The 30 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs of 2019

Vol. 08 Issue 03 2019

Nicole Rodrigues Exemplifying the Four Ps- Purpose, Principle, People, and Process

The Most

Inspiring

Entrepreneurs

of 2019

E Believe and Achieve!

W

hom do we call entrepreneur? Is it the one who has all the required knowledge or the one who has sources such as capital, network, and people? In my opinion, entrepreneurship is all about self-belief, perseverance, courage, and competence. I have read many success stories, which narrate that being an entrepreneur requires the willingness to cross the line and bring, develop or create something out of the box, despite all the odds and impossibilities. There are many instances of entrepreneurs who were homeless, uneducated, and failed many times, but they never gave up on their dreams and made fortune from nothing.

John Paul DeJoria is one of the entrepreneurs, whose story is not just inspiring but sounds like fairy tale. At the age of twenty-two, John was homeless and spent nights on the streets, but his vision for entrepreneurship made him one of the great stories of achieving the American Dream. He has co- founded two iconic companies, John Paul Mitchell Systems and PatrĂłn Spirits, and has personal net worth of over $4 billion. John is not alone in this list, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, media mogul Oprah Winfrey, Forever 21 founders Jin Sook & Do Won Chang and Michael Rubin an ecommerce pioneer, all these are showing alternate deďŹ nition of success. But their principals are still the same passion, determination and willingness to work hard.

Every entrepreneur’s journey is inspiring in their own way, but it is important to look what is the idea, reason or motivation that inspire them to achieve feats like no one can imagine. These entrepreneurship stories are beacon for

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For achievers, adverse situations are silver lining of their success.

Rohit Chaturvedi

them, who are budding to change and have capability to transform their ideas into something new. In order to shed light on the entrepreneurs’ inspiring approaches, Insights Success has curated a list of "The 30 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs of 2019", who are revolutionizing the business concepts and consumer standards.

Our Cover Story features Nicole Rodrigues, Founder and CEO of NRPR Group and the Young Dreamers Foundation.

She is an award-winning, tech savvy, well-rounded public relations and marketing pro. Nicole’s extensive knowledge in bridging the gap between the technology and various consumer industries makes her extremely valuable to her team and clients. She has more than 19+ years of experience in PR, social media and digital marketing.

Delve in to more such inspiring stories and lessons from many such significant entrepreneurs in this issue and reap the fruits of motivation. Also, make sure to scroll through the articles written by our in-house editorial team and CXO standpoints of some of the leading industry experts to have a brief taste of the sector.

Happy Reading

CONTENTS C O V E R S T O R Y

10

Nicole Rodrigues Exemplifying the Four Ps- Purpose, Principle, People, and Process

Doron J. Fetman

22

Bridging the Gap between Design, Technology and Marketing

28

Josh Turner Growth through Focus & Perseverance

34

Majed Amer Real Time Blood Sugar Level Alerts for Diabetics

40 Zach Thompson Implementing Digital Media Marketing to Drive Business Growth

Skyler DitchďŹ eld Exemplifying Resilience and Dedication

46

Leader’s Preaching

Assertive Leadership Tips for Millennial Women in Business

30

Stellar’s Vision

Success in the Venture world

Tech-Know Insights

What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital?

24

Imparting Wisdom

18

Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

Articles

42 36 Chalk talk

Entrepreneurship Going Beyond the Comfort of Safety to Make Larger Impact

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Rohit Chaturvedi

Jenny Fernandes Hitesh Dhamani

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Sanket Zirpe

Senior Sales Manager Co-designer

Co-designer Mayur Koli

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Sagar

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Sanket

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com August, 2019

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Nicole Rodrigues Founder and CEO NRPR Group

The 30 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs of 2019

Nicole Rodrigues Exemplifying the Four Ps- Purpose, Principle, People, and Process

“

I lead by example with the intention of satisfying clients and my agency team.

An entrepreneur is willing to do something other people won’t to have things that other people can’t.

P

ublic Relation is a way to connect an organization with its key audience through spreading information which is related to customer’s interest. PR agencies have the responsibility to maintain marketing, media, communication campaigns, and news of the organization to increase brand awareness and establish its reputation.

The ever evolving industry causes PR agencies and PR pros to bring more initiatives to stay ahead in the course.

To build a comprehensive marketing strategy, PR executives have to be inquisitive, visionary, and willingness to invest in relationships. One such PR leader is Nicole Rodrigues, a marketing pro with extensive knowledge in PR, social media and digital marketing. She is the founder, and CEO of NRPR Group and bringing efficiency with her valuable ideas.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Nicole and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background and your role in NRPR Group.

I truly feel like I was born to be in PR and I’m living my purpose every day when I show up to work. I loved PR from the second I took PR 101 in college and declared PR as my major. I knew I wanted to own my own PR agency while I was in college and learning about all the ways PR helps companies. However, I did not want to

make it happen until I was wellprepared and mastered every level as a PR professional, so I could be a good teacher to a team I’d eventually lead.

My vision was to create an agency whose clients, media and employees would be confident that they were working with the best. The way I do that is I create relationships, build friendships, and foster them with a special human touch for the benefit of our clients and media. That’s why, when NRPR takes on a client, I’m personally involved with the account.

NRPR Group serves consumer, digital, and enterprise technology companies, working with them on public relations, digital marketing, social media, marcomms, events, thought leadership and more. We work closely with CEOs, executives, and internal marketing and PR teams to uncover the passion, vision, and differentiators within any given company, and share those stories with appropriate key audiences.

What are the strategies adapted by your company for publicity and digital media marketing excellence?

I have loved sports since childhood and was a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, in addition to being part of their public relations department. I bring this cheerleading and coaching style to achieve success for the agency, clients and employees. I lead by example with the intention of satisfying clients and my agency team.

When my employees are happy, they're producing their best work, and their

best work translates into great work for clients. Great work for clients translates into more business.

I have taught my team never to take the shortcut or lazy way to try to achieve goals for clients. Public relations is not issuing a press release and seeing which media outlets run it. I have learned to respect editors and know that without media, PR people wouldn’t have jobs. Respect entails taking the time to research their outlets, audience and coverage before pitching with the goal of starting a genuine relationship with them, and pitching them with enough embargo time for them to actually write.

Working closely with clients, my team and I find creative ways to tell clients’ stories. Public relations is proactively

seeking opportunities for coverage before the client asks. It is part of the integrated marketing plan of a company and cannot be silo’d away.

Most of all, public relations ranges from strategic messaging and press release development to determining timing of announcements, strategies for outreach, campaign building, and so much more.

What are the various services provided by NRPR Group?

The agency offers public relations, marketing communications, social media marketing, events, influencer relations, executive thought leadership building, and digital marketing services. Like most agencies, we offer traditional services on a monthly retainer basis.

However, we specialize in helping businesses of all sizes to reach their business goals with tailored plans that map back to results. The NRPR team shares client stories with appropriate key audiences, and educating them on what public relations can and cannot do and how it works. With clear planning and cohesive messaging, NRPR strategically leads clients, helping them to hit identified business goals. The team are experts in building the media relationships needed to gain client trust and deliver what they need with the end result of benefitting both clients and media through meaningful coverage.

How NRPR Group helps in creating the best content all across social media and various internet platforms?

The first lesson for clients is that your reputation follows you everywhere. It’s important for individuals and companies to understand how you’re portraying yourself online. NRPR works with clients to monitor digital reputation as closely as we do for physical ones. We work with clients to help them develop an online persona and how to leverage various social media channels to the best benefit.

Each social network has its own personality and audience and messages posted must cater to both. It is also important to keep a mix of serious and fun topics that represent one’s industry, products and company culture or personality.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that shaped your journey?

I have worked hard throughout my life and have tried to learn from experience along the way.

Personally, I am the oldest of nine children, born to working-class parents. My mother always told me that I could do or have anything I wanted as long as I was willing to work for it. I was the first in the family to graduate college and worked hard in high school to earn scholarships. I held three jobs during college to pay for my education. You need to create one’s own path in life regardless of the circumstances into which one is thrown. I have turned this viewpoint into a dedication to mentoring both my staff and through my Young Dreamers Foundation. Young Dreamers is an ongoing program through which mentors speak with students about setting goals, building personal brands, and persevering through life’s downturns. I am also the mother of an 18-year-old daughter whom I am teaching to be self-confident and independent.

Professionally, my time at MOBITV is one of my biggest successes based on what I learned and accomplished working with media, strategy and timing to assure that MOBITV was included in significant media outlets.

NRPR Group now serves as MOBITV agency of record in recognition of the diligence and persistence I displayed when working there. With PR as the strongest marketing arm, MOBITV has gone from zero pay-TV customers, to more than 90 in just three years since we brought them on as a full-time client. The CEO has vowed that MOBITV won’t do PR without NRPR, which is high praise.

According to you, what is the importance of the ability to develop comprehensive strategies in the role of entrepreneur?

To put it simply, as the saying goes, a goal without a plan is just a wish.

Strategic planning requires developing goals, evaluating those goals in terms

just can’t get out of their own negative ways of thinking.

If you want to be taken more seriously, don’t bring emotion and outside “stuff” to work with you.

of feasibility, timeline to accomplish and measures of success once the associated tasks are completed. I have developed goals for NRPR regarding geographic growth, staffing, client acquisition in addition to the goals we create in conjunction with clients to aid them in reaching their business and revenue goals. Public Relations and media coverage are elements of a company’s total sales and marketing endeavors and bottom-line growth.

What were some of the primal challenges and roadblocks that you faced during the initial phase of your journey?

Early in my career I was criticized for being an upbeat woman who also dresses well and takes care of herself.

The criticism came mostly from women, and it’s a shame. Also, from men who would not take me seriously, early in my career, because I was told I was “too pretty to be smart.” I felt like I could not win. I didn’t want to dress down, so what did I do? I stepped it up.

In boardrooms and meetings. I brought my A-game because I wanted to be taken seriously, whether any negative women, or sexist men thought I could or not. I’ve never stopped that and now I have earned the respect of established men in multiple industries who listen to what I have to say and respect my expertise. As for women, sad to say, I wish more of them would be kind and supportive of each other. I make it a point to be kind and also make it a point to stay away from women who

Where NRPR Group sees itself in the near future and how will you catalyze the change?

In 2019, NRPR Group is celebrating our fifth anniversary, which is a terrific accomplishment when the majority of businesses fail early on. In the near future, NRPR will continue to expand and find new, innovative ways to serve its clients. In line with its vision, NRPR is increasing its presence across the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York.

What is your advice for the emerging entrepreneurs?

I have several piece of advice. First: do not give into societal stigmas to stop you from diving into what you want.

Don’t let anyone tell you that something is not appropriate for a woman.

Second, if you want to be taken more seriously, don’t bring emotion and outside “stuff” to work with you. Your bosses, I’ve found, especially men, don’t respect that. Focus on work when in the office and leave your personal issues at home.

Third, it is OK to for women to chase your dreams as men do and still be nurturing to your children. Your kids will understand, and they will look up to you and admire you for the hard work and hustle you put into your work. I want to encourage working mothers and future working mothers to take pride in the fact that women in power, who are great at work are great at life.

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Photographer: Nathalie Saruhashi

Demi Markogiannaki co-founder WeTeachMe

About the Author Demi Markogiannaki is one of the founders of WeTeachMe, Australia's ďŹ rst trusted and multi-awarded community marketplace to list, discover, and book in-person courses.

She has been included twice on the list of the most successful businesswomen under 40 in Australia, and in 2018, Demi was among the 100 women who, according to the Financial Review, have the greatest inuence in the country.

18 | August 2019

www.insightssuccess.com

Leader's Preaching

Assertive Leadership

Tips for Millennial Women in Business

W

omen in business have come a long way since Katharine Graham, the first female to lead a Fortune 500 company, assumed the role of Washington Post CEO back in 1972. Here in Australia, women now comprise 42% of all employees and more than 30% of all business owner-managers. In the large Australian corporations, the story is quite different; women hold the reins at only 10% of today’s companies and 14 of our Top 200 firms.

Has my journey always been easy? Far from it. A lot is expected from an expat like me. Or from any woman in business, for that matter. If we want to get promoted at work, we need to appear assertive, confident, and even dominant. We become chameleons and adjust our behaviour, according to what the situation requires, as we navigate our way from the war room to the board room.

The data suggest that it’s becoming more difficult for women to make the jump from key executive to chief executive. Macquarie Group founder Mark Johnson believes it might take another 20 years for the scales to tip again in our favour. It’s the story of many of today’s women CEOs.

How to Be an Assertive Leader Below, I share some lessons I’ve learned along the way, to help other young women navigate the different challenges and demands that a leadership role requires. To be more confident and decisive but also constructive and empowering, incorporate these five habits into your daily conversations and interactions, and learn how to fine-tune your ability to adapt.

Being Chameleon-in-Chief As a founder of the Australian company WeTeachMe, I can’t say I agree with Mark. After all, today’s world and business climate look nothing like they did 20 or 30 years ago. I hope that my own story will inspire courage and pave the way for others to create businesses that will create value, especially for other women.

Before founding WeTeachMe, I had barely just arrived in Australia from Greece, to complete my masters in global media communications at The University of Melbourne. I had no background in business, and some may say I had no “business” entering into the arena of entrepreneurship. And yet, through sheer grit and desire to pursue our passion for education, my team and I grew WeTeachMe into the largest school in Australia, with thousands of classes available and even more learners enrolling every day. www.insightssuccess.com

Listen for cues. To be a good leader, at times, you will need to be a psychologist, a counsellor, an expert, a sister, a mentor, a friend. At WeTeachMe, I have worked in sales and in marketing. Both roles required me to master the art of active listening and hone my ability to quickly read the room. To be aware of what a customer or stakeholder is thinking or feeling is crucial to building trust and rapport, and helps foster the creation of long-term business relationships.

Mind what you say, and also how you say it.

Assertiveness doesn’t mean being overbearing or abrasive.

Be direct and communicate respectfully so that the other person can focus on what you’re saying, instead of how you’re saying it. Getting the message across is half the battle.

August 2019 | 19

Express ideas from your own point of view.

Starting your sentences with “I” can spell a world of difference. Instead of saying “you’re not listening”, put it in your own words: “I think what you’re saying is...” Rather than instructing someone to “work this way” say “I’d like your help with...” Convey your feelings and let your empathy come through.

Photographer: Nathalie Saruhashi

Learn how to say no. In the early years of WeTeachMe, I wore multiple hats. Most days, I took on more responsibility than was physically possible. Because that’s what a founder does; you go above and beyond the call of duty. From cold calling one minute to providing customer support the next, juggling tasks requires flawless execution. As WeTeachMe grew, I had to give up some of my hats. This was not an easy lesson to learn!

Today, with a better understanding of the value of focus, I pick three important things to accomplish every day and then, delegate the rest.

Maintain a professional demeanour. If you’re entering into a negotiation, present your case with confidence, without getting argumentative or emotional. Create a winwin situation for everyone, and they will see you, not as an adversary, but as a partner.

Leadership That Inspires Being in business is not always about cutthroat competition, winning at everything, and having it all; it’s also, if not more, about creating personal connections and nurturing the relationships that get us to where we are.

In and out of the workplace, we need to be effective and diplomatic, not just goaloriented. Lead through trust and respect, not through fear. Teach, don’t micromanage. And never stop learning.

To be passive is to let others decide for you. To be aggressive is to decide for others. To be assertive is to decide for yourself. And to trust that there is enough, that you are enough.

- Edith Eva Eger

20 | August 2019

Leadership is about having the ability to influence those around us, to rally everyone around a shared vision, to inspire people, and to get those who follow us excited to come to work day after day.

Leadership means celebrating our victories.

But it’s also about forgiving ourselves for our failures, because that is how we become wiser and better. Failing is the best way to learn, and a good leader never stops learning.

www.insightssuccess.com

The

30 Inspiring Most

Entrepreneurs of

2019

Doron J. Fetman Bridging the Gap between Design, Technology and Marketing

I

n an interview with Insights Success, the CEO and Founder of Eff Creative Group, LLC, Doron J. Fetman sheds light on the company's cutting-edge strategies that help create and market the most innovative digital and consumer products. Doron shares his insights about the company's core competencies and its future and also broadly discusses his overall journey as an entrepreneur. Considering these influential and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes Doron as one of the Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs of 2019.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Doron and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background and your role in Eff Creative Group.

I graduated from Sy Syms School of Business with a Finance and Marketing degree in 1998, and that is where I began my journey as an entrepreneur. My first experience came as a day trader in the late 90's while taking my family's restaurant and catering business to greater heights. The entrepreneur in me needed to innovate and expand within the industry. In 2003 I cofounded a brand of widely successful Kosher food concession stands across the country's largest sports 22 | August 2019

stadiums and concert venues which previously never served any Kosher or Halal food. My successful exit led to my next endeavor. In 2006 I cofounded a company, which utilized a widely used NASA licensed technology to offer a vending machine that allowed frozen food to be heated up in under 60 seconds from a vending machine. This was my first experience in creating a patented technology and in successfully launching it nationwide.

I soon realized that I had a skill in successfully bringing products to market. My natural next step was to challenge myself to innovate and launch new products in other industries as well. I began traveling abroad to find inspiration and opportunity for my next ventures.

Within Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Australia, I was quickly able to identify and source innovative product trends before anyone else for distribution into North American markets. An approach of spotting foreign innovative opportunity based on regional receptiveness became the success of several international franchises that I had the privilege to work with directly. After 3 years of hands on success, I started being asked the same question over and over, "can you help me bring my product to market?" To answer this question I built infrastructure and launched a service business to help clients bring their products to market.

In 2013, I founded Eff Creative Group - today an internationally renowned and award-winning vertically integrated creative agency.

With headquarters in Times Square, New York Eff provides a multitude of services to clients both in the digital and consumer product space specializing in Fintech, Fashion, Health & Wellness, Food & Beverage and Celebrity industries.

By 2017, Eff Creative Group saw exponential growth, ranking #403 on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of America's Fastest Growing Companies followed by a second year on the list at #406 in 2018. As CEO of the company, I like to call my role "Chief Education Officer" because I am a firm believer that a leader can only be as strong as his well-educated team of implementers.

How do you diversify your solutions that appeal to your target audience?

As an entrepreneur, whether you're working on a project of your own or a client's, you need to be able to offer an integrated solution that can succeed no matter the industry or vertical. Over the years, I have successfully launched different products in varied industries with the same go-to-market focus. I have always believed in a vertically integrated approach, where you are www.insightssuccess.com

“Be patient, nurture young minds, learn from everyone, surround yourself with great people and most importantly, always have fun!”

Doron J. Fetman CEO and Founder Eff Creative Group

hands-on from the conception of a product to the design, development, marketing, and sales, thereby ensuring consistency and efficiency. I already know how to sell and market the product before we even develop it. No matter the target audience, this philosophy alongside developing innovative and creative marketing tactics has led to optimal success.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every entrepreneur should possess.

Aside from the obvious, every entrepreneur must possess the ability to delegate and trust their team. No one person is capable of doing everything alone.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that shaped your journey?

Growing up as a son of immigrants and watching my parents who were both hard working entrepreneurs gave me the work ethic that I have today. As an avid athlete growing up, my competitive nature and the ability to rely on teamwork have translated into me being the trusted and passionate leader that I am today.

What were some of the primal challenges and roadblocks that you faced during the initial phase of your journey? www.insightssuccess.com

One of the first challenges that I faced when I started my first business straight out of college was that being young, people didn't take me seriously. I had to spend more time earning people's trust and respect. Another important lesson I learned along the way was to not choose opportunistic partners. Focus on finding partners that add value and have the same work ethic and vision.

Where does Eff Creative Group see itself in the near future and how will you catalyze the change?

Eff Creative Group is well on its way to global expansion. Eff's sister company in Singapore just celebrated 2 Asia Pacific Awards for bringing Eff's global creative innovation to the Southeast Asian region. We continue to look for new opportunities in other parts of the world so we can expand into countries like the Middle East and Europe.

What is your advice for the emerging entrepreneurs?

Don't be greedy. It's important to remember "A small piece of a big pie is better than a big piece of a small pie." These are words to live by for any entrepreneur.

August 2019 | 23

Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

L

egends never need an introduction. They tend to be victorious despite of their uneventful histories. They stick to captivating traits such as Discipline, determination and self-belief which help them accomplish wonders in the long run. One such example of an extraordinary person is Elon Musk, a South African Business Magnate, Investor and an engineer.

Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief architect of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product designer of Tesla Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink. As of February 2018, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world and has a net worth of $20.8 billion, which is far more than the net GDP of Greece taken into consideration.

While each entrepreneur possesses a unique set of traits that makes him/her successful, this Tech founder has a few traits much different from any other ordinary CEO, which has allowed him to build some of the world’s most respected and innovative organizations. Musk once quoted, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

Let’s have a look on these personality attributes and characteristics that make him a contender for the most innovative intellectual entrepreneur of the century alive.

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working

24 | August 2019

employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the field of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

Strong Risk Tolerance Founding a start-up involves a great deal of uncertainty and risk. A study found that after 10 years of being in business, 96 percent of the start-ups fail. Going by the statistics, Musk must have faced the same odds against him, when he had decided to leave an otherwise comfortable life to start a risky and uncertain business venture.

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million.

Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world’s first online banks.

‘Always Be Learning’ Attitude An astounding and less-known fact about Elon Musk is that he is self-taught in programming and in many advanced level subjects. He read and understood a variety of books, which helped him gain endless and persistent knowledge and understand diverse concepts.

The best piece of advice on learning and implementation is to constantly think about how things could be done in a better manner and question self to seek the answers.

www.insightssuccess.com

Imparting Wisdom

Feedback Loop It is of prime importance to recognize the present symbol or otherwise ‘status quo’ in the market as an organization and re-position accordingly. Musk solicits constant feedback of the companies and executes ‘selfanalysis.’ He induces efforts and divergent strategies to improve customer feedbacks and strives towards perfectionism.

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reflection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run.

Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a firm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well.

Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected endresults.

www.insightssuccess.com

It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his firms.

Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry.

There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

August 2019 | 25

The

30 Inspiring Most

Entrepreneurs 2019

Josh Turner of

GROWTH THROUGH FOCUS & PERSEVERANCE

J

osh Turner, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Founder and CEO of LinkedSelling, has faced his share of trial and error to get where we find him today. He started LinkedSelling after noticing a troubling pattern in the businesses he worked with: Cash flow suffered from no reliable way to get quality leads and clients and they eventually give up.

This led Josh to develop a system that still generates leads for his clients today and has turned LinkedSelling into the world’s foremost B2B marketing and lead generation company. The company has grown to 50+ employees, named both a threetime INC 5000 company and Entrepreneur 360 company, and helped thousands of business owners.

How LinkedSelling helps business owners find consistent cash flow: LinkedSelling helps businesses simplify their marketing and get qualified leads and clients consistently, using a variety of online tools & systems (both organic & paid) to...

Keep their clients’ brands and messages in front of highly targeted prospects. Ÿ Build valuable databases of prospects through done-for-you services, done-with-you programs, and do-it-yourself courses and tools that provide solutions for every budget. Ÿ Create and execute customized drip marketing systems through Ÿ

28 | August 2019

LinkedIn & email to maintain awareness with potential clients. Ÿ Design, build and grow highlytargeted, branded online communities. Ÿ Build trust and sincere relationships with high-value targets through proven psychological triggers.

How Josh learned the lesson that led to his success: As a teenager, Josh learned the importance of a reliable and consistent way to get leads... “My dad ran a remodeling business that reached 7figures and things were going really well. My plan was to work with him and grow the business but one day, he took me aside and explained to me that the business was having trouble getting new clients and we had to close the doors.”

Later, as a CFO for a construction business that went from low 7-figures to $24mm in annual revenue, Josh watched as they closed their doors when the recession hit in the late 2000s... “I saw so many people lose their jobs... after that I went out on my own as an outsourced CFO, and decided that I wouldn’t let it happen to me.”

So Josh developed a reliable system to grow his business and keep a steady cash flow, which his CFO clients quickly took interest in. Leading to LinkedSelling’s mission, provide a simple system to generate leads, based on building trust and relationships with strategic prospects.

What does every entrepreneur need?

“While everyone has different talents and objectives, the underlying quality you need to have as an entrepreneur is perseverance. It’s hard and there are a lot of challenges, but you can’t give up.

You need to be able to adapt, you need to be able to pick yourself up by the bootstraps, you need to learn how to figure things out, and you need to be able to persevere. Because you are going to fail, we fail all of the time.

We’ve got a graveyard of products, services, and strategies that we’ve tried and failed with. But the key is to put you out there and to take action and constantly be moving forward. If you do… it’s just a matter of time until you strike gold.”

How have challenges made you better?

“Building a business is never easy... I started on my own and it was meager. I had a terrible website and some terrible business cards, but I was in the game. My first year was hard. I worked in my dingy unfinished basement, next to the spider crickets jumping around my desk. At times I felt like an imposter, and kept thinking, ‘who was I to think I could run a business?’ I felt the ups and downs of what I call the ‘cash flow roller coaster,’ where sometimes you have clients and things are great and other times you don’t have money coming in.

I learned you have to find a way to cut through the noise so you can focus on the things that will make the biggest impact. For me, it was focusing on

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One of the things that really helped me was educating myself and getting help.

Over the years I’ve invested over $1.2 million in consultants, advertising, testing, and people. Some of it worked.

Some of it didn’t. There were times when it was scary, and I wasn’t exactly sure if it would all end up working out, but you just have to keep pushing on.”

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We aim to be the world leader when it comes to generating leads, booking sales appointments, and promoting business growth.

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sales appointments and how to get more of them. It took me a while to get to that point though. I was trying all the stuff people say you should do.

Networking events, coffees, lunches, blogging, social media…you name it.

But it just wasn’t moving the needle. In many ways, I was making it up as I went along. Trial and error was the name of the game. At the time, this was painful. But now I see it as a blessing because I can help our clients skip over that learning curve.

Josh Turner Founder & CEO LinkedSelling

How are you raising your standard of services?

“The main goal at this point is to realize LinkedSelling’s untapped potential. The organization is at a great place now, but it has been growing at a really fast rate and the team wants to continue to broaden the audience and serve more people. Our focus will be to double down on optimizing company’s marketing and sales so that it can happen. That means creating products and services that are broad enough to reach and serve a growing audience, understanding and optimizing the lifetime value of clients, and playing the long game with aggressive marketing.”

Your advice for emerging entrepreneurs?

“Don’t get frustrated. Too many people think they’ve got to have a brilliant idea so they never do anything. My advice is to just get in the game and one thing will lead to another. Taking action, even if you don’t know the end result is often the only way to figure things out.”

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Stellar’s Vision

Ms. Nin Desai President & CEO NIN.VC

in the

Venture A

s of 2017, 6% of the venture capitalists were women and only 2.7% women owned businesses received venture capital funding. Being a VC in this startup economy, where 90% of startups fail, is a tough job. However, it has noting to do with gender.

“Hi. I am Nin Desai. I head a crowdfunded technology venture capital firm, NIN Ventures (or NIN.VC). We invest in Series A & B rounds of disruptive technology companies.”

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World

While there are number of factors responsible for success in the venture capital industry including timing and luck, top of that list is a disruptive technology. A disruptive technology is an innovation that changes the way an existing industry functions and also helps create a new market and value network, displacing an earlier technology or a way of doing business.

E.g. 3D printing has been used for rapid prototyping and is being applied in a number of industries today, including www.insightssuccess.com

About the Author manufacturing, automotive, consumer, aerospace, defense, and especially healthcare. As the accuracy and materials market have improved, the medical space shows great potential for this technology. There are about 114,000 people currently on the organ recipient list in United States; and only 34,770 transplants were performed in 2017. Every 10 minutes a new person is added to the waiting list and 20 people die every day because they cannot find a right organ.

What if 3D printing tissues can help save some of those lives?

Every sector at some point is up for disruption. E.g. Ad Tech. Over time as consumer behavior patterns changed, Digital has now replaced Traditional Television. People are now spending more time on their personal devices like phone, tablets, & PCs. An average American spends about 3 hours everyday on their personal devices, and this is the first time, the time spend on personal devices have surpassed time spent watching Television, which is a big change and opportunity for the Ad Tech Industry.

E.g. 4th Industrial Revolution. We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the 3D, 4D, digital, other smart and biological spheres.

However, great ideas and technology needs to be backed by a solid revenue model in order to attract customers as well as attain profitability for the company to be an attractive investment opportunity for a VC. E.g. our new initiative, Total Capitalism. A startup needs an ecosystem to thrive upon, thus it is very important for a company to understand the market dynamics, its impact on their industry, product, and also have a good understanding of the competitive landscape in order to achieve long term success. A disruptive technology needs to scale and a through analysis helps gage those risk and rewards.

A CEO is the captain of the ship; and at NIN.VC we start with an entrepreneur because entrepreneurs build companies and not the other way around. Some of the qualities VCs look for in an entrepreneur are ability to dream big with ideas that scale, certain personality traits and work ethics like being focused, disciplined, and hard working. It’s important to have industry expertise and knowledge or surround yourself with people that www.insightssuccess.com

Ms. Nin Desai, the President and CEO of NIN.VC, is an experienced fund manager and a technology geek. Her sweet spot is investing in disruptive technologies. Ms. Desai has been awarded 2015 CEO Of The Year – Illinois, for innovation and contribution to the Venture Capital & Private Equity industry by Acquisition International magazine and Private Equity Fund Manager to Watch for 2017 by Corporate America. She has been featured in VentureBeat, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Forbes, Inc, WGN’s After Hours with Rick Kogan, NBC Weekend Web with Charlie Wojciechowski, Bloomberg’s Taking Stock, Crowdfund Insider, and CIO Review to name a few.

Ms. Desai’s experience spans all facets of mergers and acquisitions, and corporate finance including public offerings and private placements. She is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and has a technical diploma in E-commerce by IBM, holds Series 7 and 63 licenses from NASD, and is a B.B.A and M.B.A in Finance/International Business from Loyola University of Chicago. She recently attended a leadership program in Private Equity and Venture Capital at Harvard Business School. compliment. However, flexibility and choices an entrepreneur / the team makes determines the future of the company. An amazing entrepreneur with a disruptive technology, a solid revenue model, and good understanding of the competitive landscape goes to vain, if the company does not communicate effectively or has a good execution strategy.

Venture Capitalists are known to invest in unicorns that prove to be home run for their LPs and while there is no secret recipe for success, hope this helps in understanding the art and science behind each of that investment.

August 2019 | 31

MAJED AMER A Proficient Leader with Adequate Industry Experience

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tarting a business is the biggest adventure in an entrepreneur’s life. It takes collaboration of time, passion, finance and efforts to make a business successful. Majed Amer, CEO, and Co-founder at Cloudivize Technologies sharing key notes on entrepreneurship and business success, has more than twenty years of experience at enterprise software companies and product delivery. Majed has filled a couple of positions including Technology Strategist and Development Manager and leads Cloudivize technology, business vision, and operation. His resume covers enterprise products he led from the POC phase to enterprise usage at huge international industrial organizations.

Solution According to Demand Cloudivize is essentially a unique visual Cloud Operating System which is enabling the evolution of cloud platforms from “DOS era” into “Visual Operating System area” using advanced visual user experience. At Cloudivize the team believes in making the cloud platform accessible to more audiences, not leaving it in hands of a quite small group of experts. The company wants to expropriate this mandate from this small group and let-in more audience into this domain. It believes, this way software companies can deliver better product and can become more efficient organizations.

Majed Amer CEO & Co-founder

I am envisioning Cloudivize as the standard tool for the public cloud, with a strong, global and stable company. Behind it, we see satisfied customers, strong ecosystem, and hundreds of satisfied employees.

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At Cloudivize, accessibility comes with intuitive user experience, productive usage, and optimized set of tools for each one of the different types of system audience. Its solutions aims to unify the basis for Cloud platforms, thus to improve the communication and collaboration between the different audiences. And on top of that, these solutions based to provide different tools and information layers for each type of users to match their needs.

According to Majed, “When Solution Architects are more interested in architectural diagrams and deployment topologies then DevOps are more interested in actual deployments and assets allocation. From the other hand, leaders and managers are more interested at status, monitoring and (above all) cost of their deployed systems. Then later come the system operation, where this type of audience is more interested at system maintenance and system health.” Each one of the above audiences (participants at the workflow) needs different level of information, without breaking the common terms used when

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The

30 Inspiring Most

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communicating with others at the same organization. And this is what Cloudivize all about!

Qualities and Skills are Essential According to Majed, before one prepares for first steps at his entrepreneurship journey, “he should burry his ego”. He believes, “An entrepreneur should listen to all those even if it is unbearable sometimes and other times he could be insulted. So, an entrepreneur with big ego will never listen, then will not learn, then will lose critical relationship and this is a direct path to failure.”

It is clear that an entrepreneur without the drive and motivation will consume energy quite fast. With drive, one never gives up but changes course and adapts, and then exciting things happen. After the change, one has more energy and more drive. Majed believes, an entrepreneur never sees the result of his actions in real time, as he does things, starts processes and activities, but the result could come weeks or months later. If one doesn’t have the patience, he could give up too fast. Sometimes it is frustrating (especially for entrepreneur who always want quick results), but from his experience, be patient! Just with one critical alert, don’t lose track, being patient does not meaning losing continuity or working in chaotic mode.

Coping with Big Partners According to Majed tailoring the solution to fulfill users’ need and expectation was achieved with hard and long process. Since Cloudivize was bringing unique concepts, it was very difficult to pass the idea with partial solutions and expecting the users to complete the rest with common sense. The Agile MVP (Minimal Viable Product) concept could lead to miss-interpretations (mainly from the technical team) by delivering incomplete concepts. Along the journey, the team learned that any new feature offered should be almost 100% complete, without holes, and to be able to get good quality user feedback.

Majed learned that every partnership he did turned to be fruitful; even it took time to see the result, but eventually it found the value. The company is a part of APN (Amazon Partners Network) which was a quite door opener. There are so many things that needed attention to make the business operation smoother. In the run of a successful business none of the following: legal, marketing, sales, PR and customer relationships can be ignored or get less attention.

Attaining Customer with Trust There are many challenges in flexible business operation and building trust with customers is one of them.

Cloudivize provides a management capability for the customer cloud. For doing that customers need to grant its access and connection permission to their account, for that customer needs full confidence with the solution and with the company. The company provides full list of measures www.insightssuccess.com

and commitments for customer to build that trust. Side by side, it provides special attention to customers who need attention.

Extending Steadily Cloudivize Technologies’ vision is to become the public cloud management and operation standard visual operation system and for that it is acting on multiple fronts. The company is enriching the solution with more advanced services, and optimization tools. The team is working to establish more partnerships and extend the ecosystem and the customer base by offering more free services. Gradually extend the company’s offering to new countries and regions. Lately, the company started a fundraising round to boost its operation and ability to maintain constant growth on all the above activities.

Present is the Best Time The well-known advice is “Just do it”. Majed says, "Just do it, and do all in parallel and now”. He doesn’t believe in waiting or delaying and recommending to budding entrepreneurs to start all possible activities which are in their mind immediately. One can never know which idea would materialize into an actual impact on the business.

Further, he says, talk to everyone, start all processes, engage with whom willing to engage, request meeting which whom willing to meet, join conferences, join partnerships, etc.

Majed firmly believes that entrepreneur will always find the way. So, start number of activities, and when one of the activities materializes into actions, one will find the way to execute and deliver.

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Chalk talk

Entrepreneurship Going Beyond the Comfort of Safety to Make Larger Impact

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ntrepreneurship is the process of starting a new business that adds some value to the world by solving some specific problems.

Entrepreneurship is the capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit. Entrepreneurship combined with land, labor, natural resources and capital can make a profit. Those who create these businesses are called entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurial spirit is characterized by innovation and risk taking and is an essential part of a nation’s ability to succeed in constantly changing and increasingly competitive global market place.

Entrepreneurship in its truest form is all about identifying a gap in the market and creating a product which can fill that hole. Entrepreneurship is not solely about making money- it is also about changing and enriching the lives for better. It is about improving people’s lives through creation of products or launching services that makes the lives of people easy. If one’s business does not add value to the lives of people then it is unlikely to survive.

The business that makes nothing but money can easily be considered as a poor business.

Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs act as managers and oversee the launch and growth of an enterprise. It is a process by which either an individual or a team identifies a business opportunity and

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acquires and deploys the necessary tools and resources required for its utilization.

Entrepreneurship is all about being ready to go beyond the comfort zone. It is about defining success on one’s own terms and achieving it by one’s own process and methodology. It is also about thinking outside the box or thinking like there is no box. True entrepreneurial spirit is about seeing challenges as opportunities.

Entrepreneurs should be able to shake off depression, laziness and should jump into the flowing stream of hard work in order to achieve their dream.

True Entrepreneurs understand that they can’t be great at everything they do, but they know that they can be great at something. They focus on that particular something in which they are good at with laser like focus and they are passionate to deliver the best solutions in their chosen work.

Entrepreneurs create something new, something different that solves some problems or adds value to the world.

An entrepreneur is a person who is willing and able to convert a new idea or invention into a successful innovation. Entrepreneurial journey is not always so easy. As Elon Musk Quotes “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” Many people experience entrepreneurial journey as a rollercoaster ride filed with challenges and opportunities; ups and downs.

Entrepreneurship is about perseverance

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through all such ups and downs. The journey may be filled with crest and troughs but the journey is worth taking.

Entrepreneurs understand that seduction of safety is much more dangerous than the perception of the risk. Therefore they take calculated risks based on market trends and market estimation. Where common people see the problems entrepreneurs see the opportunities. Entrepreneurs are driven to create solutions to those problems. Entrepreneurs are not the part of problems but entrepreneurs are people who want to be part of the solution to those problems.

Entrepreneurs are innately programme to create solutions to the existing problems.

Entrepreneurs plan their work and work their plan. Successful entrepreneurship requires entrepreneurs who take conscious, systematic, logical and thoughtful decisions. It is about thinking deliberately and acting on the conclusion of logical thought process.

Great entrepreneurs have the ability to think decisively even in indecisive environment also. Their conscience and intuition helps them to come up with some solutions that add glory to their business. Successful entrepreneurs are also very cautious of making use of the latest technology for creating more profitable solutions.

They know how to leverage everything to create glorious business that adds value to the larger portion of the world.

Entrepreneurs roll up their sleeves every day and work hard to create solutions to the existing problems in the world in order to make profit as well as to enrich the lives of people.

They are in the game to make a difference and impact in the lives of people through offering solutions to some of the biggest problems. Money is secondary to them but making valuable contribution and adding value to the world is what they focus on.

They understand that money is just a byproduct of serving as many people as possible with full efficiency.

Entrepreneurs are here to make a valuable contribution to the world through their words and worthy actions; they just don’t want to occupy the space in the universe.

Entrepreneurs believe in making world a better place by creating something that customizes the lives of people for better. Great entrepreneurs walk their talk and talk their walk. Their lips and lives both make difference in the lives of people. They know that world rewards those who press on.

Entrepreneurship is about paying the price of dedication, commitment,

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sacrifices, hard work and putting heart and soul into the business to create something different that makes lives of people easier. The words and actions of great entrepreneurs show that they know where they are going and the world has the habit of making room for such people.

Entrepreneurship is about knowing the way, going the way and showing the way. Entrepreneurs lead by example.

They use all the resources they have to make larger contribution to the world.

They think of changing the world through their skills, abilities, talents and making optimum utilization of all the resources they have. Entrepreneurs build a strong network of people in their organization. The great entrepreneurs understand that one’s network determines one’s net worth.

Therefore they choose smart and pragmatic people around them that are having the ability to come up with solutions to some of the toughest problems. They are very cautious of people they associate with.

Entrepreneurship is about building bridges of success instead of creating barriers to opportunity. It is about having talented people on-board to come up with great idea and to implement that idea to make a tangible difference in the lives of people.

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Skyler Ditchfield Exemplifying Resilience and Dedication

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n an interview with Insights Success, Skyler Ditchfield, the CEO and Co-founder of GeoLinks, shares key insights derived from his entrepreneurial journey, and discusses how his company has effectively disrupted the billion dollar industry of telecom. Insights Success recognizes Skyler as one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs.

Give a brief overview of your background and your role in GeoLinks.

My “entrepreneurial roots” began at the age of six, selling food, video games, lemonade, and basically anything else I thought people might buy, going door-to-door, or on the side of the road. I dove into the world of technology at the age of 13 when I set up a bulletin board system (BBS) to service 200 members of my local community with dial-up Internet.

This entrepreneurial spirit followed me into high school where I bought laptops off of AOL classifieds and resold them in my local newspaper classifieds for a 50% profit.

Fast forward, and I took my first real corporate job as Network Engineer II at the Private Network Management Center (PNMC) of MCI Worldcom in Silicon Valley servicing high-level clients such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Quotron, Reuters, and more. Although I was the youngest technician in the office, I was quickly promoted to Network Engineer III after exceeding the entire staff in router reprogramming. When the company relocated to the East Coast, I was one of two employees offered a transfer. Ultimately, I declined the offer and returned to my home town of Ojai, California where I proceeded to build a network business from scratch with only $500 in startup capital. I grew the company to nearly $3M within four years (in a town of only 8,000 people) and then sold my shares.

Following this venture, however, things plummeted.

Skyler Ditchfield CEO GeoLinks

Over the next few years, I experienced multiple business failures that left me facing massive debt and ruined credit. Simultaneously, my health took a severe turn for the worse, placing me in multiple month-long stays in the hospital. Then came what I call my restart button. I found out I was going to be a dad.

With replenished motivation, I found a whole new lease on life. I regained my health, and aggressively got back in the I.T. space allowing me to climb out of debt.

Fast forward a few unsuccessful startups later, and I co-founded

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The

30 Inspiring Most

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2019

California Internet, now GeoLinks, with my cousin Ryan Hauf. We are now the fastest growing fixed wireless provider in the country, and the fifth fastest growing overall telecom.

As the acting CEO of an 8-figure company, and growing significantly, I focus on fundraising, M&A work, organic growth strategies, and big picture initiatives.

How do you diversify your solutions that appeal to your target audience?

We sell Internet so our target audience is nearly everyone – businesses, anchor institutions, and rural consumers. We reverse engineer every circuit to fit a business' specific needs. From different speed tiers, to VoIP, to SD-WAN, we offer solutions for businesses of all sizes, across all categories.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every entrepreneur should possess.

Resilience. Being an entrepreneur requires having the energy to work long hours, putting yourself on the line, and accepting little to no pay for extended periods of time. You will fail 15 times more than you will win. That being said, never take no for an answer; find another way. Never get upset as losing your cool never helps a situation. Always actively monitor your finances and cash flow (running out of cash is one of the top killers for all businesses.) Finally, you have to be able to sell. As an entrepreneur if you can't sell your own product it will be near impossible to get things off the ground.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that shaped your journey?

I was an entrepreneur from a young age, as previously mentioned. I always had the desire to sell and create. I sold on street corners, door to door, in classified ads, at school–you name it. I built a $3M computer networking repair and sales business in my small home town of Ojai (which has a population of 8,000) at the age of 19 with only $500 of personal startup capital. From there, I failed in 3 different businesses for multiple reasons – bad partners, theft, and an investor with a "risk-it-all" attitude. Every one of them taught me something different but significant.

Treat the customer how you would like to be treated; know in your mind your product is the best thing for them; and never quit.

business again but eventually I found a way to build myself back up while continuing to focus on repairing my health.

People have told me for 19 years that they feel sorry for me because of my health issues. However, I am grateful for all I have been through because they have taught me appreciation, strength, and resiliency.

Where does GeoLinks see itself in the near future and how will you catalyze the change?

I currently have 3 initiatives in the works that have the ability to increase the size of the business 550% in the next 18 months. While all may not come to fruition, I am confident at least 1 or 2 will. I see GeoLinks growing to a $1b+ enterprise value by 2023.

What is your advice for emerging entrepreneurs?

I would answer similarly to my outlined vital attributes.

Furthermore, plan to make NO money for at least three years. DO NOT count on a paycheck. Once you start making money, don't pay yourself all of it. Reinvest and keep your lifestyle as simple as possible. I've seen many entrepreneurs in years 4-5, when they start making good money, take it all home. They then adjust their lifestyle accordingly, and ultimately have no excess capital to continue to grow their business – they become stuck.

Simultaneously, I was also struggling battling an autoimmune disease, Crohn's, which consistently knocked down my health. After multiple blood transfusions, and a major over haul surgery on my kidneys, bladder, and intestines, in 2007 I was told I had just a few weeks to live. Unaccepting, I used the Internet to discover a new experimental treatment that ultimately saved my life. Nonetheless, I exited with my credit ruined, all my money gone, and not a single possession left to my name. I struggled with how to start a www.insightssuccess.com

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Pam Bateson CEO & Co-founder Thrive Partners

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www.insightssuccess.com

Tech-Know Insights

What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital?

About the Author Pam Bateson is an expert coach and mentor in business, training others to Masters level qualifications and supervising coaches. She has worked within the healthcare, retail, hotels, construction, media, agencies, education and public sector. She specialises in Coaching, Mentoring, Employee Engagement, Change Management, Learning and Development and Organisational Design. She has worked with all levels in organisations from graduates to the CEO. She has designed change programmes that connect projects, outcomes, training and coaching. The performance outcomes have been outstanding. She is CEO and Co-founder at Thrive Partners. www.insightssuccess.com

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am Bateson set up Thrive Partners, an on-demand coaching company, three years ago. In this article, she shares her point of view on how important humans are in a more digital world, what she’s learned as a tech CEO, and what this means when you’re looking to use tech in a way that’s both disruptive and works for customers. In October 2015, I gave up a successful career as a management consultant and coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I was approaching 50, with two children still at home. But for the decade running up to that decision, I’d been thinking about a better way to deliver coaching – supported by digital, to share more widely the coaching tools I’d used to help clients for many years.

This was the business I set out to build three years ago. Today, we’re working with 25 clients on five continents – delivering our own brand of on-demand coaching, backed with insights for the whole business. The learning curve has been steep – particularly for someone who, by their own confession, didn’t have a lot of August 2019 | 43

experience in learning technology. So here, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve learned – and what it might mean for your business.

Dream big I didn’t really set out to build a business that would be considered disruptive, but my background as a lean engineer and coach did mean that we ripped up the rulebook when it came to the coaching industry. We scrapped the idea that you needed to meet face to face, and that sessions had to last an hour, or even two hours. And we made it a lot easier for people to access a coach to answer the questions they had there and then – increasing access so people could chat to an expert within an hour.

Working with my co-founder, we then rebuilt the industry by asking the biggest questions we could imaging. What if we could make coaching available to whole organisations? What if we could get listening as valued as speaking? And what if we could help organisations learn as quickly as individuals?

I found these questions irresistible: I wanted to do for coaching what Uber had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had done for home entertainment, and Tinder had done for dating. It’s these big dreams that have galvanised our success in the last few years – and which has set us in the right direction for the future.

Build for modern users Despite big dreams, we’ve also made our fair share of mistakes! A lot of them mistakes happened when we took our attention away from our end customers. It sounds obvious to see it there on the page. But it can be easy to lose sight of the customers that matter most, especially when, as a tech CEO, sometime we get preoccupied with a shiny piece of new technology.

So, what to consider first when it comes to users? The main thing to bear in mind is that they expect experiences that are easy and fast to access – a shift brought about by what we call the ‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era, clunky user experiences reduce the chances of uptake of services. In short, if your technology can’t match or exceed the quality of digital experience people get in their everyday lives, then you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Create wins for the many So, if users come first – who else can we harness the power of technology for?

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Our answer? Everyone else in the system.

Early on in the development of our MyThrive platform, we realised that delivering digitally would enable us to do more than just scale and facilitate coaching in global organisations; it would also mean we could spot trends and patterns within communities of users, in organisations or society at large. Just as carefully listening has a powerful and transformative role in one-to-one coaching conversations, carefully listening to and analysing anonymised version of the conversations we host has a powerful and transformative role within whole organisations.

The whole-system insights we produced has helped to make sales processes smoother, improved communications and created more opportunities for people to learn.

Keep it human With suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45, loneliness sweeping through developed economies in epidemic proportions and a third of all young people suffering from anxiety, I strongly believe that we have a duty to keep talking to each other as a society.

We believe that keeping the art of conversation alive in this digital age is essential; only humans can master creativity, empathy, humour and imagination in a way that’s compelling.

Information is everywhere, so we’re using technology differently – to offer real human experiences at scale, at any time of the day, whenever our clients need a conversation, for everything you can’t Google.

And what of the future? Curiously, even the structures of artificial intelligence and machine learning look set to mimic human patterns. It’s still early days, but leaders in this space talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by layering up different tools that connect in the same way as our brain’s neural networks.

And so, the next three years?

My recent experiences have led us to ask even bigger questions than we did to begin with – which I suspect will lead to our next irresistible set of adventures! What if we could transform learning management systems into learning ecosystems? What if any community of learners could connect with any community of teachers? And what if a better understanding of outcomes from learning could help both individuals, organisations and society to thrive?

I for one believe there are exciting times ahead.

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Zach Thompson Implementing Digital Media Marketing to Drive Business Growth

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any entrepreneurs have stories of how they built thriving and transformative companies. These stories show how they relied on their knowledge, skill and experience to overcome extreme obstacles. Zach Thompson, the co-founder and CEO of MediaSmack, is one such entrepreneur.

In an interview with Insights Success, Zach discusses how he built MediaSmack into a digital media company that offers its clients unique and creative legal marketing services. Due to MediaSmack’s success and his willingness to share his story, Insights Success recognizes Zach Thompson as one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs of 2019.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Zach and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background and role at MediaSmack I co-founded MediaSmack in 2013 with a former colleague.

We had previously worked in the legal marketing field and saw a need for changing the conversation of “does SEO really work?” to “my law firm absolutely needs SEO”. We saw many companies in our industry claiming to be SEO and SEM-focused, but at the same time, they were failing to deliver on what they had promised their clients.

At MediaSmack, we value hard work, integrity, transparency and innovation above all else. Our clients can rest assured that we have their best interests at heart.

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At any given moment, I have held every position within our company. I have been an account manager, sales representative, website designer, SEO strategist and PPC strategist. In 2018, I became the CEO of MediaSmack and began overseeing 30 employees.

How do you diversify solutions that appeal to your target audience?

Legal marketing, and marketing in general, is a moving target. The legal marketing industry is constantly changing.

You cannot get stuck in one type of program and expect it to work for all of your clients. Success in this industry depends on recognizing the unique needs of each of your clients and meeting those needs. There is a ton of variation, and you cannot expect to succeed if you do not create specific strategies for each client. We are a very flexible company that takes pride in adapting to Google’s everchanging SEO environment. Our company makes it a priority to stay up to date with Google’s newest rollouts.

Describe some of the vital attributes that every entrepreneur should possess Entrepreneurs need to possess adaptive and resilient personalities. An entrepreneur has to be willing to pick themselves up after a failure. It is very much like being an athlete. You are not going to score every goal, make every shot or win every game, but you keep shooting and improving your skills so you can be the best on the field. An entrepreneur has to be driven and dedicated to improving.

Success is not going to fall into your lap. You must have a process to achieve your goals. To go from A to Z, you have to be willing to do all of the steps in between.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that shaped your journey?

This was my first attempt at starting a company from scratch. There was a lot of trial and error, evaluating and strategic planning involved. One of the first experiences that really helped the growth of our company was getting the first big referral from a current client of ours. That referral was a huge boost to our company and showed us the value of gaining trust in the legal marketing industry.

www.insightssuccess.com

Zach Thompson Co-Founder & CEO MediaSmack

Some major milestones and achievements that shaped MediaSmack’s success include being added to the Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Companies (#299) list, hitting a million dollars in sales for the first time, and forming a strategic partnership in 2017 that doubled and then tripled our workforce. The feeling of hitting a million dollars in sales was an incredibly rewarding experience that made us feel like we were finally established in the industry. Our journey of growth continues to this day and is definitely a ride.

What were some of the primal challenges and roadblocks that you faced during the initial phase of your journey?

We faced plenty of challenges and roadblocks while we were pursuing our goals. For example, we had to ask ourselves whether we wanted to be a company with 20 clients or 200 clients. Another challenge was growing effectively with economies of scale. We also had to grapple with hiring the right personnel and deciding on whether we should work from home or in an office. We had to decide on whether to use independent contractors or in-house W2 employees. Many of these challenges and roadblocks are typical growing pains for a business in its infancy stage.

Where does MediaSmack see itself in the near future and how will you catalyze the change?

I have a few visions of where I see MediaSmack in the near future. MediaSmack has been doing a lot of speaking engagements. I would like to continue that and grow to become a very prominent speaker in the legal marketing field. We also moved the company headquarters to Austin, Texas this year, and are expanding our presence in the South and Midwest legal markets. Based on last year and this year’s annual projections, we expect to hit the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list for a second time, which is an exciting achievement for MediaSmack.

We faced other challenges with trial and error, including choosing the wrong software, making mistakes on hiring or promoting the wrong personnel and making mistakes with our own external marketing goals (such as going to the wrong trade shows). All of these challenges helped shape our journey because we learned from these roadblocks.

What is your advice for emerging entrepreneurs?

You have to have a strong support system at home and in life in general. To truly become successful, you have to be flexible and willing to work at any position within your company. You also have to set short-term, mid-term and long-term goals. A successful entrepreneur should always evaluate and set new goals. You also have to be willing to worker harder than your competitors.

www.insightssuccess.com

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