing and social media. I knew this would require my time and dedication. So, at every opportunity that I got to polish my skills, I made sure that I dedicated my time and attention to get better.

2. Getting Right Education
Well, to educate and polish my skills in digital marketing, I enrolled in many digital marketing and web development courses. I used platforms like Udemy and Udacity to enroll in the courses. I started voraciously reading blogs and success stories of food bloggers. This helped me get creative and experiment with the growth strategy of my blog.

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Peter Ord

“The pre-pandemic world looks much different than our current times. With more employees working remotely or within a hybrid-like environment than ever before, we wanted to ensure that we adjusted our product, GuideCX, to meet the needs of business professionals everywhere, no matter what their workspace looks like.

It is critical for internal and external teams to be on the same page right from the beginning in order to achieve long-term success – and that begins with the client onboarding process.

We recently introduced a tool that we had been working on for years called the Navigator Reporting Engine because we recognized the need for teams to be able to understand each component of a project and the bigger picture of how it all intertwines, whether they are working side by side or across the world from one another.

The Engine offers never-before-seen metrics including forecasting revenues and the ability to meet deadlines, creating a strong foundation for projects and continued growth.”

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Ian Sells

We know how the pandemic has forced people to stay indoors and this has caused a huge spike not only in the number of people doing online shopping, but even the time they spent doing so. Surveys also found that many people do so on their phones more than on their computers.

To meet this customer behavior and make the most out of the influx of people doing online shopping, we decided to launch an app for both iPhone and Android users. This makes it a lot easier for them to shop and save money.

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Eddie Bye

I’m Eddie. Founder of Physio Flex Pro. As a business owner during the pandemic, I either had to give up and stop doing business or continue. Fortunately, I was able to make my joint supplement business profitable. I want to share the realization that I had.

As well as the challenges faced and lessons learned along the way The biggest lesson that I’d learnt during this whole crisis is that you get a chance to improve your life when a huge problem comes. Some of us are entitled. We want things to be given to us. We don’t want to work, we don’t want to suffer, we just want the good things in life despite our character not deserving it.

And so tragedy happens and we find ourselves whining. It’s important to understand that an entrepreneurial life without crisis is not possible. You’re going to encounter one if you play this game long enough. Knowing this, we understand that it’s useless to want something that is impossible.

Furthermore, I realized that in order to solve a business problem, you need to improve as an entrepreneur. The best solution that I found during the pandemic was by changing myself initially and letting it reflect on my business. I consider it a blessing considering that I make money the more I improve myself. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Lauren Gast

Chief Marketing Officer on Pivoting in the Face of a Pandemic Because truck drivers are a part of one of America’s Essential Industries, pivoting in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic was of the utmost importance. Before the pandemic, our training required our instructors and students to be in close contact with each other constantly.

After COVID numbers began to rise, and supply chain shortages became more prevalent, we knew that stopping classes altogether was not an option. To create a safe CDL training environment for our students and staff so we could continue training, we developed a comprehensive pandemic protocol. In accordance with CDC guidelines, we instructed our trainees to postpone their training if they had recently been exposed to the virus or were experiencing flu-like symptoms.

We also published extensive sanitation and social distancing guidelines, requiring that our trainees wash their hands often and keep their masks on during in-cab training and testing. —Lauren Gast, Chief Marketing Officer at Truck Driver Institute, a truck driving school with eleven campuses across the United States 

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Brice Gump

The onset of the pandemic brought a shock to the system of many companies including ours. It is no secret that marketing services become a secondary concern for several businesses but as a business leader it has always been my priority to never remain stationary when faced with a crisis and to keep it ongoing.

The one thing that I did was constantly stay engaged with my existing clients and even network more than usual on my social media platforms to increase engagement and spread greater brand awareness. We started posting testimonials on our website to show potential clients a more realistic aspect of the services provided.

Constant engagement helped me gain more clients than I thought I would in these turbulent times and we even increased our brand awareness through this. we had to return clients as well. It wasn’t all sunshine and happiness for us, we faced serval setbacks with communication and workflow being hindered due to the transition from physical to remote/ hybrid work. But with a great team and the use of efficient crisis management, we learned to adapt and supported each other to adjust to the new norms.

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Richard Lubicky

Ever since the pandemic, the whole world has been transforming, whether our lifestyle or business! Majorly, a lot of businesses have had serious impacts!

Since such changes have Vern accounted as the new normal, businesses have to alter and align their business goals and vision to grab opportunities at the right time to gain competitive advantage.

Considering such a situation and changes, I also altered some of my Cybersecurity SaaS business elements to become a leader in the market. Since people had to wait in long queues in government offices to find vital information, we advanced our reach and provided them with that information within a fraction of seconds!

Most of our services are introduced as free services to help our clients test the deep waters! We added client reports and background checks as our revenue-generating streams. This was largely possible due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Paul Baterina

The pandemic presented unique challenges for businesses all across the board. Sleep Advisor was fortunate in that the bulk of our workforce (our marketers, developers and bloggers to name a few) already worked remotely before Covid-19, so all we needed to do was modify our work model to a remote environment for everyone who works in our headquarters (myself included) in Austin, Texas.

The pandemic gave us an opportunity to use alternative digital platforms to intensify our planning phases for our digital marketing campaigns and collaborate remotely simultaneously. For example, we shifted all our work communications and physical operations over to Slack and Microsoft Teams so we could utilize video calls and digital channels for specific work departments and projects.

My team and I at HQ had lots of days where our digital platforms didn’t sync up the way we hoped and where we experienced difficulties with performing certain tasks timeously. For example, we often struggled to stay on schedule with filming our YouTube demonstration videos due to some of our main vloggers contracting Covid-19 and needing to stay in quarantine and recover at different stages of 2021.

With that said, we did our best to keep the lines of communication open, express empathy and support those of us who couldn’t cope as well with our workload and physical health during the pandemic. We’re still learning and constantly finding new ways not only to survive during these trying times, but to thrive as well.

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Kim Marie Branch-Pettid

The pandemic was a shock to all of us and we had to make some quick changes to adjust to the state of the world and do whatever we could to stay afloat. It was especially important to me to ensure that all my members and staff felt supported and had the resources necessary to succeed in spite of the times.

To offset barriers to connection in the pandemic, I invested in LeTip Wired, a new proprietary software and mobile app that helps members electronically track existing business networks and recruit new members. Introducing LeTip Wired certainly helped my team feel like they belong to a nationwide community and ultimately ensured many small businesses wouldn’t have to close their doors.

As a result, between 2020 and 2021 we were able to invite more guests and had a 60% join rate. Thanks to a recent LeTip membership survey, I also discovered that many of LeTip’s members across the US also made individual changes to their businesses in order to adapt to the rapidly changing market conditions.

For example, Jack Watkinson is a member of LeTip of Somerset Hills representing the I.T. category for the Somerset Hills Chapter in New Jersey with a company called Outsource My I.T. He reported that in 2020 he used more online methods of service, added new products, and services to his catalog, hired new employees while retaining most of his employees.

Similarly, Chief Executive Officer at H3 Systems and member of LeTip of Napa, CA, Donald Hartung reported that to offset business slowing down he used more online methods of service and adjust because of supply chain issues as well.

About LeTip International: LeTip International, Inc., the world’s largest privately-owned business leads organization, is a networking organization made up of members held to the highest caliber of professionalism and achievement, all of whom strive to do business with one another.

Founded in 1978, LeTip has more than 250 chapters throughout the USA and Canada and is credited with hundreds of thousands of business referrals per year. Setting the standard for referral organizations, LeTip members are known throughout the B2B referral industry for their dedication to helping each other grow their businesses. Join a chapter or start your own at letip.com.

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Nathan Hughes

Due to the pandemic and its subsequent restrictions, both small and large businesses have suffered. As a marketing firm, we had barred traditional methods to market products and services. Traditional PR strategies were no longer functional. At the right moment, digital platforms came in as aid for us.

Digital Marketing and PR strategies, including backlinks, SEO (On-page and Off-page), social media, and email marketing, were some of the best strategies that helped our firm soar high from this pandemic.

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Adit Jain

The pandemic brought with it a lot of uncertainty for companies and people alike. Back then, we had not secured our series fundings, and we were operating with a smaller fund. We’ve always strived to be as transparent as possible with our team. So, following that same principle, we conducted town hall meetings and apprised each member of Leena AI of the situation regarding our finances.

Every member of our team was on board, and in fact, delivered 200% more than what we expected. Their perseverance reflected their dedication and motivation towards the company. Soon after, we secured our Series A funding, followed by Series B in the second consecutive year, and things started to get back on track.

For us at Leena AI, the pandemic really helped us grow as a company, both internally and externally. This adaptation to Covid brought in new ideas – we were introspective on what we learnt as a company, and utilized that to build solutions for enterprises that were facing issues brought on during the pandemic.

We introduced a number of products, such as the Covid-19 Workplace Response Suite, which assists organizations facilitate a safer return to the workplace, by helping them track and maintain employee vaccination records, employee health statuses, employee rostering, and even booking vaccination slots. In addition to this, during the pandemic we were approached by a number of healthcare providers for their requirements of a similar product.

One to track systems for vaccination statuses for both patients and staff, send reminders to patients about their second or booster doses, conduct Covid tests, and so on. We also came up with Work-From-Home surveys for employees to keep a check on their wellbeing, both mental and physical. In my opinion, Leena AI took the pandemic head-first and came out stronger, larger, and better than ever.

We pooled in all our resources, gave it a 100% and assisted millions of employees around the world cope with the pandemic.

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Edith Pearce

As a law firm involved with personal injury cases, we constantly have paperwork our clients must sign. Some of these documents include fee agreements, medical authorizations, and settlement agreements.

This often meant the client would have to come into our office to sign various paperwork during their case. When the pandemic hit, we began using DocuSign to provide clients the ability to electronically sign documents.

The DocuSign electronic signature solution in the United States complies with the definition of an electronic signature under the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (ESIGN) Act and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA).

This has allowed our clients to sign all of their documents in the comfort of their own homes. While we have also adopted other tools such as video conferencing software, DocuSign will probably be the most important remote working tool for our firm in 2021.

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Michael Dean

The biggest way my company had to adapt during the pandemic was in our online presence. With consumers stuck at home, it meant they were spending way more time on their devices. In order to continue growing as a business and obtaining a bigger audience, we had to start optimizing our business site for mobile use, and developing more of a presence on social media.

New businesses are popping up online everyday, so prioritizing your business’ online presence is crucial. As a content-based business, website traffic is currency, and the only way to secure consistent traffic is to lean into the current global digital landscape.

Tennille Thomas

I adapted to changing market conditions by doing things in reverse by creating a brand new business model that was a continuum of my current model. My business model was to create a living canvas if you will; whereby my products had to become services and my services became products.

This would spark innovation for the continual creation of products and services born out of the services and products I currently offer. In other words, my industry encompasses e-commerce, health/beauty, from the realm of natural skin care. I had to find a way to combine all those elements without losing the voice of my brand.

Please understand that your brand is your voice visually. It will speak for you before you show up. It is imperative for the message of your brand to be clear and concise so that people can identify it and engage with it no matter the platform(s) being utilized to represent it. By introducing new services and products out of your current offerings you will not compromise your brand identity.

For example, one of my products is a luxury hand oil. I made this oil come to life for my customers by way of a demonstration video in real time. This not only increased engagement by making them feel a part of the product but encouraged sales in real time. In addition, I created a service that is video on demand for those who truly desired this type of educational engagement by way of a subscription. It provides a platform for them to be able to watch how to use these products and services at their leisure.

Lastly, providing them an opportunity to engage with me directly. As a result of that direct engagement, opportunities have been afforded to those that are active on my platform. Such as participation in helping to create a product. If I use that product their contribution is recognized, they are given perks and directly become a part of my specialized engagement team.

As an entrepreneur you have to be innovative, creative, and inventive to separate yourself from the masses with never compromising your customer base. You do this by employing hi-touch.

You will not only create multiple streams of income for yourself but be able to continuously create avenues of opportunities and one of a kind experiences for your customers. Who would of thought that all of this would derive from a product that turned into a service sparked by innovation through the service that would create a product everlasting.

Darren Lopez

 “We adapted our business plan in two different ways. First, we added product lines that we thought people in the new normal would find appealing, including a new adult beverage we call Milli. We also added additional immune and health-related products including our Be-OnGuard series targeted toward people that want to “be on guard” against viruses and bacteria.

In addition, we adapted our distribution strategies and started focusing on streamlining and simplifying the sales process with an enhanced emphasis on direct sales and a new aggressive Amazon strategy.”

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Carter Reum

When we look at the pandemic and its effects on companies across the globe, it’s important to also look for some of the positives that have come from such an unexpected situation. Many companies have made huge pivots; yet this has also encouraged those businesses to become more innovative, creative, and open to taking well-calculated risks.

Some employees are finding that they can be more productive even when working remotely. Of course, many companies have found the pandemic conditions to be challenging, but just as many are also finding newfound strength and exponential growth. Specifically, we’ve seen that wellness and mental well-being are now unprecedented opportunities for innovation and investment.

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Greg Gillman

Being a leader during a pandemic will put your leadership skills to the test–most importantly empathy and flexibility. With the ever-changing rules surrounding the pandemic comes a lack of structure or even an office, which can potentially lead to feelings of isolation, lack of motivation, disruptions to processes, and even workplace conflict.

During these uncertain times, you can’t lead with certainty, which can be a challenge to leaders stuck in their ways. Pay close attention to your employees and their performance, and be sure to be sympathetic to their needs and pivot when and where necessary to ensure optimal success.

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Ryan Rottman

Functioning effectively as a leader or an entrepreneur during a pandemic is only viable if you can be flexible and understand how and when to pivot. This means encouraging innovative thinking and really listening to all the ideas your team brings to the table – big or small.

Playing it safe in uncertain times might seem appealing, but it’s important to take risks in order to yield results. Additionally, as some business environments slow down to accommodate changes, use this opportunity to brainstorm and plan for your next big move!

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Becky Brown

As a blogging business, we noticed a big increase in traffic as the pandemic grew but our audience’s demands grew as well. Producing content was no longer enough to convert our audience as they were looking for more concrete ways to engage with our business. What we did to adapt was we built a new webpage that shows limited-time shopping deals where our customers can quickly and easily buy their favorite products at a discount.

All we had to do was keep the page up-to-date and running, and our customers were more than happy with the feature. This approach helped us turn a simple shopping blog into something more than that, and we are looking forward to adding even more fun features like this in the future.

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Megan Sumrell

“The pandemic definitely brought many opportunities to add a digital focus to my business. Prior to the pandemic, my planners were all physical planners and much of my training was conducted live or in person. The pandemic caused people to really lean into technology and leverage digital assets more.

I created a digital version of my planner for tablets along with launching an app in the app stores to make training readily available via mobile devices. Now, my customers are able to participate in training events from their phones at their convenience instead of from their office at set times.” 

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Nick Collins

When the pandemic began, my clients in many parts of the country faced shut-down mandates issued by state governments struggling to slow the spread of the novel Coronavirus. Using this time to pivot again, I relaunched my company as Sartoris Digital to offer my clients an expanded and inclusive menu of services.

I previously had worked with big pharma, major airlines, telecommunications, finance, and sporting goods brands, which has given me a diverse set of skills to bring to my growing digital marketing firm. However, when the pandemic hit, I realized that many small businesses could benefit from my services, so he re-launched my offering (previously Sartoris Technologies), to include services that are better suited for small businesses, including better price points and a more tailored, hands-on experience.

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James Parsons

It’s crazy that people thought the importance of content would have decreased many years ago, but it has only risen in importance. Even during the pandemic, content continued its dominance and has been so important for online companies if they want to secure their position in the market.

It’s vital for businesses to have unique, quality content on their website for a variety of reasons. It stands out to potential clients, it helps them rank better on Google, it can be used across their entire marketing strategy, and it can even impact their PR campaigns.

We saw the demand for quality, on-time content when the pandemic hit and we worked hard to find writers who could join our team and become an asset. That’s the biggest thing we had to do when the pandemic hit and we were swamped with work: hire more quality writers so we could keep up with orders, but also cement our place in the industry because of the quality we deliver.

Finding writers to fit our team wasn’t easy, but that was helped by the fact that more people were working from home and open to working remotely. It took time to make a plan and execute it, but we did it and were able to pivot to this new demand.

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Gabriel Dungan

We didn’t introduce any pandemic-specific products or services, but we did use the sudden shift to increased online shopping as an opportunity to really personalize our social media engagement.

We started using customer testimonials and reviews in more marketing campaigns in an attempt to create more unique and personal consumer engagement. With digital engagement becoming the most important part of marketing, we used that as a chance to really invest time and money into creating high quality content on all channels, including TikTok and Instagram.

If you are a business leader and you’re not prioritizing your business’ social media channels, you are going to miss out on tons of possible conversions and traffic.

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The post Pivoting For Pandemic Success: How 26 American Entrepreneurs & Business Owners Adapted To Changing Market Conditions first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jed Morley

Businesses all throughout the world had to respond quickly and decisively to the pandemic’s difficulties. COVID-19 has impacted nearly every firm in the globe, yet results have varied greatly, even across countries and industries. To learn more about the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on businesses, we interviewed 30 entrepreneurs and business owners in the United States to see how they dealt with the pandemic.

INTERVIEW HOST

The host of this interview was Jed Morley. Jed Morley is the CEO of a leading payment processing service provider called PlatPay.

The question we asked:

The pandemic encouraged many businesses to pivot and adapt to changing market conditions. How did you adapt? Did you introduce additional product lines or services?

Kathleen Ahmmed

The number of active gig workers in the current market has already begun to increase due to the pandemic, as well as the rise of remote work.

This combined with the volatility of the job market in the past two years has proven that the gig economy is a valuable resource that small businesses will now need to take advantage of, in order to adapt, scale and survive in the post-pandemic future.

As such, we have opted to be more agile in our business operations, moving forward by outsourcing some of our projects to more skilled contractors, as we start to focus more on minimizing business costs and maximizing outsourced talent to boost productivity in this new remote work environment.

And an added benefit of this new change is that we no longer have to deal with the hiring and training costs that tend to be associated with bringing in full-time employees.

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Table of Contents

Mike Belsito

COVID seemed to have an impact on all types of businesses. But especially for conference organizers like me, COVID’s impact was especially dramatic. In 2019, my company, Product Collective, generated nearly all of our income from our live, in-person conference series — INDUSTRY: The Product Conference — which serves tech and software product management professionals. Our last in-person conference ended on March 11, 2020 in Dublin, Ireland — a day that felt like the world closed down.

Yet, in 2021 — we enjoyed (nearly) our most profitable year ever despite not putting on a live, in-person event. This happened because of three specific reasons:

1. We took swift action.
While many things were unclear about the longevity of COVID at the time, it was clear to us that live, in-person conferences wouldn’t be happening any time soon. So on the flight home, we began crafting our strategy for how we would change our business. We didn’t wait it out. We worked with extreme urgency.

2. We introduced new product lines that leveraged our strengths.
It wasn’t even two full weeks after we arrived back when we announced the launch of a series of virtual workshops. We already had great relationships with product management leaders and influencers.

Despite us never offering virtual workshops before, we worked with these individuals to create these high-value experiences. Our community responded — as hundreds of attendees signed up for the several sessions we created, which not only provided much-needed immediate revenue, but it also opened up an entirely new business line for us.

3. We reimagined the products we already had.
In 2019, very few virtual conferences existed. Those that first started emerging in 2020 were mostly free. We reimagined what our conference series could look like if it was “virtual-ized” — and still be worthwhile for attendees to pay for. In Spring 2022, we introduced a Virtual edition of INDUSTRY that ended up being one of our most profitable events ever (complete with Ben Folds playing a virtual set just for our attendees!).

We’re grateful to have adapted greatly throughout COVID in a time where many companies that have relied on live events as a primary revenue stream have struggled. But it couldn’t have happened without all of the above happening. 

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Angela Olea

As a nationwide senior placement and referral service, Assisted Living Locators quickly adopted a high-tech and high touch approach to meet the challenges of the pandemic. Our company’s franchisees used ingenuity with virtual consultations and online tours of senior communities to provide care when most facilities closed their doors to tours.

By leveraging technology, our franchisees created joint videos with communities for safe virtual tours, zoom call meetings for in-take interviews, and utilized state health department databases for the latest COVID-19 information to protect older adults. Assisted Living Locators franchisees persevered during the pandemic by upgrading personal service and guidance.

Our 140 Assisted Living Locators franchisees became dementia care certified, making us the first nationwide senior placement service to achieve system-certification. Using this knowledge, along with high tech tools, our franchisees are providing a new standard of solution-based alternatives for families.

Throughout the pandemic, Assisted Living Locators franchisees reached out to their communities to help in many meaningful ways. From letter writing campaigns to isolated seniors, to countless hours of Meals On Wheels volunteering, to collecting and donating iPads to ensure senior veterans connect to their families, our franchisees have worked tirelessly to support and improve the quality of life for seniors.

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Corey Tyner

Everyone wants to buy and sell
I had a firm belief that there are still a lot of determined buyers out there who want to take advantage of the current market. I took advantage of the bright side, such as low-interest rates. I realized that market activity would continue despite what the pandemic may appear to be.

Using technology
No more face-to-face meetings with prospects or clients, much smaller open houses, and no door-knocking/networking to generate leads are all examples of social distance.

Virtual meetings
Until further notice, everything was under lockdown, and this was a new reality. So I didn’t simply sit around waiting for it to end since I didn’t know how long it would take. I had to adapt and overcome obstacles. When I needed to talk to a prospect or customer who would ordinarily call for a face-to-face appointment, I utilized video chat apps like Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangouts. Video calls are far more successful than phone conversations in establishing rapport.

Hosting virtual open houses
At the time, open houses were ghost towns. Furthermore, several brokerages were beginning to prohibit them for the time being open. What was my strategy if I didn’t want to lose my listing? Having a virtual open house. There were several approaches I could take. Ideally, I hired a 3D camera technician to come in and film a tour. I put the 3D photos on a landing page and used Facebook and Google ads to promote the “virtual open house.”

Digital marketing
I’ve always been a big fan of Facebook and Google advertisements since they’ve helped me develop my business. And while the pandemic may not have seemed like the perfect moment to start using Facebook advertisements at the time, it turned out to be the exact opposite. That was a fantastic moment to launch Facebook advertisements.

Why? Many people were lounging around at home doing nothing except browsing social media. As a result, more individuals were viewing my adverts. Because many other businesses had to cut back on their advertising, there was less competition. Consequently, I was able to get more exposure for less money, resulting in exceptionally cheap costs-per-lead. I experienced around 30% more ad reach during the pandemic.

Some types of ad campaigns that I ran: Hottest homes for sale in (area) under ($X) Virtual open house Free guide for home buyer’s Free guide for home valuation Free guide for home seller’s Please link this to my website ‘Buy Yo Dirt’

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Luisa Favaretto

When the pandemic hit, we quickly realized that people were not going to be able to travel much, so we transformed our travel website into one that focused more on places to live and settle.

We updated our content based on interviews and market research to reflect the shift in people’s preferences for cities that offer more space and are more livable overall. As a result of this shift, we have achieved more growth in 2021 than ever before.

Stephen Light

The pandemic heightened environmental awareness, and over the past two years, consumer demands for organizational transparency and accountability regarding social causes have spiked.

Our mission was always focused on the elimination of harsh chemicals found in typical memory foam mattresses, but the pandemic threw into relief just how much more we could be doing to offset climate change, especially in the eyes of consumers.

In 2021, our company committed to a more eco-friendly footprint and launched products made with sustainable latex and bamboo materials. A pivot towards further sustainability was exactly what we felt the mattress industry needed to stay relevant and in touch with the world. We sourced all-natural and sustainable materials like Talalay latex, organic cotton and wool, and recycled steel coils.

Our two new latex hybrid mattresses and new bamboo sheet set are the truly natural options that we felt the market needed.

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Monica Barnett

I run a wardrobe styling and personal branding company which is traditionally very hands-on (e.g., touching fabrics, dressing people, ensuring fit, connecting with people) but the pandemic put a halt to that along with all of my speaking opportunities.

Given I am visual when I think of the word pivot, I immediately envision a line that is required to change directions thus creating an acute or obtuse angle of some sort, and then the line continues moving in that new direction.

As a small business owner, I adapted by making my services accessible digitally and being able to access me online/virtually. More specifically, I created an online style school to allow people to do short-form courses that still allowed them to pose questions to me but get the key takeaways that I would share in a one-on-one session, I doubled down on my social media by getting a social media marketer to help me create more posts that would engage people so they could still feel a “connection” to me and like they were getting to know me, and I shifted all of my in-person services to virtual options but leaving the same pricing intact.

I think the BIG keys in my pivot were not just offering virtual styling but:

1. In finding ways to stay connected and create touchpoints so clients felt like they were still get personalized attention, and
2. Reinforcing that style needs to happen whether they were at home, on Zoom, or doing occasional in-office. So no new services but finding ways to change the current services to virtual offerings!!

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Peter Robert

The pandemic has forced businesses across all industries to implement massive digital transformation efforts to stay relevant and productive. With ECS Office being a business that provides IT management services, we used the pandemic to update and increase the services that we provide.

Many businesses at the beginning of the pandemic had no idea how to run a remote working environment, so we decided to use that as an angle for advertising and pushing our services. We began using our social media more consistently, and advertising content on our business website that could provide business leaders with more insight into navigating their IT through the pandemic.

By creating more specific, useful social media engagement, this helped increase traffic on our website, and secure more conversions in the long-run. One of the most popular features we offer at ECS Office is our free IT consultations for businesses. This was something we really decided to push at the beginning of the pandemic, as it’s a very affordable way for businesses to gain insight into the current state of their business’ IT department.

During times of transition, collecting as much insight and information as possible is crucial for making informed business decisions.

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William Scott Goldman

Flexibility has always been key to our firm’s survival and growth. And this past year was no exception. Recognizing early on that the pandemic would affect various geographic areas and economic sectors in different ways, we decided to expand our focus globally, also reaching out to a wider range of industries.

As a result, when certain parts of the U.S. and particular regions of the world would see a spike in COVID cases, any consequent declines in demand for our services would be offset by increased demand elsewhere, thus ensuring a consistent flow of business and no interruption of workflow during these challenging times. We now intend to continue with more of the same as we’re perfectly positioned for this year and beyond.

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Liviu Tanase

Our entire team went remote in March 2020, but we soon realized the need for our service was going to increase quickly. As most businesses used email to communicate critical updates, they needed to make sure their email lists were fresh and healthy.

Using an email verifier is a must, so we stayed focused on best serving our customers. On top of that, we launched more tools our customers needed to ensure their emails land in the inbox.

In April 2020, we launched three tools:

• An email server tester to help senders make sure their configurations are correct.
• An inbox placement tester that allows them to see if their emails will land in the inbox (if not, they can adjust before they send).
• A blacklist monitoring tool to help them check if they risk being blocked by inbox providers.

In the spring of 2021, we launched a fourth tool, Activity Data, that tells them which of their subscribers have been active in their inboxes for up to a year prior. While some of our competitors have added extra tools to their platforms, none of them offer the variety of features ZeroBounce does.

The ability to access all these features on one single platform makes ZeroBounce the preferred service for brands like LinkedIn, Airbnb and Samsung. Another critical aspect is that we’ve worked relentlessly on our product and brand awareness. When the pandemic hit, ZeroBounce was already highly regarded in the email verification industry.

The product itself, the 24/7 customer support, our PR and marketing through the years, the awards we received – they all built up our brand, and that certainly helped when we needed to be top of mind. During the pandemic, we’ve intensified our PR and marketing efforts with tremendous results.” — Liviu Tanase, Founder and CEO of ZeroBounce.

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Ouriel Lemmel

The single most important mindset we had to adopt in order to make it through a pandemic was to be flexible. Our business longer functions in the way it always has.

We worked quickly to come up with new ways of thinking about our business and how it would function in the new context. Instead of finding this change stressful, we thought of it as an obstacle to solve.

We immediately introduced more technology into our daily work lives. Video conferencing and collaboration apps made sure our team members were always in contact with each other and felt supported no matter where they were working from. Because we were early adopters, we have managed to stay relevant and we weathered the pandemic coming out ever stronger on the other side.

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Paige Arnof-Fenn

I started a global branding and digital marketing firm 20 years ago. The biggest change for me, my team and my clients from the virus is the shutdown of all networking events, travel and conferences. This is typically a very busy time with many events, trade shows, business meetings on the road, etc. and for the past almost 2 years everyone is staying put and meeting virtually instead.

I have had more Zoom and Skype calls in the past 15 days than the 12 months pre pandemic! Pivoting to online meetings, webinars, etc. is a smart and productive way companies can continue to have conversations that educate and inform, build relationships and move forward during this crisis period.

So first and foremost I have learned to help small businesses to be flexible and open minded so we can keep working together during the crisis and create more flexible capacity going forward over the next year as the economy fully reopens. If small groups on the team want to talk through specific issues (managing anxiety, kids, parents, etc.) virtual coffee meetings online have been helpful too.

A few colleagues have even met online after work for virtual happy hour/beer/cocktails as well when they had more time to chat. It is starting to feel like the new normal by leveraging technology to build and maintain my relationships. We have learned that finding routines and things we can control helps I think.

Communication is key to all of our community, customer and employee engagement. Another pivot because of the pandemic, this is a great time to build your brand through online marketing and social media. Social media and technology are 24/7 so it is easy to get sucked into it but you do not have to let it run your life!

My advice is to pick a few things you enjoy doing and do them really well. You cannot be everywhere all the time so choose high impact activities that work for you and play to your strengths. I am a big fan of Content Marketing and Thought Leadership which are great ways to build your brand, increase your visibility more broadly, raise your profile and attract more clients/customers.

Activities like hosting a podcast or webinar, speaking at a conference online/offline, writing articles, building your following on social media all contribute to increasing your awareness with potential customers and building your credibility with a larger community. If you are not committed to blogging at regular intervals (weekly/biweekly/monthly) instead of trying to start your own blog or newsletter, try contributing regularly to existing well trafficked blogs in your industry or newsletters of like minded organizations reaching the same target audience as you.

Make sure you put your URL or contact info on it so they can find you and follow up. When your articles or talks become available online, make sure to send them out via social media to all your friends, followers and contacts. Everyone is not going to like you or hire you but for the ones who would be a great fit for you make sure they feel and keep a connection and give them a reason to remember you so that when they need your help they think of you first.

Don’t let social media drive you crazy, you do not need to be everywhere, the key is just to pick your platform, it does not matter which ones you choose just pick one or 2 that are authentic to you. It should look and sound like you and the brand you have built. Whether yours is polished or more informal, chatty or academic, humorous or snarky, it is a way for your personality to come through.

Whether you are B2B or B2C, thought leaders need to be on LinkedIn so that they can be found easily. It adds credibility and transparency when you know the people you are meeting or working with. LinkedIn has become more than an online resume or rolodex, it is the foundation for building trusted relationships in the digital economy.

You do not need to blog or be on all social media platforms but make sure you are active on the ones where you are. If your audience does not use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to find you then you do not need to make them a priority. For many professional service businesses like mine, leveraging LinkedIn matters the most.

We have learned that CRM tools are only as effective as the relationships you have built so disconnecting from technology periodically and focusing on cultivating human, face to face relationships when not social distancing is important. Meeting for coffee or lunch even virtually can accomplish so much more than e-mail exchanges, social media posts, etc. and it is a great way to get to know people better, their interests, hobbies, and dreams.

I have found that building trusted relationships is what drives my business and technology supports them once they are solidified. Technology helps advance the conversation but it will never replace the human interaction that builds trust over time. I predict the most trusted leaders and brands will have a big competitive advantage in the new normal that evolves in a post-Corona world.

Employees, customers and clients will remember who treated them well during the crisis and they will be rewarded with loyalty from earning that trust during the bad times. The current crisis has provided a stage for leaders to rise to the occasion. We have learned that it is about touching people in meaningful ways which may mean being less busy not more for a while.

Maybe the silver lining is that this crisis reminds us that we have always needed each other and we have learned that everyone is struggling right now to find a new normal so the key is to show our humanity and compassion while we look out for one another.

With Zoom, social media, cell phones, etc. we see that technology does not have to be isolating, it can be used to build our real world communities and relationships too! This advice is not fancy and does not require big budgets but it does take time. It is a smart investment to get this right. Authenticity is the key, it has to be and feel real for it to work I think. For professional service firms like mine we will recover even if our revenues slow from the crisis.

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Cody Candee 

The pandemic changed promotional narratives, pushing ecommerce companies to focus their efforts more on informative customer communications that related to their current experiences.

As the stresses of the COVID began to wear on the public, businesses realized that pivoting to a more compassionate and sensitive communication style became necessary.

Addressing physical and mental health concerns of customers and employees alike, and utilizing a public service announcement style, was needed and used by ecommerce businesses to be more sensitive to the current climate. By pivoting in this manner, they were able to show they were part of the community, rather than just selling to it.

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Yuvi Alpert

The pandemic caused many problems, one of the major ones being the shipping of goods, which caused a loss in sales, so last year, we pivoted to pop-up shops to bring our products into the physical market space. The mountain of available retail space created a unique chance for retailers to lease property for short periods of time at very affordable rates.

Pop-up shops generated over 20 billion dollars in revenue in 2021 and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. They not only allow retailers to get their in-stock products in the hands of customers, but created wonderful branding, promotional, and market research opportunities to continue to benefit businesses in the years to come.

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Woody Sears

The pandemic caused an increased demand on ecommerce businesses, and thus, extra stress on their websites, which means that companies had to pivot towards digital capacity adjustments to handle increased demand.

Nothing can be more crippling to an ecommerce business than a website crash or problems with accepting online purchases. Hiring experts to handle and increase bandwidth capacity, digital communications, and shopping cart transactions, was a necessity in order to avoid disruptions in service.

Ecommerce businesses that brought in professionals to assess, and then implement a strategic plan, were the ones that best weathered the website traffic onslaught.

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Amira Irfan

The pandemic has been a significant event for the world. It has affected the economy, culture, and way of life. The pandemic is not just about the virus, it is also about how you adapt your business to survive. One of the ways we adapted as a company to reach our target market was to focus more on video creation and Facebook Lives rather than written blog content.

We also developed new digital products and services (legal templates and blog online coaching) that people could sign up for and begin receiving results right away. Because people’s attention spans were short, it was critical to design products that were inexpensive and offered quick wins.

Video became a powerful tool for our marketing and business. It has become the most popular form of content on the internet. One of the main reasons why video has become so popular is that it helps communicate ideas in a more personal manner than other types of content like text or images.

It also provides us the opportunity to engage with customers on an emotional level, which leads to higher conversion rates and more sales.

Abe Breuer

There have been a lot of uncertainties and volatility in the market since Covid 19. Most business owners have had a terrible year, from canceled events to supply chain issues to the actual threat of Covid-19.

One thing was certain: we needed to be adaptable. Flexibility is essential in times of extreme uncertainty, as anything that does not bend will break. We learned at VIP To Go and John To Go that our staff was quite concerned about the long- and short-term effects of Covid-19 on themselves and their family.

We wanted to take some of the worries away from our employees because they are like family to us. After a great discussion, we decided to implement a comprehensive healthcare plan for all of our employees.

We only did it because we care about our staff, but we’ve already seen renewed passion and loyalty as a result. Our colleagues once again saw how much we care about them and wanted to reciprocate by showing their gratitude. We also offered a complete refund on any cancellations submitted within 48 hours, which significantly increased our sales.

This was so successful that we continue to do it. Improving communication was also critical to our survival and success. We devised a new communication strategy for clients, partners, suppliers, investors, and other stakeholders. Keeping customers up to date on our company’s policies, any operational changes, and any new methods we can serve them.

Furthermore, I discovered that the ability to pivot and be adaptable distinguishes the winners from the losers.

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Wayne Winsley

The pandemic caused us to totally pivot from the large assembly-style in school presentations which were our main product and develop something new to serve the in-need students who are our core clients.

We developed and launched Brave Enough To Fail’s BOSS Academy, a twelve session course that equips students with actionable tools and practices that they can use to achieve success in school and beyond.

As a result of quickly adapting to the changing landscape, we are now able to serve more students than ever before and Brave Enough To Fail is now the fastest growing student motivational program in America. 

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Calloway Cook

Illuminate Labs is a supplement manufacturer, so when we officially launched in March of 2020 we planned to grow through wholesale and retail marketing. The goal was to get our product in as many retail stores as possible, starting regionally and expanding domestically and internationally.

The pandemic shut down pretty much all of our retail marketing goals. We couldn’t pitch in stores, we couldn’t attend conferences, and many retail stores were shut down for months on end. This forced us to pivot to content marketing. Towards the end of 2020 we began formulating a content marketing strategy which we launched in July of 2021.

At the time we were achieving around 2,500 organic monthly pageviews to our site. Today we get over 100,000 monthly pageviews to our site, and nearly all of our sales are through our website rather than retail.

We only have our products in one single retail location and the pivot has been so successful that we plan to grow online-only at least for the time being.

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Bishal Biswas

The pandemic caused us to shift our entire business model remotely. Due to the pandemic’s increased uncertainty, we used different tools at our disposal, such as Trello and Slack. Through this technology, our employees could effectively communicate with one another and bridge any communication gaps.

Google Meet replaced the physical meeting at our office during the lockdown. This measure allowed for streamlined communication and didn’t affect our organization’s operations. Unfortunately, we didn’t introduce any new product line as our priority was to improve company culture. Through a flexible work environment, we gave reassurance to our employees that we hadn’t left them to fend for themselves.

Jason Kraemer

Our e-commerce business made a major pivot in our user acquisition strategy to adjust to the pandemic. Our acquisition had been nearly entirely paid ads for the first few years of the business, but when Covid hit we very quickly realized that would not be sustainable.

The cost per click skyrocketed and conversion rates plummeted. We made a major pivot from paid ads to 100% organic traffic acquisition. This was a major shift in the business model and meant creating & implementing a brand new SEO strategy.

Jesse Richardson

We’re a small, family-owned business who were impacted by the pandemic like everyone else, but we didn’t let the past two years get us down. We’ve continued to expand and actually add new products to reach a broader audience. While we’ve always been passionate about CBD tea, we’ve expanded into CBD daily superfoods, essential oils and body products, rosin honey and coconut oils, and more.

Our acclaimed lines of products are sold all over the country and we ship nationwide as well, which further expands our reach. The pandemic has forced us to be even more creative and innovative to stay afloat. Now, we like to think we carry something for everyone.

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Victor Garcia

I opened up my paleteria in Haltom City in October 2016 under the name Helados la Azteca. It was basically an extension of my family’s business in Waco, Texas. Between my father, brother, and several uncles, we own over 12 paleterias in Texas.

It runs in our blood. That being said, while my family has made paletas from scratch for as long as I can remember, we purchased scoop ice cream from Blue Bell or Blue Bunny throughout the years. I believed we needed to change that and incorporate the Mexican flavors of our paletas to the ice cream as well. In 2018, after many failed attempts, I learned how to make homemade ice cream onsite.

I added flavors to the menu like avocado, mamey, tres leches, and even tequila. People loved it, and we continued to tweak the recipes to improve the taste and quality of our ice cream. In Feb. 2019, Helados la Azteca was invited to participate in Big Taste of Fort Worth, a premiere event that raises money each year for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tarrant County.

We won Best Dessert out of over 20 of Fort Worth’s best restaurants and caterers. This validation really boosted our confidence that we could do so much with our brand. In May of 2019, we cleaned up an old building next to us and began renting it out for parties and events.

It quickly grew as our community really needed an affordable spot to throw parties. Later that year, we began building out our online store. I worked several hours each day learning to code and build our website and product line. It started off extremely slow. In the first month of going live, we only made a couple of sales. We continued working to improve the site and over the months it has proven to be a worthy investment.

It accounts for 33% of our revenue today. COVID 2020, the year of COVID, was a wake up call for us all. As an entrepreneur, you expect unforeseeable challenges that force the business to pivot. It’s probably one of the most exciting parts. COVID brought an entirely different level of uncertainty.

You didn’t know when they may shut restaurants down, how long it would all last, or if one of our team members would get infected. Never mind the worries of providing for your family and their health. We invested heavily early in the year expecting to kick off our busy season in March strong. As the pandemic hit and sales dropped to all time lows, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to pay our bills. We took a HUGE gamble by moving locations, rebranding and investing heavily in our e-commerce store. Three big challenges with no guarantee.

Months of hard work and dedication later we saw our efforts bear fruit. We now have a simple, universal name, a better location with a drive-thru, and our customers can reach us in safer, more convenient ways. In early 2021, we permanently closed our event space down (which we opened in 2019 to offer our community an affordable place to throw parties) after many months of poor performance and transformed it into a fulfillment center for our online store.

We believe in our mission, want to bring our delicious treats to more spots in Texas and want to give our team more opportunities so we are looking to open another storefront but have been struggling to convince landlords to give us a shot at leasing their spaces. Nonetheless, we will continue searching. This is simply another obstacle we must overcome in our journey.

Lindsay McCormick

Many leaders were thrown through a loop when Covid hit, especially when their daily management tasks often morphed into being a marketer, a content writer or whatever the day called for. People were working from home for the first time and sometimes, things fell through the cracks.

During this time, leaders either put expansion plans on hold, or found ways to slow down the process, so that it wasn’t depleting funds during extremely uncertain times. Additionally, leaders became mentors – and the idea of an open door policy was embraced more than ever before.

Every successful leader had to have their eyes on their team – anticipating when there was a lack of engagement. You see, with employee retention at an all-time low, there was no time (or often a budget) for hiring and training new team members. However, at Bite, we didn’t allow the pandemic to slow us down.

We still continued with the process of offering new products, and continuing to monitor our current product line. In fast, slowing down a bit during uncertain times actually allowed us the opportunity to reflect, brainstorm like crazy, and get really innovative and creative.

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Liz Hutz

The Covid pandemic has forced so many companies to shut down or file for bankruptcy. Thankfully we were able to survive the scare. We adapted by digitalizing our operations to cut costs and alleviate loss of international competitiveness.

We have made good use of information and communication technologies to enable remote work, supply chain management and an online relationship with our clients. No, we did not introduce any new product lines or services. Our only pivot was to digitalize our operations.

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John DiBella

How Did You Adapt? I didn’t have to. My business has always used a remote working model, and the small staff that I employ all work remotely. The nature of my business meant that it was uniquely placed to cope with the problems the pandemic created and capitalized on the surge in people looking to start their own online businesses. As horrible as it sounds, the pandemic actually helped my business to expand.

Did You Have To Introduce New Product Lines Or Services? We didn’t have to, as the service we offer caters to people setting up their online businesses and we were almost overwhelmed by new clients by the time we entered the second month of lockdown, and we’ve been rushed off our feet ever since.

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Ryan O’Donnell

 “We communicate with our clients as much as possible. It’s our way to be able to pivot during the pandemic successfully. All businesses are competing for attention to retain existing customers and attract new ones, and it isn’t easy to stand out among your competitors.

What worked well for us was continuing to connect with our customers across platforms. Connecting with them allows us to let them know that we understand their challenges, especially during the pandemic, and tell them about the strategies we have that enable us to adapt to the new normal. We also let them know that we are doing safety measures to keep our employees and customers safe during the pandemic.”

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Marina Vaamonde

I make all my decisions through a framework called First Principles, which is a thought process in which you boil a problem down to its most molecular level and always ask yourself the question: “What am I absolutely sure is true?”

Likewise, during the chaos caused by the pandemic and the madness that happened in the real estate market, I did the same thing. I knew that the changes in the market and the tremendous price inflation were caused by certain fundamentals: a lack of housing supply, a labor shortage, people wanting to move to less densely-populated areas (especially because they could work remotely), and supply chain issues that caused the price of materials to skyrocket.

Hence, I addressed these fundamentals, especially the issue of materials and labor shortages. We’re trying to partner with trade schools so that we can hire students who graduate and we’re trying to source materials more locally so that we’re less vulnerable to supply chain problems. All in all, we adapt by sticking to our First Principles and not letting “hot takes” in the media sway our decisions.

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Federico Crespo

It’s more that our clients adapted rather than us. Valiot has always been a company that operates remotely, however manufacturing has typically been more of an in-person industry, and one that, in my experience, likes to cling to older methods. However, with the pandemic we noticed that far more manufacturers were open to change, despite limiting their capital expenditures.

So we started a more aggressive sales campaign and supplied data showing manufacturers just how much money they are losing by sticking to older methods. This garnered a lot of positive results, and we have seen more and more companies open up to the idea of using remote operations, which in turn has led to more clients and greater innovation in the industry as a whole.

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Jon Carder

The health-care system is getting tested in ways never before seen in modern times, so it was beneficial to lean more into a concept that not only gave people more control over their physical and mental wellbeing, but also didn’t further inundate medical and laboratory professionals during a prolonged pandemic.

We created a way to provide greater health access to people by offering an easy, at-home wellness testing application.

Instead of going to a doctor and undergoing complex and time-consuming lab work to discover which toxins are affecting you or what nutrients you’re deficient in, we created a way to make testing easy and affordable for everyday people.

Our business is accelerating because the services we offer are greatly beneficial to those looking to better balance their lives. At-home medical testing is turning into a commonly used practice in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, so our product is perfectly in line with what the public desires.

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The post 30 Entrepreneurs From USA Share Their Experiences With The Challenges They During The Pandemic first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jed Morley

Scott Williams is the CEO of Batteries Plus, which he joined in January 2019.

For over 25 years “in retail and e-commerce,” Scott Williams has proven herself to be a “highly accomplished executive.”

Batteries Plus chose Scott Williams as CEO because of his “perfect combination of experience, expertise and vision.”

Before Batteries Plus, Scott Williams “held a number of positions at Cabela’s,” which include being the “President of Cabela’s Inc., Executive Vice President, and Chief Commercial Officer.”

For 6 years at Cabela’s, Scott Williams has delivered significant achievements. He has improved “retail operations,” revamped “marketing, as well as many others.”

Scott Williams has also served in senior management roles with Fanatics, Samsclub.com, and OfficeMax.

While pursuing his MBA at Northwestern, Scott Williams didn’t learn much about “retail, e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities” during business classes. He “didn’t anticipate that I would become focused on this sector.”

However, OfficeMax tasked Scott Williams to run “all the marketing, e-commerce, and direct-to-consumer messaging” for the company, which became a “pivotal moment in my career.”

The company was a “Top-6 e-commerce site,” and Scott Williams “was thrown into the deep end based on my propensity with CRM experience.”

Scott Williams also had a “background with successful advertising campaigns, such as The Rubberband Man.”

In 2000, Scott Williams had already begun working in e-commerce while it was “still seen as small and emerging.”

Check out more interviews with e-commerce executives here.

I saw early-on that Batteries Plus had a lasting competitive advantage. Scott Williams, Batteries Plus

Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Scott Williams: I grew up in Kansas and graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Eventually, travelling north to Chicago to pursue my MBA at Northwestern.

During business school there wasn’t much being said about retail, e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities, so I didn’t anticipate that I would become focused on this sector.

However, a pivotal moment in my career was being tasked to run all the marketing, e-commerce, and direct-to-consumer messaging for Office Max.

I transitioned from serving as the SVP, of Marketing with Boise Cascade to the SVP of Marketing for Office Max, the newly acquired company.

It was a Top-6 e-commerce site and I was thrown into the deep end based on my propensity with CRM experience and background with successful advertising campaigns, such as The Rubberband Man.

At that point in 2000, e-commerce was still seen as small and emerging.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share an “Aha Moment” that influenced the success of Batteries Plus?

Scott Williams: As I joined Batteries Plus my analysis focused primarily on the question “What’s our moat?” — meaning what protection can we build or fortify to avoid attacks on our castle — in this case the castle being the company — from competitors aka primarily online retailers.

Despite the articles written about the difficult future for retail and those public failures and store closures, I saw early-on that Batteries Plus had a lasting competitive advantage.

We’re a specialty retailer with a real niche as our categories are primarily product plus service — hence the plus differentiator.

For example, we install auto batteries that cannot be shipped to homes (as they contain lead) and are challenging for most to install.

Also, our key fob business reduces the hassle of any at-home programming and saves consumers time from having to schedule an appointment at their auto dealership. Service in this case is both knowledge and installation.

In fact, 97% of our e-commerce orders are ordered online and picked up in store or serviced on-site (BOPS or buy online, pickup in-store), compared to single digits for most omnichannel retailers — this is our moat!

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were hard?

Scott Williams: When I joined, sales were a bit sluggish, franchise owners were seeking momentum, and new franchise sales were relatively flat, causing me to explore the root of the challenge.

Interestingly, we had many of the fundamentals in place — but we weren’t telling our story or getting credit for all the services we provide.

Some customers didn’t know about our device repair business or key fob programming and some were confused by the Batteries Plus Bulbs naming, which limited our scope to consumers.

That was another pivotal moment internally as we recognized that our greatest brand story was not being told.

Fast forward two years, we are now no longer positioning Batteries Plus as the best retail franchise opportunity, but rather the most predictable investment opportunity due to the multiple revenue streams, essential products and growth potential with commercial, national accounts and ecommerce.

We found our mojo.

Not all solutions can be taken from a text book.

Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Scott Williams: We have the momentum we were seeking, as evidenced by the nearly 40 new store signings over the last year and start of Q1.

Also, our existing franchise owners have reported returns of comp of +5% over the last eight months of last year and the sales growth has been across a variety of commercial categories including transportation and customers seeking more hands-free technologies.

In fact, a handful of our owners have signed on for expansion agreements to open new stores based on the business stability throughout the course of the pandemic.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Scott Williams: As I was graduating from undergrad, I was racked up in student loan debt. I had one suit from my dad that I was wearing for all my interviews.

Once I landed my first job, I was informed that I had to wear a suit every day, and I realized I was not going to be able to afford four more.

To work around that, I purchased two different color shirts and five ties to disguise it that I wasn’t wearing the same shirt/suit jacket and I’d take the jacket off as soon as I got into work.

That lasted me long enough to wait for a couple of paychecks.

The takeaway is that people are often more self-conscious than they need to be. It’s more important to put in the thought and effort versus focusing on the outward appearance.

It’s more important to put in the thought and effort versus focusing on the outward appearance. Scott Williams

Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company”? Please share a story or an example for each.

Scott Williams:

1. The pronouns change as you progress through your career. When people are talking about management it’s often said that “they need a better strategy or they need to communicate more.”As the CEO, you learn that they means you.

    

2. Not all solutions can be taken from a text book. There will be things that need to be solved that cannot be addressed by pulling a book off a shelf.It’s more about using common sense, leveraging what you know and asking the right questions to get to the root of the problem.

   When the pandemic hit, there wasn’t a manual for how to host daily war rooms. We knew as a team we needed to quickly offer solutions and resources for franchisees.

   No matter the severity of the new circumstance, it’s the leader’s responsibility to lead.

   Don’t wait for the playbook, make the playbook.

3. It’s not a popularity contest or about being liked. There are times that the best decision is a difficult one.There are times when I might have an 80/20 split of overall approval, it’s more important to make the right decision versus waiting for 100 percent collective agreeance.
4. You’re the protector. As a franchisor, with 280 franchise owners who decided to invest in Batteries Plus as their livelihood, and in many cases uprooted their lives to open their stores — there is a great deal of responsibility.I don’t take that lightly, the team and I do everything in our power to protect the system and provide them with everything they need from quality product, PPP guidance support, innovated technology and more.

   I’m always blown away by the amount of franchisee testimonials we have, and what they’ve been able to do long before I arrived.

5. The golden rule of making sure to get the right people on the bus and in the right seat as soon as possible.It’s important to navigate the culture and people need to be able to feed off of one another.

   I learned early-on in my career and its helped me ever since, that it’s not always what you work for but who you work for.

Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?

Scott Williams: You can learn more about me and Batteries Plus on LinkedIn.

Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

The post Scott Williams: 5 Great Tips Founders Should Know Before Starting a Business first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

Madeline Pratt is the founder and CEO of Fearless Foundry.

With Fearless Foundry, Madeline Pratt has started a “creative consultancy that supports ambitious humans in building branding” and “marketing strategies.”

Likewise, Madeline Pratt helps clients build “business development strategies that allow them to make a meaningful impact in the world.”

Throughout her career, Madeline Pratt has become an “outspoken force for promoting equity, collaboration, and community in business.”

Madeline Pratt also “spends her time working with clients, creating content, and growing her team.”

Before starting her business, Madeline Pratt has “always felt compelled by the inequities in the world.” She has also been “curious about how we could use intellect and creativity to solve them.”

A daughter of a single mother, Madeline Pratt has watched her mother handle “all the burdens that came with trying to run her own business while providing for her children.”

She also noticed that the pressures her mother felt didn’t really go away even after she remarried. So, Madeline Pratt “realized that the burden was one that working women everywhere seemed to be carrying.”

While working at a start-up, Madeline Pratt found herself “spending almost all my free time coaching women on the strategies and tech they might need to bring their business ideas to life.”

This side project soon took over “the whole of my heart,” which showed Madeline Pratt where her true passion lay.

Check out more interviews with successful coaches here. You can also watch Madeline Pratt in conversation here:

I have always felt compelled by the inequities within the world and been curious about how we could use intellect and creativity to solve them. Madeline Pratt, Fearless Foundry

Jerome Knyzsewski: Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Madeline Pratt: I have always felt compelled by the inequities within the world and been curious about how we could use intellect and creativity to solve them.

Looking back, I think this is something that was cemented into my subconscious from a fairly young age, as I watched my mom navigate single motherhood and all the burdens that came with trying to run her own business while providing for her children.

Even after she remarried, the pressure on her didn’t seem to subside, and I realized that the burden was one that working women everywhere seemed to be carrying.

I became a mother myself during my junior year of college, and within a few years was raising my son on my own.

I had graduated with a degree in Medical Anthropology but immediately set it by the wayside to take the first job that was handed to me, which happened to be in sales in the software industry.

As a single mom, I had more tenacity than most to make sure I hit quota, and over time I rose the ranks of different companies until I became a leader of Global Business Development of a fast-growing start-up.

While I loved the team, and the industry I was in, over time, this same issue of inequity kept showing up seemingly everywhere I went.

Female friends of mine would share stories of trying to start their own businesses and having bank loan applications be denied.

Women strangers would approach me in coffee shops sharing their ideas for a company, and then point out all the hurdles standing in their way to putting their ideas into motion.

Eventually I found myself spending almost all my free time coaching women on the strategies and tech they might need to bring their business ideas to life.

What started as a side project began to take over the whole of my heart, and I realized my passion lay in helping ambitious founders, particularly those that are traditionally underrepresented, start, grow, and scale companies.

So, in 2018, I left my day job to begin consulting full time, and in the past three years, I have grown my company to be able to offer well-paying work to a team of 10 women, and creative consulting services to dozens of clients from around the globe that believe in the power of business to change the world for the better.

Jerome Knyzsewski: Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Madeline Pratt: I will never forget when I took my two-week-old baby to a tech conference.

After my second son was born over two weeks past his due date, I made the difficult and post-partum addled decision to still attend a conference that I had planned to participate in prior to getting pregnant.

What I had planned to be my first trip back after at least 4 weeks of solid bonding and resting with my new baby, turned into an intense and eye-opening experience with my mom, my new baby, and my 6-year-old son in tow.

While the company I was working for was supportive and gracious of me taking my family along for the ride, I had no idea how challenging it would be to pump or nurse my son in between sessions, and by the last day of the conference, I decided to just carry him around all day strapped to my chest rather than be separated from him any longer.

It is one thing to be a woman at this tech conference, as we’re among the minority of attendees, and it was another thing entirely to be walking around with a baby strapped to my body.

I might as well have had two heads based on some of the looks I got.

But as the day was ending, and I was waiting in line to get a coffee, I saw a woman trying to get a peek into the baby carrier.

I caught her eye and smiled, realizing she was happy to have a baby in the midst of the male-dominated space.

Her smile back made me realize that despite how challenging the past few days had been, it was critical for me and other women to show up and be seen in the tech industry, even if it means we bring our babies along for the ride.

Embracing our identities as mothers instead of shying away from it is the only way we will shift culture.

From that point forward, I have made a point to bring my sons to the office whenever I needed to, to demonstrate that my identity as a mother wasn’t something that I could simply drop at the door, and make a point to encourage the creation of a culture where others embrace parenthood proudly.

Jerome Knyzsewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Madeline Pratt: I’ll never forget one of the first times I flew internationally to meet with a large consulting client.

Although I had taken many meetings like this earlier on in my career, this meeting was the first I had taken while representing solely on behalf of myself and my company.

I spent hours pouring over what I should wear to look the part of a “highly valuable consultant”, and ultimately settled on a pencil skirt, blazer, and heels.

Fast forward to the day of travel, and my flight is delayed by almost 11 hours, and my only option was to fly a redeye and head straight to the client’s office from the airport.

With my bags already checked, I had no choice but to buy makeup and hair products in the airport so that I could “put myself together” on the plane, and change as fast as possible in the bathroom once I landed before beelining it to the client’s headquarters.

When I finally made it to their lobby and took a look around, I realized that everyone at the tech company was dressed in t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers, just as I had been on the flight.

While I had been losing my mind over how to showcase myself as a “put-together consultant” despite the circumstances, I could have absolutely saved my energy.

I was wildly overdressed compared to everyone I met and needless to say, I showed up the next day in the same casual attire as everyone else.

More importantly, though, I realized that I didn’t have to be anyone other than myself to impress the client, and if I did, then those weren’t the people I wanted to work with.

It was an important lesson that I’ve continued to carry forward in my career, and I’ve now got a rule that if someone doesn’t approve of me in sneakers then we likely aren’t meant to work together, and that’s okay by me.

I have come to find that the most meaningful experiences and lasting relationships in business have come from the situations where I have shown up as 100% who I am.

Jerome Knyzsewski: Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

Madeline Pratt: My favorite life lesson quote hangs in my office and comes from the words of Brené Brown:

“Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be; embrace who you are.”

When I began building my business, I would lose a lot of sleep and energy over thinking about who I had to be to impress a certain kind of client, or to attract the types of companies I wanted to work with.

Over time though, I have come to find that the most meaningful experiences and lasting relationships in business have come from the situations where I have shown up as 100% who I am.

Jerome Knyzsewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Can you please share 5 things that can be done or should be done to help empower more women to become founders? If you can, please share an example or story for each.

Madeline Pratt:

1. More Funding — Starting a business costs money, and women are already at an economic disadvantage due to the wage gap.Without funding, we’re slower to start or scale our companies.I know countless women with dreams of owning their own business, but they don’t have the dollars to get things off the ground.

   It’s critical that we build better pipelines for financing and investments to be funneled into the hands of women founders so that we have the resources to bring our business ideas into being.

2. Systemic Support — We still live in a world where women bear the brunt of caring for family members, managing the mental load, and taking on way more than our fair share of household responsibilities.In order for female founders to be successful, we need support systems in place that give us the time and capacity to commit fully to our companies.We need better childcare resources, encouraging partners, educational opportunities, and incubation programs that are designed specifically to be supportive of women so that we have the backing we need to succeed.
3. Mentorship — Building a business is a big deal, but it seems less scary when you have the guidance of someone who has walked the path before you.Women founders need more opportunities to meet and be matched with mentors to serve as a sounding board and source of advice for us as we navigate the uncharted waters of entrepreneurship.The more female mentors we have step forward to offer guidance, the more future female founders will follow.
4. Media Coverage — There is a saying: “If you can see it, you can believe it.” However, when it comes to women in business, there aren’t enough examples being highlighted of women that have walked this path before.Until we see authentic examples of female founders who forged their own path being represented equitably in our media, women will continue to doubt their abilities in the world of business.We need media coverage to expand and to celebrate the stories of all types of women founders, not just the ones that make it to wall street, so that we can see that the example already exists and that we have the right to walk the path of entrepreneurship and found entities of our own.
5. Community — The most important thing on my journey as a entrepreneur has been connecting with other women that are walking this same path with me.Community is essential for us to bounce ideas off each other and to ensure that we don’t feel alone.By creating community, we as women build meaningful support systems, and also have the opportunity to economically uplift each other by buying from and supporting each other’s businesses.

   In my mind, community and collaboration are essential to ensuring women don’t just start businesses, but that they also grow and thrive.

Jerome Knyzsewski: We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Madeline Pratt: I would love to have brunch with Shelley Zallis of The Female Quotient.

I have long admired her work and company, and in particular, am inspired by what she has brought to the gender equity conversation around the importance of women taking up space in otherwise male dominant events or industries.

Community is essential for us to bounce ideas off each other and to ensure that we don’t feel alone. Madeline Pratt

Jerome Knyzsewski: How can our readers further follow your work online?

Madeline Pratt: Readers that want to connect and follow with my work can find me on the Fearless Foundry  website, LinkedIn, or on social media (Twitter, Instagram & Clubhouse) by my handle @madelinekpratt.

Jerome Knyzsewski: Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

The post Madeline Pratt: 5 Great Ways to Empower More Women to Start Businesses first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

Neil Robbins is the founder and leader of Silverbean, a “global leader in the affiliate and partnership marketing space, with offices in the UK, US and Australia.”

Likewise, Neil Robbins is also the founder of his “agencies’ parent company, N21 Group, in 2002.” He “values a positive culture where people are supported and helped to grow with the company.”

Neil Robbins began his career as an entrepreneur “after a few internet sales jobs.” Then he “found myself working at a startup digital marketing agency.”

The guy who ran the agency also taught Neil Robbins “everything about how to not run a business.” He was a “brilliant salesperson,” but the “rest of his approach to leading a business was something of nightmares.”

In 2002, Neil Robbins “decided to take the plunge and go it alone, and I’ve never looked back since.”

Neil Robbins grew Silverbean “into the leader for the online sports betting industry in Europe.”

To deal with the 2008 financial crisis, Neil Robbins “introduced new services in early 2009 and moved the agency into new sectors.”

This move “managed to win new clients” for Neil Robbins, and allowed the business to “shape a fresh and exciting future.”

Neil Robbins has since “created a group of performance marketing agencies which operate across Europe, Australia, and the US.”

Check out more interviews with digital executives here.

When the pressure is on you have no choice — you have to go on! Neil Robbins, Silverbean

Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Neil Robbins: My path to becoming the founder of his own business, one that now spans three continents and works with many famous global brands, was rather unusual.

Born and raised in London, I met my future wife at university.

After she decided the bright lights of the capital were not for her, at the age of 22 I found myself on a train with an old suitcase heading to Newcastle upon Tyne to try a new life.

After a few internet sales jobs, I found myself working at a startup digital marketing agency run by a guy that taught me everything about how to not run a business!

This chap was a brilliant salesperson, one of the best I’ve seen. But the rest of his approach to leading a business was something of nightmares.

It’s at this point, in 2002, that I decided to take the plunge and go it alone, and I’ve never looked back since.

I hired my first employee after nine months, and early on I built Silverbean into the leader for the online sports betting industry in Europe.

At the end of 2008, when the global economic crash was starting to bite hard, the firm lost most of its clients in a three-week period.

You really do grow as a business leader when that happens.

In an effort to save the business, I introduced new services in early 2009 and moved the agency into new sectors.

Fortunately, all of this had the right effect, and we managed to win new clients and start to shape a fresh and exciting future for the business.

Since then, I have created a group of performance marketing agencies which operate across Europe, Australia and the US.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Neil Robbins: Being frank, I didn’t face any hard times in the first five years, it was quite the opposite of what 99% of founders now have to contend with at the beginning.

When I launched the business, it specialised in a niche that was high growth and under-served. It was 2002, so it was easier to do that then!

My biggest challenge came at the end of 2008.

The global economic crash meant that investors in the markets were pulling their cash out, and many of our clients were backed by investors.

In a three week period in late November, I took calls from virtually all of our clients to say they were having to pull our contract.

Some went out of business, and others just held on.

At the time I had twelve people in the business, so we were like a family. But I had no choice.

I had to make some tough decisions, and reduced the team down to six people, including myself.

I knew I had less than twelve months to successfully implement a new plan, otherwise I was likely to go out of business.

When the pressure is on you have no choice — you have to go on! I’m fortunate because I enjoy pressure. I know it’s not for everyone, but it works for me.

Fortunately, I made the right decisions back then and by the end of 2009 we were in calmer waters and ready to push on from 2010.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Neil Robbins: I’ve made many mistakes! And I look back now at many of them and wonder how I did that.

But it’s about experience, when you are a founder of a business you can read books, listen to podcasts and take advice from people.

But, it’s your own experience that ultimately shapes you as a leader.

The funny mistake actually turned out to be a life saver for the business.

When it was just me in the early days, I managed to get a pitch opportunity with a major business.

Like many one-person businesses, I had spent time creating the perception that I had a bigger operation than just me, so customers had more confidence to buy from me.

I was halfway through this pitch when the Director I was presenting to calmly said to me: “Neil, tell me the truth, is the business actually just you at the moment?”

My immediate thought was that I had blown in. And the hundreds of pounds I spent on the flights and accommodation for the pitch.

Of course, I confessed that the business at that moment in time was just me.

He immediately said he was going to give me a contract, but it was going to be paid on a results-only basis.

That’s not what I was after: I needed a guaranteed income stream so I could hire someone to join me. I had little choice but to accept, so left a little deflated.

The irony is, that contract was one of the most profitable we’ve ever had and played a major part in keeping us afloat in 2009!

Jerome Knyszewski: Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.

Neil Robbins: I think the fundamental difference between good companies and great ones is their people.

After all, this is where the majority of our competitive advantages come from.

I believe if a business leader wants to build a great company, they need to focus on these five things:

• Create the right direction and frameworks for managing performance, and then trust your employees.Give them autonomy, whilst ensuring they are accountable for delivering agreed outcomes.
• Create an environment where people can do their best work — give them the tools they need to be great.
• Hire the best people you can afford. And make sure they have the attitude you need to be a great member of a team and buy-in to your vision.
• Invest in your people so they can grow with your business.I’ve always been proud to see people in my business build a career with us and I think it is critical for great companies to retain people that have been part of the journey whilst complementing that with outstanding external hires.
• Have a vision, align a clear strategy against it and communicate it well, regularly.I’ve come to learn that even your best people are so focused on their own jobs that a gentle, consistent reminder of what we are trying to achieve keeps them moving in the right direction and simplifies the decisions they have to make.

Jerome Knyszewski: Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?

Neil Robbins: Well, first of all It’s the right thing to do. I am a firm believer that businesses should be investing back into their communities or supporting local causes.

Not for any other reason than we often have access to resources that can make a difference — and we should be seeking ways to help.

However, I do believe there are reciprocal business benefits to being purpose-led, or to having a clear commitment to creating social impacts.

I think employees really value it. In my business we give 100 working days a year to our community or causes, meaning our people can take time off without using their annual leave to do this.

I find our people respect the fact that the business is trying to support social causes and is encouraging its people to participate without taking away from their personal time.

That said, I still feel that being committed to a cause relevant to your business or customers can be a point of difference for a business, and that it can actually help to drive revenues.

I am a firm believer that businesses should be investing back into their communities or supporting local causes.

Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies a business should use to increase conversion rates?

Neil Robbins: Naturally, the approach required to improve conversion differs from business to business, sector to sector, country to country.

I run a B2B services company and there are two main things we have done in the past couple of years to improve our own conversion rates:

• Firstly, we focused far more on our ideal customer fit. We have worked out which businesses are more likely to buy from us and we focus hard on that.
• Secondly we implemented a sales methodology that each of our salespeople fully understand, and most importantly are accountable for using.

Jerome Knyszewski: Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that a business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

Neil Robbins: Building a trusted brand can mean different things to different people, including your customers who are ultimately the ones whose trust you need to earn.

I feel there are some threads to what a business leader needs to try and achieve through their teams in order to build a brand that is trusted, regardless of which industry they operate in and the type of customers they serve.

Honesty goes a long way! Social media has made it impossible for businesses to hide behind their mistakes or their issues.

I think most people accept no business is perfect, but by being honest and transparent with customers you can manage any negative stories whilst building a brand that people come to trust.

One thing I focus hard on in my business is delivering on our promises.

Making sure our clients get what they need on time, that we focus religiously on what they are paying us for which is ultimately to grow their revenues.

As simple as it sounds, customers just want what was promised.

If you deliver time and time again, then eventually you become trusted for this, when often many of your competitors will be failing — and most likely not being transparent about their issues in delivering, too.

Once you have a business that is prepared to be honest, and focuses hard on delivering on its promises, then for me it’s about exceeding customer expectations, giving them pleasant surprises, delivering more than you said, and delivering it early.

As simple as it sounds, customers just want what was promised. Neil Robbins

Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?

Neil Robbins: You can learn more about me and Silverbean here and here.

Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

The post Neil Robbins: 5 Great Tips to Take Your Company from Good to Great first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

Luca Gualco was born in Genoa, Italy. He is a former “professional water polo player.”

Upon his retirement, Luca Gualco finished his doctorate in economics and started a career in banking.

In his new career, Luca Gualco started “developing financial loan opportunities to help people cope with their financial burdens.” Then he decided to go to the next level.

In 2005, Luca Gualco started Ferrari Financial Services, “developing financial instruments tailored to Ferrari’s client base.” Later, Fiat Chrysler acquired the company.

Five years later, Luca Gualco left Ferrari to earn his MBA at Stanford University. He also taught economics there. When he graduated, he “went on to help lead growth at startups including Uber, WeWork, and Acorns.”

With co-founder Alexi Suvacioglu, Luca Gualco started Because Market, “based on a mission that started long ago for them: to help older adults live active and vibrant lives.”

Luca Gualco saved “all the money I made playing” and applied to Stanford for his MBA. He had been rejected 3 times, but the university ultimately accepted him.

His tenure at Stanford helped Luca Gualco “believe that I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal.”

Luca Gualco also says that he was “fortunate to be an integral part of the growth of Uber, WeWork and Acorns.”

Check out more interviews with athletes turned executives here.

My time at Stanford helped me believe I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal. Luca Gualco, Because Market

Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Luca Gualco: I jumped from a professional sports career to the luxury industry in Europe to Silicon Valley.

Back when I was in Italy training 8 hours a day, it would have seemed impossible to think I’d end up here.

I grew up in the water in Portofino, training and playing water polo till dusk; I was an adventurous kid that loved to be a part of any team.

Besides Water Polo, I was also on the soccer, diving, scuba, track and field and horse polo teams.

As my dad taught me, people and friends are everything and we loved to create connections.

I saved all the money I made playing and I applied to Stanford MBA until they accepted me after 3 rejections.

My time at Stanford helped me believe I could pursue my dreams of creating meaningful relationships around a common goal.

I was fortunate to be an integral part of the growth of Uber, WeWork and Acorns after which I felt I had enough credibility to win the support of incredible partners at venture capitalists (VCs) and pursue my dream of starting a company to help the ones who gave us our wisdom in the first place, our grandparents.

With my co-founder Alexi, we launched Because Market to help older adults live the fullest lives possible and regain independence.

Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

Luca Gualco: It all started with our own families — we were helping our grandparents and I remember driving to lots of different stores searching for supplies for them.

We often came up short, unable to find all the necessary products at the supermarkets and pharmacies.

Alexi and I had a conversation about this and realized we had stumbled upon something untouched.

We both did some research and found out that incontinence impacts about 25 million people in the US — and most people go through it alone.

That didn’t sit well with us and we thought the world needed to be different. We believe that we should care more about older adults like they cared for us.

Retail products, we noticed, revert to the average — average sizes, average tastes.

For most products and services, while a 20 year old doesn’t behave so differently than a 30 year old, a 60 year old may be worlds apart from someone who is 70.

Alexi and I decided we wanted to build an authentically curated one-stop-shop where older adults can find the exact products they need.

We wanted to put individuality back in the formula.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Luca Gualco: In the beginning, we considered giving up every day. We aren’t the kind of people who fool themselves, thinking we have some kind of invincible powers that could make this work.

To build a company for older adults, you have to go through a very deep self reflection. You have to become more vulnerable, to think like older adults.

We considered vulnerability to be a gift and embraced that failure is a real possibility. Everyday we thought about that risk and how to mitigate it.

We started in a small studio in Palo Alto, with boxes of product surrounding our little office.

There were plenty of moments when we looked at each other and said “what are we doing?”

It seemed absurd to try and build a company for older adults, when all of Silicon Valley was going after Millennials and Gen Z.

The older adult market is difficult and an unpaved path, especially in Silicon Valley.

If not for the support from our investors, we would have failed 20 times over.

We realized that we were building three companies: one for 60 to 70 year olds, one for 70 to 80 year olds and the last one for 80 to 100 year olds — each with diverse needs and attitudes.

Additionally, this past year has been especially challenging for obvious reasons.

COVID-19 has forced us all to work with resilience — remote working, shipping services being overwhelmed and an unexpected surge in demand created potential roadblocks for our company.

What keeps our team driving forward stems from the original purpose of Because Market — serving our customers, who are also at a greater risk during this time.

We refused to give up on the people who need us the most. With that determination from our whole team, we doubled our business in the last year.

Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Luca Gualco: Before Because, senior personal care products had not seen any innovations in decades.

Older adults were left with limited selection, lack of informed advice and poor product design.

If e-commerce left anyone behind, it was the senior citizen community!

When we started, very few focused on this market. Now people have come to realize that the senior market has been underserved.

We knew at the time that it was going to take longer and it was important to invest in building a team that would push through any failure.

First, everyone in our team had some exposure to the caring of their older parents and grandparents.

I think everyone keeps that in mind when they show up everyday, working harder than anyone else out there. It’s why we’re here.

Secondly, Alexi and I were able to channel our experience as tech and e-commerce founders to support a fantastic team of believers with amazing investors who supported us and saw the opportunity in what we’re building.

We knew that success would only come after a lot of research.

We invested our own money and conducted years of research with tens of thousands of consumers, resulting in hundreds of product iterations.

We were working towards restoring dignity and confidence to the millions of people living with incontinence.

We eventually built a gigantic focus group that could tell us first-hand what was needed — this became our members’ community.

When we felt comfortable that we could do it for the long run (and do so profitably), we added a layer of awesome tech to enhance our ability to listen to feedback and extract even more insight from a simple buyer-seller transaction.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Luca Gualco: I recall one situation, back when we had a small customer service team in charge of taking care of every single call and request.

We accidentally sent 300 bags of a product to a consumer instead of the three ordered.

All the products arrived at the customer’s door in sequence for a few days. First a few bags, then a few more and so on.

I believe the customers called us after the 30th bag.

We could not stop the shipments from arriving! He even got a call from the local post office, telling him that he had a couple hundred waiting to be delivered.

Thankfully, our products ship in boxes that conceal the content, so the customer didn’t feel embarrassed.

Of course, the customer wasn’t charged for any of this. He took it well and he wound up giving the excess products to charity.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a few examples of tools or software that you think can dramatically empower emerging eCommerce brands to be more effective and more successful?

Luca Gualco: A great library of products will only get you so far in e-commerce.

Without accessible and quick customer service, your brand can quickly fall to the wayside and a few bad customer experiences can tarnish your reputation rapidly.

At Because, we pride ourselves on great customer service and have many options for our customers including chatbots (powered by Chatra), emails and traditional phone support with a live customer support representative to answer any questions.

We knew that success would only come after a lot of research.

Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies an eCommerce business should use to increase conversion rates?

Luca Gualco: There are numerous tools to help e-commerce companies increase their conversion rate, but here are a few that I’ve found the most useful for Because:

• Google Analytics — allows you to see what parts of the website are driving the most traffic and what types of keywords they’re searching for, allowing you to optimize your pages and make it easier for customers to find the right products quicker.
• High Quality Product Images — Of course you want your customers to see the best side of the products you’re selling, so take the time to produce high quality images for your e-commerce site.
• Free Shipping and Coupon Codes — Customers are sensitive to shipping costs to the point where it will greatly influence where they end up making their purchase.Prioritize offering free shipping, especially for customers making large purchases.

Jerome Knyszewski: Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that an eCommerce business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

Speaking to your customers, hearing them and engaging with them is a great way to build your reputation.

Specifically, with our customers’ age group, they still want and need the human connection of picking up the phone and talking to customer service, sharing their gripes and likes — and we genuinely listen, hear them and take their feedback to heart and put it into action.

Speaking to your customers, hearing them and engaging with them is a great way to build your reputation. Luca Gualco

Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful e-commerce business? Please share a story or an example for each.

Luca Gualco: Anticipate your customers’ needs (and be able to pivot to accommodate)

• From the beginning, we realized that we could only build a company for older adults by creating a brand that resonated with their experiences and reflected their values.We started to take calls as customer service agents.

  Listening to a few calls per week was not enough.

  I started out working in the customer service room and wound up being either on the phone with customers all day or listening live to calls.

• Most of the time, customer service is seen as a cost center, something that you need to have but you try to keep the cost as low as you can.We believe that talking and listening to our customers is a worthwhile investment.

  In fact, many of the features of the products we launch are derived directly from customer feedback.

  The most active members are offered to become part of an always-increasing group that test products before launch.

Look for gaps in the market and work to fill the gaps in a unique/useful way

• More and more brands are being born and many are successful.They all focus on an unmet need and they speak more to the language of their audience compared to big brands. Big brands have an obvious advantage.

  They are established in retail, they can afford big advertising budgets and most of the time they have an advantage on production economies of scale.

• The passion that is put behind many digitally-native brands can do an exceptional job at enticing a demographic.If you solve its needs in a better way, or the values of your brand relate more with them, that’s an opportunity for a win!
• We have been able to constantly carve out more margins out of the “non-core” part of the business.Being able to execute on that is sometimes as important as having a wonderful brand or the right price.

Look people in the eye

• This can be taken literally but also more figuratively, as in taking a problem head on! Look directly at the problem and immediately face uncomfortable situations.Don’t find the solution before you talk about the problem, look people in the eye and find a solution together.

Sing in the shower

• For us, it means to always be ready to find the funny side in any situation. A way to demystify demons is to laugh at them.If when you wake up and take a shower and you are not able to sing (even in your mind), we believe you are set for a very hard day.

Have ambition

• For how much everyone tells you that you have to be humble, don’t forget to also dream big. We started a brand rooted in incontinence!Everyone made jokes about us in the beginning but we had a secret ambition. We knew we were building a brand that resonated with our customers.
• Investors didn’t see an incontinence company. they saw two bold entrepreneurs that dared to venture where nobody wanted to.Because Market is becoming the leading digitally-native brand for older adults today. We thank our team and their ambition to be part of our mission.

Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?

Luca Gualco: You can check out the assortment of products we offer at our website and follow us on Facebook.

Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

Luca Gualco: Thank you!

The post Luca Gualco: 5 Great Tips to Lead a Successful E-Commerce Brand first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski

Mike Dragan is the founder of Oveit, a “global company focusing on live experiences technology, both virtual and in-person.”

In 2016, Mike Dragan started the company “with the goal of improving how brands deliver live experiences to their customers and now serves over 3000 customers across 4 continents.”

In 2020, Mike Dragan also launched Streams.live, “a live commerce software that is transforming retail.”

For over 15 years, Mike Dragan has worked to build “digital products, with a focus on digital shopping.” He has also “worked with some of the largest consumer brands in the world, advising on their digital go to market strategy.”

Mike Dragan holds two degrees. One of them is in International Economics; the other is in Computer Science.

In the early 2000s, Mike Dragan started his career at an anti-virus company, which was later acquired by Microsoft. He “worked on building the website, which was the kind of work the older programmers wouldn’t do.”

During this period, Mike Dragan “knew I wanted to work there even if that meant working for free.” He learned several things in “such a short time that in just one year I was getting multiple job offers.”

At 24 years old, Mike Dragan started his own company “with little to no managerial skills.” He grew his company in 4 years, with “45 people, in 4 cities.” They also “won more than 30 awards for creative digital projects.”

Check out more interviews with tech executives here.

I loved working with websites and building web tech so when I applied for the job, I knew I wanted to work there even if that meant working for free. Mike Dragan, Oveit

Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Mike Dragan: I’ve started in the early 2000’s in the tech industry, at an anti-virus company. The company was later acquired by Microsoft.

I worked on building the website, which was the kind of work the older programmers wouldn’t do.

I loved working with websites and building web tech so when I applied for the job, I knew I wanted to work there even if that meant working for free.

As I never had a job before I actually asked for less than the minimum wage, which was something they couldn’t legally do.

I learned so much in such a short time that in just one year I was getting multiple job offers.

I switched jobs to an up-and-coming software company.

It was a very diverse and interesting group of people that worked on all sorts of cool tech stuff, outsourced by other companies.

I was the only one doing web tech. I worked a lot on user interfaces and because it really caught on, I started building a team around me.

It was all organic and if you were good enough at your job, you could choose any title you wanted, and I chose “Creative Director”.

I noticed advertising agencies all had this cool, bohemian character working for them.

They were getting the best projects and lived a thrilling life.

Being in my twenties, I thought — I want to be a Creative Director as well.

And very soon I was. The company shifted to a new niche — digital advertising — and soon enough I was a Creative Director in a Digital Agency, doing creative and fun projects on the web.

Soon, I hit an upper ceiling. I am a fast mover and I noticed that in my third year I didn’t grow anymore.

It seemed there was no place for me to evolve so I thought — what else can I do? “I guess I’ll start my own agency”.

And that I did. At 24 I started my own company with little to no managerial skills. All tech and user interface design.

I knew I wanted to continue building great projects, so I started solo.

As more and more projects came in, I hired some of the people I knew were most skilled and wanted to work with a new company.

We quickly grew from one to five employees, from five to 25 and so on. We started with one office and grew.

By the time I was 28 we were around 45 people, in 4 cities and we won more than 30 awards for creative digital projects. And then the 2008 recession hit.

A lot of our customers were businesses in areas that were heavily impacted by the recession in 2009.

We took a hit as well and I thought we would be ok, and I’ll manage to get the company across the recession without having to fire anyone.

We actually acquired another competitor, and we were struggling with integrating the team and its technology with the existing one.

It didn’t work out. By 2011 the issues were so hard to fix that I was just putting out fires every day and couldn’t really manage the company.

I downsized, closed all offices outsized the core but it was pretty clear that the issue was deeper than the management and financial issues.

The whole concept was flawed and by taking agency projects we were actually onboarding unprofitable segments of other businesses.

I decided to close the agency and not look back into building another one. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.

I went back to my roots and start a software product company.

I was a bit tired and demoralized by the last years, so I asked a few people to work with me on building an ecommerce business as a cofounder.

I actually didn’t use the term cofounder and I didn’t know exactly why anyone would share their company with another person, but I knew I wanted to share the workload and risk with someone else.

I knew Andrei, my current co-founder, had an Ivy League financial education background and had managed loads of people.

Most important was the fact that I respected him and I felt he was someone I could really trust.

It took us about two years to build and sell an omnichannel retail software company.

The product helped merchants that sold both online and in-store have control over their sales across all channels.

It was a much better experience than my previous one. So, we thought — that was nice. Let’s do it again.

We had noticed just how popular festivals were becoming and at the same time just how low-tech events were, compared to the retail world.

We set out to bring a better experience for people planning large events and managing large venues.

To make this happen, our team invented a system that allowed anyone to manage cashless payments, with very large numbers of people in the same spot, even when the internet was down.

We called it Oveit Pay. Oveit as in Love it.

That looked a bit like magic so it was a global hit. We now have more than 3000 customers from all over the world.

To make up for changes in our market, in 2020 we launched a digital version of it that combines shopping and entertainment into a thing called live stream shopping.

Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

Mike Dragan: We’ve actually launched our company already in the event management space.

We built an awesome tool to sell tickets and accept visitors at your event. It had all the great features that we noticed meant the world for online retailers.

It’s just that it didn’t work. The market was crowded and there were literally hundreds of other solutions that were doing something similar.

We had some initial growth, but we understood we would be no leaders in the field. So, we were looking for a “killer app”.

We’ve been experimenting for sometimes with using RFID in venues. This was in 2016.

We knew just how useful RFID was in retail, managing movement of goods so we thought we could use the system to allow visitors to skip the queues.

But in 2017 we received a call from someone doing a festival on an island. About 3000 people, 5 days, EDM, camping, drinking and lots of fun.

They wanted a way to allow people to pay without using cash. A deserted island and cash were not a good combination for a festival.

People quickly spent their money and then had to travel by boat, drive an hour, get money from an ATM and come back if they ran out of money.

So, it had to be cashless. Cool, we said, we have this project that we can use to store value on RFID wristbands.

There was only one thing — the island had no internet, no electricity and no mobile phone connectivity. Nothing.

There was no way for us to use our servers. And there were three more months left until 3000 people would arrive on the island in search of fun.

We tested all sorts of combinations of technology that might work. We knew we could only build one fully.

There was not enough time for failed tests, so we went with something that sounded really cryptic — a sort of blockchain that ran locally, on mini-PC’s, through the wireless network, disconnected from the internet.

The payments were processed on mobile devices.

It was really scrapy, but it worked. We were on the island, no technology outside our own. No internet, no mobile signal.

But people paid using cashless wristbands. It almost seemed magic.

And we saw just how impressed they were when they tapped their wristbands, a small chip holding funds.

Just how much more careless they were that they could enjoy themselves without any fear of losing their money.

We loved the combination of technology fully embedded in an environment where culture and nature came first. It was magic.

That was the a-ha moment. We knew this was our spot in the world. We knew we wanted to bring technology that combines entertainment and shopping and do it at scale.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Mike Dragan: Yes, we did consider giving up.

In the early days we’ve spent a lot of work on some product features we discovered were useless and the market had no need for it.

We already had spent most of our cash on those product features and couldn’t really raise more if we didn’t show product market fit.

So, we had to work with what we had. We discovered there was a small piece that we’ve been working on that had some potential.

The RFID cashless payments part. So, we decided to go with that and hope it will all work out.

The second time when we considered closing shop was when the pandemic hit.

The stark contrast between what we’ve planned and what was actually happening due to this unforeseen event was what made everything worse.

We’ve planned global rollout of our new products and now the whole industry using our products came to an abrupt halt.

We actually asked ourselves — will live, in-person events actually come back? Like — ever?

We could have waited to see, close the company and return the remaining funds to our investors or we could, again, run with what we had and do what we could in a reality that was shifting daily.

So, we decided to reinvent ourselves while keeping our core values intact.

I think people often think of the backstory and give themselves more credit than they should.

The truth is that in both cases we didn’t have another choice.

We needed to find a way out. We’ve already burned all our bridges behind so there was no way out but forward.

We had no savings, no side-projects. If we couldn’t reinvent ourselves the future didn’t look too good.

One thing that I did notice is that in every seeming failure there is always, always a way out.

A way to create something amazing when all seems lost.

You just need to trust you are capable of finding it and put all your energy in transforming that little glimpse of light into a bright star.

I think that’s the most amazing thing about us humans. We can literally wish reality into existence, if we concentrate our efforts.

We knew we wanted to bring technology that combines entertainment and shopping and do it at scale. 

Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Mike Dragan: We went from a small EU company to a global company worth north of $10 million in just two years with our cashless payment solution.

We went from 30 to 3000 customers in that same timeframe.

When the storm hit again, we used the same technology to transform ourselves into a leader of live stream shopping software and now are onboarding hundreds of corporate customers and helping thousands of retail workers find meaning in their work again.

Most important — we survived.

Our whole team survived.

We haven’t fired anyone and hopefully we’re helping create new, more fulfilling jobs at a time when this is very much needed.

We expect 2021 to be our best year yet financially. What matters more — we feel we have become a company that really serves society when this is surely needed.

Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

Mike Dragan: It’s 2008, I think. We just did a bunch of creative digital campaigns for mid-sized brands. One of them involved cats.

There was this craze back then with using cats in digital media that worked really well when communicating to end consumers.

It worked really well in a fun game we did for an audio ecommerce store.

It was basically Street Fighter with cats, on an audio store. It generated buzz and people flocked to the site and subsequently purchased audio gear.

I know — quite a stretch but the team was young, creative and basically did everything because it was fun.

We had a good run with this and other projects. So good that we were invited to one of the largest pitches for digital advertising.

The customer was a big telco company. Given the fact that the project was so important we had our presentation with members of their board.

All seasoned executives, trying to understand and adapt to this “ecommerce thing”.

We brought in the big guns. Cats. Our whole presentation was illustrated with cats and our previous successes.

We really wanted to stand out. I read somewhere that that’s what advertising creatives were doing. Exploring the limits of interaction, standing out, being different.

The presentation starts with a cat message. Another one. And another one. By the middle of our presentation, we knew we lost them.

Eventually, one of the executives stops us. Basically, they wanted to know whether this was a prank or something.

They were expecting strategy for their ecommerce store and we were showing them cats. What’s happening?

We didn’t get the contract.

What I’ve learned from this was there is no one size fits all and you should adapt your communication style to the audience.

Quite an important lesson if you’re working in digital advertising.

There is a reason that top Fortune 500 companies either make products, make and sell products or just sell products. Mike Dragan

Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Began Leading My Company”? Please share a story or an example for each.

Mike Dragan:

1. Raise funds. Capital works: I used to think we could bootstrap our way to a million dollars in ARR. It’s very, very hard to pull off something like that and very taxing on your mental and physical health.

There are many VC funds out there and raising funds is part of building a business.

Of course — you will get a lot of no’s — and we did get plenty but the good thing about people telling you no is it doesn’t cost a thing.

Once you understand it’s just a numbers game — you’ll be fine. The more no’s you get, the closer you are to a yes.

Obviously — you shouldn’t just hunt for people that say “no — we will not fund you”. Try to understand why they won’t fund you. Be flexible, adapt and in the end, you will reach your goal.

2. Focus on the right metrics. This usually means financials and product usage. I am a very technical person. I like coding and designing apps.I like bits and servers and databases.

   But a business is a very complicated system to pull off and its essential metrics lie in the financials.

   Revenue, profit margins, annual and monthly recurring revenue, forecasting, cost of goods sold and all these financial indicators — they are really, really important.

   Ignore them and you are basically flying blind.

3. Don’t trust your guts. Trust data. I’ve heard somewhere that 95% of our brains don’t understand written language.That part of our brain acts like we’re living 20.000 years ago. It helps if you’re chased by a tiger but not really helpful in the age of electric cars and AI.

   This means we are not evolved enough to just trust our guts. Get data, understand it and act on it.

   I now understand that yes, Jeff Bezos might trust his guts, Elon Musk might as well but their intuition is much better than mine. I need data.

4. Focus on products, not services. A service-based company is hard to scale. Build products or products-selling companies.There is a reason that top Fortune 500 companies either make products, make and sell products or just sell products.

   Services are a great way to build tailored experiences for your customers but what gets you to the top is working and improving your products and the marketing strategy.

5. Building a great product is really useful only if enough people hear about it. Build a strong marketing and sales operation.You know of the old saying “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”.

   The same thing goes for great products. If no one knows about it — you might as well have never built it.

Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?

Mike Dragan: You can find me on our blog at https://streams.live/blog or on my own blog at https://netonomy.net . I tweet at @mihaidragan and I’m on LinkedIn.

Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

Mike Dragan: It was a pleasure sharing my thoughts. Thank you for the invitation!

The post Mike Dragan: 5 Important Things CEOs Should Know Before Leading a Great Company first appeared on Tekrati and is written by Jerome Knyszewski