Before calling myself an entrepreneur I need to say something first. I don’t know what being an entrepreneur even means. I even misspell the word 95% the time. I started a business almost 6 years ago and pay myself a salary via a W-2 and even employee a few people. That said, I assume I fall into the entrepreneur category.
As my business grew and I quit my job I found myself getting a lot of outreach from friends and colleagues asking for advice on starting their own business. The little advice I had back then is still true today. That advice being, starting a business is easy. Making that business stable is hard, really hard. Sustaining a steady income is a never-ending cycle of taking risk that feel like putting you on the brink of failure. Learning how to manage this means stumbling, failing, and getting embarrassed. If you’re not prepared for that then maybe owning and operating your own business isn’t for you. If you believe in your work, then know it is going to be hard but the rewards are amazing!
After operating my ad tech agency for some time now and even beginning a hobby business with my used car dealer license, another lesson has become clear. Don’t be afraid to let your business evolve.
I notice there are two types of successful business owners in the world. Ones that are laser focused on building a revenue generating product or service and rarely deviate from their path. These guys usually have some kind of funding behind them. This piece doesn’t apply to them. Even in practice, I once had a client with funding that let that branched out while a product was in development. They took funding that was to build a tech platform, and purchased 3 blog style websites. Idea being to use the revenue from the sites to grow revenue. They only lasted through their first round of funding. This advice is for people like me. People that have a concept and maybe a customer or two with a little money coming in the door. Their business is standing on its own feet but is still learning to walk.
If you’re the latter then you probably recognize how important it is to keep money coming in the door. You’re not going to be able to grow without it. This is where I recognize the potential path of evolution begins. To dig into that starting point, I want to point out a few hallmarks of its importance. People don’t just start a business with a single job, if they do that’s called a side hustle, or a gig. It’s most likely short term and can’t replace your day job. People start a business with a concept. An idea of a product or service that is going to grow. Something that is going to provide them with the lifestyle they want. The first customer of that business probably fits the mold fairly well. They’re probably not perfect and that’s because when you’re young and hungry you’re going make concessions to get that customer, and that’s fine. You know there are going to be others like them.
Now that you’ve got your first customer, or target customers, with a little success behind you, you’re going to find new opportunities. If you have a desire to grow you’re going to need more of that. You’re going to look outside your core offerings to find what can work. The next opportunity might not be perfect but at least it’s work and more money coming in the door. A real-world example of this- I remember a hardware store that was by my home in NYC. The front of the store was all of these really unique home goods. Things like unique tumblers, interesting dish sets, designer candles, and colorful appliances. Every time I walked through that store to get a tool or some sort of hardware I felt like I was metaphorically walking through my own company’s evolution. By that I mean- in my mind I’m nearly certain the owner of the store intended to open a hardware store and at some point let a rep sell him some add-ons, such as coffee cups. Next thing he knew he was selling through the coffee cups so he brought in more. Maybe there was a slow season for hardware so he brought in some plates and bowls. Now he’s selling though coffee cups, plates and bowls. This cycle probably continued to where now more than half his store was made up of some cool home goods. So that is exactly what happened with my business and several others I know of.
As I began Apache Ad Works I paid the bills as a managed services provider. My first clients need help ad trafficking and consolidating reports. Although I intended Apache to create a SAS concept for ad agencies, I continued to take on managed services work because I needed to eat and pay rent. I kept working on my software concept while pushing for more managed services work. An important note here- I even structured my day to make sure I was still working on the software. I built a stone wall in the form of; I would only work on managed services clients out of home. This forced me to go to a coffee shop or hotel lounge (free wifi and generally quieter than a coffee shop) to do the work that was paying the bills. While looking for more work to pay the bills, so that I could go on vacation later that year, I came across a prospect where I won the selection for the managed services work, but because I didn’t offer ad serving and paid search they had to pass on me. I asked if I could provide the additional systems, could I win the bid? I was told yes, but would need to match pricing. At the time I didn’t even have a contact to buy said systems. I was given two days to revise my proposal. When I sent the contract with pricing, I still had not received my ad serving contract. Short story I won the business and found myself providing managed services, ad serving, paid search and paid social tech systems. This contract doubled the size of my business. This pattern continued for the next two years.
Mid 2018 I took a fresh look at what I was doing. Where was I putting my efforts and what efforts were bearing fruit. It soon became blatantly obvious that after 3 years my SAS concept just wasn’t headed the direction I wanted it to, nor was it where I needed it to be. Meanwhile, I realized I had inadvertently carved out a niche business. It is important to mention I did take on some jobs/clients that were failures in the form of time wasters but that is going to happen no matter what. Time management applied to clients/customers is a skill you’re just going to have to learn. Short- don’t take on work you’re not qualified to do yourself.
Here is a another real-world story for context- A long time ago I wanted to start an apparel brand. Side note- I now realize this is a common theme for entrepreneurs like me. We all wanted to start a t-shirt company. I brought up the idea to a friend who had recently retired after selling off his urban data collection business. A business he started with his brother and built over the course of 20 years. He told me he loved my idea of my apparel business because before starting the data collection business he wanted to start an underwear company. I found it comical but he did describe a unique business of making underwear for big guys. But he found himself collecting data in urban areas instead. At the time this advice was lost on me. But now I realize he was telling me, don’t quit what you’re doing until you sell enough t-shirts to have a business. And that’s the point. The idea of becoming an entrepreneur might start with making big underwear, but it could also lead to selling a data business for nine figures.
Just like that path, building a business means taking opportunities that might not be part of your core offering. But don’t be afraid to make money. Don’t be afraid to take opportunities that are not going to pull you away from your core concept but at the same time will move you closer to your goal. It could lead to creating something else that moves the needle on creating your desired business and subsequent lifestyle.