Revolutionary Marketing: How To Create An UNTAPPED Market For Your Business
The general maxim of marketing is this; know what your target market want and sell it to them. Following this maxim is an age long business philosophy. The results are unquestionable, it works. Giving people what they want works, because there’s no resistance whatsoever.
You never get to rock the boat. You never have to challenge the existing order. You get what you want, they get what they want, no cause for alarm, everybody wins. This type of marketing is what I call —transactionary marketing.
What Is Transactionary Marketing?
Transactionary marketing is marketing for today. It is all about meeting the wants and needs of the market today. Find a need and fill it. A very typical example is this; selling food to a hungry person. It’s obviously a no brainer. Anyone and everyone can do this, as a matter of fact; very little marketing is even required. Just show up in any location where there are a lot of hungry people. For example, in a school, at a conference venue, around offices or on a busy street.
This type of marketing is built on the premise that your target market sees things or views the world in a particular way and this way of seeing or viewing the world shapes their wants and needs. As a marketer, all you need to do is to see things or view the world from their perspective, simple. This way, you will be able to clearly identify and understand what their immediate wants and needs are. No much effort required, after all if you study them long enough, you will eventually begin to see like they see.
This way of seeing in marketing is known as worldview.
It basically means the perception or the lens through which your target market view and interpret things. For easy comprehension, let’s just call it mindset. Transactionary marketing is all about understanding the mindset of your target market and packaging your offering [product/service] to align with that mindset. It is just like ‘mirror marketing’, simply give back what you see. What you see is what you get kind of marketing. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it kind of marketing.
I wish this were the case 100% of the time, life would have been so sweet right? No! I am glad life isn’t this way all of the time, because of all men we would have been the most miserable. How do I mean?
Worldviews Resist Change And Limit Innovation
Imagine a world where we only get what we want exactly how we want it, wouldn’t that be boring? Imagine a world that lacked innovation, where nothing unexpected happens, where everything is predictable. What a boredom!
The problem with transactionary marketing is that it gives no room for innovation because it focuses on meeting only the wants and needs of today. It’s marketing for the average folks; those who focus on living for today. If all you do is to give the market what they want and need today, then you won’t last long in business. Why? Because soon what the market wants today will soon fade away and tomorrow they will be in pursuit of newer things.
You see, variety they say is the spice of life. Meaning, people will always be in demand of the newest things in town. They will get tired of the old; this is what drives the world of business. If as an entrepreneur you are not creating innovative products/services that meet the wants and needs of tomorrow, then you face the risk of becoming obsolete!
As entrepreneurs, our role is not to preserve the status quo; our role is to challenge it. Entrepreneurs break new grounds, they deliver the future, and they stretch our worldviews. Before the airplane was invented, the general worldview of people was that flying was impossible. It is not the responsibility of the market to change their worldviews; it is the entrepreneurs’ responsibility to.
People over a certain period of time, get bored of getting the same old thing over and over again in the same old way. They won’t make the change until an alternative shows up. MySpace felt they were the best at social network platforms until Facebook came along and everyone switched. Yahoo mail was the king of email, until Google raised the bar with Gmail.
Revolutionary Marketing: The NEED For CHANGE!
Revolutionary marketing is the marketing for change. This is marketing that challenges the status quo. It involves raising the bar and going beyond what people want to buy today to giving them what they need to buy tomorrow. It is marketing not for a product or service alone, but for the advancement of a cause, an idea, a new way of living; a change of worldview. The objective is not just to make the sale, but to make a difference, to make change happen!
The very essence of life is advancement, growth, change. Meaning, things will never be the same. The market knows this, but they rely on entrepreneurs to make the needed change happen. They rely on entrepreneurs to advance the course of humanity by delivering the impossible. The market knows what they want today, but rarely do they know what they will need tomorrow.
As humans what we want may not always be what we need. The natural being we are makes it hard for us to want what will cause us to change. The truth is, we want things to remain the same, especially those things that we enjoy. But history has proved time and again that change is the only thing that moves humanity forward.
Revolutionary marketing is built on the ground breaking concept of Blue Ocean Strategy; go where profits and growth are and where the competition isn’t.
The Blue Ocean Strategy is based on a study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than 100 years and 30 industries, authors Kim and Mauborgne argue that tomorrow’s leading companies will succeed not by battling competitors, but by creating “blue oceans” of uncontested market space ripe for growth. Such strategic moves—termed “value innovation”—create powerful leaps in value for both the firm and its buyers, rendering rivals obsolete and unleashing new demand.
The 5 principles of the Blue Ocean Strategy:
- Create Uncontested Market Space
- Make The Competition Irrelevant
- Create And Capture New Demand
- Break The Value-Cost Trade-Off
- Align The Whole System Of A Company’s Activities In Pursuit Of Differentiation And Low Cost
Only Unusual Entrepreneurs Deliver The Future
Revolutionary marketing is marketing for the future. It is marketing for tomorrow not today. Unusual entrepreneurs who change the world do so through revolutionary marketing. Steve Jobs made Apple into what it is today through revolutionary marketing. Bill Gates changed the course of history when he took the computer and made it personal for every individual to own one. People were already satisfied with the mainframe computers, they didn’t ask for more but when they saw more, they wondered how they had lived with less.
Innovation doesn’t come from just meeting the wants of the market today, it comes from exceeding it by addressing their needs tomorrow. Selling the obvious won’t keep you in the market for long. Revolutionary marketing is seeing beyond the obvious. The world was satisfied with analog cameras until digital cameras showed up. When Sony launched their mobile compact disc player, the Walkman, no one asked for it. But when it hit the market, people wondered how they had been living without it.
But how come the market rarely wants to change? Because it doesn’t require courage to follow the norm. Change is scary and people don’t like to be scared. They prefer to stick with what they have always known. People don’t want to buy change because it demands a change of their worldviews. As a matter of fact, they don’t even know how to change their worldviews, that’s why unusual entrepreneurs exist.
Thank God for unusual entrepreneurs who are courageous enough to push the boundaries of mediocrity. Thank God they dare to be more, to do more and give more than what the world ever asked for. Thank God they are not driven by what the market wants alone, but also by what they know will make a difference. These unusual ones are driven by change and not the laws of demand and supply. And because they do, they end up creating a market for themselves!
Unusual Entrepreneurs deliver change. Unusual Entrepreneurs make ideas happen. Unusual Entrepreneurs deliver the future. Unusual entrepreneurs are the causes of market revolutions. Unusual entrepreneurs disrupt the existing order, status quo, norm and traditional ways of doing things . They are not going into business to do it like others have been doing it, they raise the bar. They take the market to another level. They take the industry further; they give more than the market wants.
Why?
Because only those who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, eventually do so!
What Next?
Now that you’ve identified the difference between transactionary marketing and revolutionary marketing, so how do you put it to work? This is going to be the focus of the next unusual article in this series. I strongly recommend you sign up with the form below to ensure you don’t miss out on the preceding parts of this series.
Also, I am counting on your comments about this concept of revolutionary marketing. What’s your own take on it? How valid do you think it applies in the real world? What other examples further validates it or negates it?
Share your thoughts in the comment section below, thanks for reading!
- Published in Marketing, Thought Bank
Unusual Entrepreneur Interview With Dane Maxwell Of TheFoundation.io
Welcome to another edition of the Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews and today I’ve got another unusual entrepreneur on the hot seat. His name is Dane Maxwell. He is the 29 years old founder of the Foundation, a bad ass tribe of unusual entrepreneurs building lucrative software companies from scratch with no idea, no market knowledge, no coding skills or capital. If you don’t believe this, here’s a case study from one of his protégés, Sam Owens!
I am so fascinated by Dane’s approach to business, totally unusual. He is challenging the usual way of starting up a business; going into a business you are passionate about and having the required skills and experience to pull it off. Dane doesn’t go about business from this approach, rather he begins with finding a problem, then going out to build a software solution regardless of whether he has the skills and experience to pull it off or not!
According to him, don’t be passionate about the business or the idea; rather be passionate about the process of solving people’s problems. This is a must read interview. I am completely blown away by his approach and so happy to have him here to share this unusual approach to business with you!
If you are just joining us for the first time, this is the unusual entrepreneur interview series. It is a parade of unusual entrepreneurs who are changing the world and profiting from purpose. Profiting from purpose by changing the world isn’t an impossible dream as many tend to think of it, but a realistic one as many unusual entrepreneurs have extraordinarily proven. Click here to read more unusual entrepreneur interviews.
Take it away Dane!
Interview Questions Part One
ENTREPRENEURSHIP – Awakening the Spirit of business
1. Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your business? What do you do?
I’m an Iowa native entrepreneur living in Boulder Colorado right now. I create companies out of thin air without any idea what to build, limited cash, and zero expertise in an industry. I’ve built 6 software as service products for the real estate space. I built the first one without spending any money on development, and I didn’t come up with the idea either. I like SaaS because I think it is the most superior business model online. It’s high profit margins, at least 50% if you run it correctly, and the lifetime value of a customer exceeds any other model I’ve seen personally. It’s also the easiest to enter, because people are scared to enter it. But it’s really a simple business to run too.
How do you do it?,
I pick markets I know nothing about, like real estate, and I start asking questions in them. I ask “What is the most important activity in your business?” and then follow it up with “Do you have any pain associated with that activity?” And I get a stream of profitable ideas to start creating products for. Once the idea is in writing, I go and find an expert to build it for me. Instead of paying the expert I give them 10% of the revenue for the life of the product. I show them the marketing plan and the money potential and they are signed on.
Why do you do it and who do you do it for?
I do this because it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life with business. The potential when you run this kind of business model is limitless.
2. How would you describe your entrepreneurial journey into the world of business?
I started by reading Perry Marshall, Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham, and Dan Kennedy. After about a year of reading these guys I learned how to really create a business from thin air in about 6 months.
Were there any key incidents or life changing events that inspired your decision to become an entrepreneur?
Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad is what taught me the importance of being an entrepreneur. I want to make money while I sleep. I don’t want my income to be limited by my time. I also lost $12,000 after flipping websites for 6 months, and was forced to move back into my parent’s basement. It was the pain of this that caused me to snap and learn how to create businesses without any money, because I had none.
- When you started out in business, what specific idea, purpose or vision was your key driving force?
Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, and working at my uncle’s real estate company I got to see the pain and started solving problems. Now I just go into cold markets and ask a few questions to identify that pain.
- What is your take on the general notion that entrepreneurs should build a business around what they naturally love to do?
I think this can be a flaw that prevents people from getting started. I advise people to become passionate about solving problems, and become passionate about the process of building the business. I’m not particularly passionate about real estate or any specific business in particular, but I am incredibly passionate about solving problems.
When I advise entrepreneurs to start companies, I encourage SaaS or a business that has these 4 principles.
1. Automated sales
2. Re-curring revenue
3. No accounts receivable
4. Selling tools and shovels instead of digging for gold
These are the kinds of businesses that give freedom. Instead of trying to find your passion and start a business, just become passionate about the process.
- What is your personal life mission as an entrepreneur?
Ralph Waldo Emerson has a quote that says something along the lines of “If at least one person can breath easier because you exist, then you have mattered.” My goal is to create as many entrepreneurs as possible. Right now the goal with our current business is to create 20 new software companies. We take people with no skills, but just a burning desire, and turn them into entrepreneurs. My goal is to create as many as possible. And in the next year, that includes 20 new companies from thin air.
That is; what contributions do you want to make with your life or what would you like to be remembered for as an entrepreneur through the businesses you create when you die?
That people were able to breathe easier because I existed. I want to know that I have mattered. I want people to see the abundance of Joy they have internally when they live life from a set of empowered beliefs.
- What would you describe as the purpose of entrepreneurship? That is; what role do entrepreneurs play in the world?
I don’t really care about business per say. It’s the process of entrepreneurship that excites me. We believe that entrepreneurship is the greatest vehicle for personal growth, self discovery, and impact on the world.
Interview Questions Part Two
STRATEGY – The unusual execution of business best practices
7. How do you identify business opportunities and what metrics do you use to measure their viability?
I identify business opportunities by Finding The Pain in different markets. I ask questions like “What is the most important activity in your business?” and… “Do you have any pain associated with that activity?” But my questions are not limited to those… I ask all kinds of questions like “What problems cost you the most money in your business?” … or “What is the most painful part of your day?”
I actually have about 15 questions I use as go to’s for Finding The Pain. Remember it’s all about finding the pain. To measure viability and reduce risk: I will collect money in advance before a product exists from customers. They get a discount, and are usually excited to be involved in the process of the product creation.
- Do you have mentors, business coach or external consultants that you work closely with to grow yourself and your business? If yes, to what extent would you describe their impact on your business? If no, are there any particular reasons?
Mentors are perspective expanders. When I wanted to charge $50 a month for my first product RecruitingNinja.com … my first mentor told me to double my prices… So I did to $100. No one blinked when I told them $100. Then I had another mentor tell me to double my prices again to $200, so I did. Mentors have quadrupled my income. By quadrupling my perspective.
- How do you strategically use your time as an entrepreneur? What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs use their time for?
The first hour of every morning is revenue generation. It’s not Facebook, email, or anything else “reactive” … the first hour is all pro-active marketing to generate revenue. Things like scheduling and running webinars, sending out email blasts, or creating new ads to run online on different sites to drive traffic.
- How do you generate profitable customers for your business? What unusual approaches do you adopt for marketing your products/services?
We provide world class service and get referrals. Right now our specialty is Google PPC and Facebook. We run ads for “real estate transaction management” and drive traffic to PaperlessPipeline. We are able to acquire customers at 5% of their lifetime value. It’s a cash cow because we are ninja’s at traffic generation and conversion. These are concepts I teach in TheFoundation.io
11. Many entrepreneurs complain about not succeeding in business due to lack of adequate funding, what is your take on this matter and how do you cope with funding issues in your business?
Money is readily available to those who are adding value in the world. If you have lack of money, it is a lack in resourcefulness within your mindset. We believe excuses about money are really a lack of desire… the entrepreneur doesn’t want it bad enough. If they did. If their life depended on finding money. They could do it. When I started my first product, RecruitingNinja.com, it took $3000 to build. I had $100 in my bank account. So I went to my first customer and asked them to fund the entire development in exchange for a lifetime license. Now… this is just a tactic, and there are a million tactics to get money when you don’t have any. What’s more important is the underlying belief and mindset that you can create money from thin air when you are providing value. This is all taught in depth at TheFoundation.io
- When starting out a new business, who are the likely possible partners or professional service providers you would recommend every entrepreneur work with?
The most important partner is your potential customer. They should be your advisory board and funding source. Period. Advisors are nice… but they won’t be using your product. Talk with the people who will be using your product.
- The pricing of products/services is always an issue for entrepreneurs, what unusual approach do you take when it comes to pricing?
We do a number of approaches, here is one. Pricing is really a simple process. But it can be an art form. First… create price anchors for your product, and then charge 10% of the value you provide. In the case of RecruitingNinja, a recruited real estate agent is worth $10,000 a year to a broker. 2 agents would be $20,000. So I charged $2400 per year for a wordpress type CMS customized to real estate offices. It was a cash cow, and brokers loved it, because they were happy with a 20X ROI. With 2 recruited agents in a year, the product provided 10x the value they paid. Price anchors can be created around anything. If you don’t have a hard price you can do 10% of… and if your product is $100 a month, just say it’s the price of a cup of coffee per day. Do a quick search on “price anchors” to see plenty of examples here. Again, this is all taught in TheFoundation.io
Interview Questions Part Three
MISCELLANEOUS – Resourceful Recommendations, tools, books, and ideas for unusual entrepreneurs
- Since you became an entrepreneur – someone who solves problems for people profitably; what has been your most outstanding accomplishments in the context of business?
We’ve created 5 new companies from thin air in the last year from everyday average people at TheFoundation.io … it’s remarkable. A kid from New Zealand is building a million dollar business because of our unique teaching style. Taking my framework and letting other people use it has been amazing.
- What would you describe as your major setbacks and what lessons did you pick from them?
Losing $12,000 by trying to purchase a website for sale. I create businesses now instead of buying them.
- Where there any particular questions you expected me to ask that is beneficial to entrepreneurs and I didn’t? Kindly share with us such questions and their relevant answers here.
No you asked amazing questions man. Very grateful to share this message with your audience.
Your Turn
What more would you like to know about the Unusual Dane Maxwell? You can ask him further questions below in the comment section and I will be sure that you will get an answer directly from him.
Also, what did you learn from this unusual entrepreneur? What lessons, what philosophy of his strike you the most? What ideas, insights or tips are you going to immediately apply to your business as a result of reading this interview?
Dane has shared his unusual story with you, now is time to hear from you. Can’t wait to hear what you have to say!
- Published in Interviews, Thought Bank
Differentiate Online: How To Use The Internet To Find, Attract, Convert And Retain Profitable Customers
The 25th of July this year was my 28th birthday. Every birthday, I try to launch a new initiative, product or service that will serve as my birthday gift to the world.
I launched naijapreneur two years ago to celebrate my 26th birthday. Last year, I launched the unusual entrepreneur’s journey ebook to celebrate my 27th birthday. This year’s gift is coming in a little bit late, but as they say, it’s better late than never!
So what’s this year’s birthday gift?
This year, I am launching a complete internet marketing solution that works for smart businesses. It’s called Differentiate Online. It is a combination of services, products, and education that will help unusual entrepreneurs leverage on the internet to find, attract, convert and retain profitable customers.
It focuses on helping smart businesses answer 4 critical questions essential to their success.
1. How do we FIND potential customers?
2. How do we ATTRACT them to checkout our products/services?
3. How do we CONVERT them from prospects into profitable customers?
4. How do we RETAIN them to ensure a long term win-win relationship?
In other words, how do you get your target market to know, like and trust your brand?
A New Era of Marketing
In the past, there existed only three major marketing channels available for businesses to send out marketing messages to their target audience. Collectively they were called mass media. What were they?
1. Print -newsapers, magazines, billboards, handbills or flyers etc.
2. Radio
3. Television
With these three major weapons of marketing, the age of mass marketing was born. Businesses simply had to create campaigns and just spread them through these mass mediums. The war of winning the market was won by the business with the biggest purse who could spread their message or marketing campaigns through all three mass media.
The more of these three channels they could spread their message through, the more of their target audience they reached. This was how the marketing term advertising came to be very popular. The way it worked was very simple, hire some group of creative minds who called themselves advertising agencies to craft a marketing message or campaign for your business and simply spread them through any or all of the three major mass media depending on your budget.
Marketing then was all about the money; only those who could pay for exposure on these mass media channels had a higher market share. This made more and more small businesses to be left in the dark and contributed to their limited growth. Again, this is no longer the case. The game has changed because there has been an addition to the three major marketing channels available.
This new addition is not one-way communication or broadcasting as the previous three (print, radio, and TV) where only the marketer was allowed to spread their message to their target audience. This new addition is a two-way communication between you the marketer and they the target customers.
This new addition is not mass media, it is called social media and it is powered by the internet. The internet is the fourth marketing channel available to businesses to get their messages out to their target audience.
So today, we have the following marketing channels;
1. Print -newsapers, magazines, billboards, handbills or flyers etc.
2. Radio
3. Television
4. Internet
The playing field of marketing changed forever with the invention of the internet. Why? Because it didn’t cost as much to be on the internet as it cost to be on the three previous marketing channels. Unlike other three marketing channels that existed before the internet which were privately owned and controlled by media companies, the internet is a public domain.
Meaning that no one person, company, country or government owned or controlled the internet. This simple difference made all the difference in the world of marketing. Because no one determined who uses the internet, it made it completely affordable for any one and indeed everyone to go online.
All it takes is a having website, which serves as your office online. Because no one controlled the price or cost of being online, small businesses now have a chance to make their mark in the world of business. Now small businesses are giving the big marketing spenders a run for their money. How does that make you feel as a small business owner?
Don’t know about you, but I personally believe that this is the best time to be in business. The playing field has been leveled. Anyone with a product/service can find, attract, convert and retain their target market into profitable customers using the internet as a marketing channel.
Today, both small, medium and big businesses now compete for the attention of the customer through the same channel —the internet. Today, with some little funds backed with a lot of will power and creativity, a small business can out-market the big competition leveraging on the power of the internet.
How To Differentiate Online
Below are the four essential elements you need to differentiate your brand online!
-
DESIGN
To DIFFERENTIATE online, you need an UNUSUAL website that STANDS OUT from the competition. Your website is your office/shop on the internet. It is the replica of your physical ‘brick and mortar’ office/shop. However, on the internet, you don’t have a second chance to make a good impression because the quality of what you are offering is judged by the look and feel of your site. So you need an unusual web design that is creatively crafted to reflect your brand, set you apart from the competition and captivate your target audience.
-
CONTENT
To DIFFERENTIATE online, your website needs to tell a compelling STORY that captures the INTEREST and ATTENTION of your target audience by clearly addressing their needs and wants. Your website is your office/shop online and the contents on it are your sales team. They have to be creatively crafted to help your target customers get one of the two things they are looking for online;
- A solution to a problem they have but don’t want
OR
- A result they want but don’t currently have.
Your site must be able to clearly articulate the benefits of doing business with you.
-
TRAFFIC
To DIFFERENTIATE online, your website needs to be VISIBLE on search engines like google, yahoo, bing, ask, etc and social networks like facebook, twitter, linkedin, youtube, google+ etc. in order to ATTRACT visitors from them. The reason why you created an office/shop online [website] is to make the existence of your business known to your target customers. In other words, you want your website to be a lead generation tool for your business.
-
CONVERSION
To DIFFERENTIATE online, your website must be able to turn TRAFFIC (visitors) into SALES (customers). The whole essence of internet marketing is to make more sales. But sales are not made in an instant. Sales are made by following up on leads and getting them to know, like and trust your brand. This is why you need an effective follow-up system. This follow-up system is your email marketing strategy, with it you can begin to nurture your leads to know, like and trust your brand through a series of sales letters delivered straight into their inbox!
Here’s What You Need To Do Next!
Head over to the site, www.differentiateonline.net and show me some birthday love by signing up for the eMarketing newsletter and help spread the word to others. It promises to be an exciting ride as I will be dishing out weekly tips and ideas on how to use the internet to find, attract, convert and retain profitable customers!
- Published in e-Marketing, Marketing, Thought Bank
Unusual Entrepreneur Interview With Ryan Hart Of MillionDollarEarth.com
Welcome to another edition of the Unusual Entrepreneur Interviews and today we have here with us unusual entrepreneur Ryan Hart.
He is the 26 years old founder of Hart Ventures, a company that is passionate about creating innovation for the purpose of meaningfully improving the lives of others.
I’m so excited to have him on the unusual entrepreneur interview series because of his company’s recent invention, MillionDollarEarth.com – “the creative wall for businesses to hang their advertisement on.”
If you are just joining us for the first time, this is the unusual entrepreneur interview series. It is a parade of unusual entrepreneurs who are changing the world and profiting from purpose. Profiting from purpose by changing the world isn’t an impossible dream as many tend to think of it, but a realistic one as many unusual entrepreneurs have extraordinarily proven. Click here to read more unusual entrepreneur interviews.
How Unusual Is Ryan Hart?
According to his LivetoClose Kick-ass startup profile;
“Ryan Hart was pondering what to do with his newly earned MBA. He decided to put it in a box and venture out to earn his stripes in the dot com world, dreaming of changing the lives of others with his creativity and passion.”
With his MBA packed in a box, Ryan set out to create an unusual company, Hart Ventures; which involves angel investors, venture capitalists, and strategic partners, to build world class teams and successful organically incubated businesses. Hart Ventures enters into four ventures a year while exiting at least one.
And here’s how far that entrepreneurial decision has taken him;
In the 2009 Richard Bransons Perfect Pitch Competition, Bundlebuy.com one of the company’s innovations finished in the Top 10 of 1150 businesses. Bundlebuy.com was later sold to the founder of Shop.com, Lee Lorenzen. CrowninTown.com won the 2010 PLU Business Plan competition. YourStarForever.com was featured for Valentine’s Day on Groupon.com.
The company’s most recent invention, MillionDollarEarth.com, was nominated for a 2011 WebAward. Million Dollar Earth allows you to unify your social media outlets in one location [the virtual pinpoints within Google Maps] while associating your brand with a unique city or iconic landmark. In other words, someone could virtually own an entire city of their choice!
How?
“Online there has been no unique voice in advertising, I want MillionDollarEarth.com to change that and be the creative wall for businesses to hang their advertisement on.” — Ryan Hart
Clients can now purchase one of 1,000 cities worldwide for approximately a thousand dollars each. Primary pricing is based on each city’s audience or population size. Each city comes equipped with many options included on its map tab including: a Facebook fan page, Twitter feed, YouTube videos, as well as a custom text box.
Ryan and his team are passionate about using the platform and the proceeds from MillionDollarEarth.com to make a difference in the lives of people around the world who do not have safe water to drink. They are donating ten percent of the proceeds to Charity: Water, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing clean and safe drinking water to millions of people in developing nations!
Take it away Ryan!
Interview Questions Part One
ENTREPRENEURSHIP – Awakening the Spirit of business
1. Can you please tell us a little about yourself and your business? What do you do? How do you do it? Why do you do it and who do you do it for?
I am the managing partner of Hart Ventures, LLC. We invent, build, market and sell online businesses. I work with a team of people, web developers, graphic designers, PR specialists, and sales teams. We want to innovate online and bring joy and creativity to the Internet. We view the computer screen as our canvas.
2. How would you describe your entrepreneurial journey into the world of business? Where there any key incidents or life changing events that inspired your decision to become an entrepreneur?
I built my first computer with my graduation money from High School and began selling things pretty successfully on eBay. Over the years I saw many websites where I thought, “Man I should have thought of that.” After I graduated college I met Scott Dahl, who had the ability to build anything I dreamt up. This really opened my mind up to rethink the possible and re-explore the Internet and how business is done online.
3. When you started out in business, what specific idea, purpose or vision was your key driving force?
I began by creating BundleBuy.com, the precursor to Groupon, but it dealt with products rather than services. I filed for a patent and contracted a team to help me. It was my first run out of the gates and I learned a lot, mainly because I completely failed.
4. What is your take on the general notion that entrepreneurs should build a business around what they naturally love to do?
I completely agree. Your passions have to align with your work. This is the only way you will be able to power through the road blocks and navigate the speed bumps. I was just thinking this morning about how every day I face new challenges and fires to put out. It is like being in love with the right woman, you can get through everything.
5. What is your personal life mission as an entrepreneur? That is; what contributions do you want to make with your life or what would you like to be remembered for as an entrepreneur through the businesses you create when you die?
I want my businesses to make people say WOW out loud, either by solving a problem no one else could, creating something incredibly fun, or providing value to people. It feels great to be clever. Money isn’t the goal, the satisfaction of building something is.
6. What would you describe as the purpose of entrepreneurship? That is; what role do entrepreneurs play in the world?
They are the kids that grew up without having the “WHY? mentality” squashed out of them. They are the starters. They put the wheels in motion and then move on to the next.
Interview Questions Part Two
STRATEGY – The unusual execution of business best practices
7. How do you identify business opportunities and what metrics do you use to measure their viability?
Business opportunities present themselves every day, which is the easy part. Usually we look at the potential market size, risk involved, and cost to get to revenues, then do a MVP (minimum viable product). There is never a guarantee that something will work, that is what makes it so much fun.
8. Do you have mentors, business coach or external consultants that you work closely with to grow yourself and your business? If yes, to what extent would you describe their impact on your business? If no, are there any particular reasons?
I have had a ton of close friends who have been willing to listen to each and every one of my ideas and have the guts to give me a straight answer. By the time my projects are launched they are usually only 20% of my own ideas.
9. How do you strategically use your time as an entrepreneur? What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs use their time for?
Make sure to take a day off each week (Sunday for me) to rest and step back from your work. It really helps to come back to it with fresh eyes.
10. How do you generate profitable customers for your business? What unusual approaches do you adopt for marketing your products/services?
90% of all my sales through MillionDollarEarth.com came through relationships with bloggers introducing me to their readers. Like what you are doing here now Tito, through this interview.
11. Many entrepreneurs complain about not succeeding in business due to lack of adequate funding, what is your take on this matter and how do you cope with funding issues in your business?
I agree, funding is the bottleneck to Entrepreneurship. It takes a ton of time and energy to form the relationships that bring in a check. I have never had trouble getting a check, but getting it on my terms is sometimes a battle.
12. When starting out a new business, who are the likely possible partners or professional service providers you would recommend every entrepreneur work with?
I have a local web designer and developer who built all of my projects. It is a huge help to have a track record of successful projects with contractors. It makes your next venture that much more likely to succeed. My technologies of choice are mailchimp, hootsuite, gmail, google analytics, wordpress, zendesk, vistaprint and paypal.
13. The pricing of products/services is always an issue for entrepreneurs, what unusual approach do you take when it comes to pricing?
Be fair. People know when you are gouging them, but they also understand paying for the value you deliver to them.
Interview Questions Part Three
MISCELLANEOUS – Resourceful Recommendations, tools, books, and ideas for unusual entrepreneurs
14. Since you became an entrepreneur – someone who solves problems for people profitably; what has been your most outstanding accomplishments in the context of business?
I would say my most proud accomplishment is helping my brother build his company RhinoCameraGear He currently has a DLSR camera slider project on Kickstarter and has raised over $22,000 in pre-sales in the last 24 hours.
15. What would you describe as your major setbacks and what lessons did you pick from them?
I spent over $30,000 on my first company Bundlebuy.com. I eventually sold it to the founder of Shop.com, but it was still disappointing I couldn’t bring it to market myself. I had the privilege to learn how to bootstrap my next project.
There were two projects I started that I found out later I wasn’t passionate about. I ended up selling out to my partners and moving on. So now my passions drive my projects, rather than the other way around.
There are too many experiences to list, but the best way to learn is from your own. Successes are nice, but failures are much better. I missed the finals two years in a row at my undergraduate business plan competition and then went on to win my graduate business plan competition.
Your Turn
What more would you like to know about the Unusual Ryan Hart? You can ask him further questions below in the comment section and I will be sure that you will get an answer directly from him.
Also, what did you learn from this unusual entrepreneur? What lessons, what philosophy of his strike you the most?
Ryan has shared his unusual story with you, now is time to hear from you. Can’t wait to hear what you have to say!
- Published in Interviews, Thought Bank