5 Businesses That Almost Failed and Showed

Us Why It Pays to Keep Going

April 11, 2016 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

No matter how good or promising your business idea is, there will be times as an
entrepreneur that you’ll question whether or not your company will ever be a success. Those
overnight, rags-to-riches stories of explosive popularity for a lucky few have permeated our
collective startup culture, leading young and inexperienced entrepreneurs to see those stories as a
typical trajectory for businesses.

Related: Why Small Business Failure Rates are Declining

"Rags to riches" simply doesn’t reflect reality.

Most successful businesses experience hardships, sometimes for years, before finally turning a
corner and experiencing a surge in popularity and revenue. When we look at some of the biggest,
most popular companies today, we have to recognize that, had their entrepreneurs taken a look at
the numbers and thrown in the towel, some of these companies we know today never would
have reached their cultural landmark status.

Take a look at these five companies as particularly enlightening examples:

1. Apple

Apple’s story is well-known to most of you, but it’s worth repeating for its sheer scale. After an
early momentum and the creation of truly unique, game-changing products, Apple experienced a
fall; over the course of 12 years, its innovation and popularity plummeted, following the 1985
departure of its most inventive mind, Steve Jobs. By the time Jobs was rehired, in 1997, the
company was operating at a loss and creeping closer and closer to bankruptcy every year.

But after its successful rebranding campaign, a new iMac and the steady restructuring of
consumer expectations, Apple turned itself around to become one of the biggest, most successful
companies in the world. This happened, however, only after a 12-year downward spiral.

2. FedEx

Most of us don’t remember FedEx suddenly emerging as a major logistics competitor -- in fact,
it’s been around since 1971. We don't dwell either on the survival tale of the $30 billion
corporate giant we know today. Yet, after a few years of steady operations, rising gas prices and
logistics nightmares, the company was hemorrhaging money, losing a million dollars a month.

At one point, company funds got as low as $5,000; thanks to some skillful positioning (and a
little Blackjack), the company managed to skirt this colossal dry spell and became the self-
sustaining, profitable behemoth we recognize today.

3. Airbnb

Airbnb is another multi-billion dollar company recognized as a shooting star in the world of

startups -- a player that seemed to emerge overnight and grow into something monumental.
However, this wasn’t exactly the case. When Airbnb started back in 2008, it struggled to find
any footing; prominent investors all over Silicon Valley passed on the idea, and the team had to
resort to some patchwork financial fixes -- such as creating custom cereal boxes—to make ends
meet.

After unrelenting persistence, Airbnb's team employees eventually found the investments they
needed, and built the empire you know.

Related: Is Declining Business Failure Holding Back Entrepreneurship?

4. Evernote

Despite some recent trouble, Evernote has been a massively successful app (and company), and
the clear leader in terms of note-taking and organization software. In 2008, when the company
was still young, founder Phil Libin made the hard decision to shut the company down, once and
for all, upon realizing that it probably was never going to take off.

Then, in a strange twist of fate, an overseas investor pledged $500,000 to give the product more
momentum -- and that one extra push was enough to give Evernote the foundation it needed to
succeed.  
5. Reddit

Reddit is currently one of the world’s most popular online platforms, with more than 169 million
unique visitors per month, but it didn’t start out that way, and it nearly failed several times along
the way. When it launched in 2005, it had zero visitors, like every other website at the time.
After waiting a while and realizing that users weren’t going to come all by themselves, the
founders started inventing fake accounts and holding fake discussions on the platform until some
visitors started noticing and trickling in.

In short, the company essentially faked its way to the top upon realizing that the success wasn’t
going to come by itself (or come easily).

What’s the moral of the story here? "Never give up" seems a bit too clichéd and non-
universal; there are definitely times when quitting truly is the best option. Instead, the moral is
that you shouldn’t take the early signs of failure too literally or as unchangeable. Maybe
you aren’t attracting lots of users, or your revenues aren’t growing as fast as you’d hoped.
But if you have a good product and a good team, there’s always a chance to succeed.
NEXTGEN LEADERS

HIDDEN AGENDA - Mary Ann LL. Reyes (The Philippine Star

) - November 29, 2020 - 12:00am

It is not uncommon to hear about families, one sibling against another or worse children against
their parents, fighting about money, inheritance, or the family business.

There is this saying that money is the root of all evil. I’d say it is the love of money that is the
root.

There is nothing wrong with family-owned and run businesses. After all, many of our successful
enterprises started out as family businesses.

As pointed out in one article in the  Financial Times, while many family firms start with a strong
entrepreneur as both owner and manager, it becomes complex and problematic after a few
generations if not transitioned properly. The article noted that soon, a complex network of family
members become reliant on the business, working either as directors and staff. Some family
members are concerned about salaries, dividends, business strategy, sometimes in conflict with
other members of the same family. In fact, one of the most difficult issues, according to the same
article, is when family directors give relatives a chance in the business even if people outside the
family have stronger track records.

And so while some of the main advantages of hiring family members is their emotional
commitment to the business, disadvantages like succession planning, nepotism and family feuds
have to be actively addressed, otherwise, the end can be disastrous, the article mentioned.

One of the more successful companies in terms of transitioning the business to the next
generation is the JG Summit Group. Established by John Gokongwei Jr. after the Second World
War when he put up a trading company which imported goods from the US, and then later a corn
milling plant, JG Summit Holdings, which was incorporated in 1990 as Gokongwei’s publicly
listed holding company includes Cebu Pacific Air, Robinsons Land Corp., Robinsons Retail
Holdings, Universal Robina Corp., among others.

Today, JG Summit’s businesses include food and beverage manufacturing, aviation, real estate
and property development, banking and finance, petrochemicals, information and technology,
infrastructure, logistics and warehousing, with core investments in utilities such as power and
telecommunications, and affiliate businesses in retail and media.

Addressing a public audience for the first time after the conglomerate’s founder passed away in
November last year, his only son, JG Summit president and CEO Lance Gokongwei Jr., paid
homage to his father who built the company from scratch in 1956 and then led it to become one
of the country’s biggest conglomerates.

In his speech delivered at the first MAP NextGen Conference 2020, Lance underscored the
importance the conglomerate places on its core value of stewardship, saying that his father
instilled in them the mindset that “the family is here to support the business; the business is not
here to support the family.” This, Lance said, puts into proper perspective their family’s role and
responsibility as NextGen leaders in ensuring that the business prospers and endures for
generations to come.

Good stewardship, he stressed, meant not only creating value for shareholders and the family,
but also reinvesting majority of the earnings back into the company, with no more than 10
percent going to the family as dividends. It also meant having the business managed
professionally and hiring the best-qualified talents. This way, the family can escape the fate of
most other family-run businesses.

Lance, who took the reins as its second-generation leader, mentioned that research reveals that
only three percent (businessweek.com) of family businesses prosper beyond the fourth
generation.

He said that when he assumed the position in May 2018, it was very clear to him that his role is
that of a steward, a caretaker of the business that has been entrusted to him, and the
responsibility of ensuring that JG Summit continues to thrive over a long period of time.

The first on his three-pronged philosophy is putting the interest of the business ahead of the
family.

I remember writing many years back about one strategy that the family has used to avoid
conflict, and that is not to hire in-laws to run the business.

Lance shared that the first of 10 unwritten commandments that his father followed in running the
business is the rule of no in-laws.

He said that during his father’s generation, his aunts, who were married to his dad’s brothers, and
his mother were involved in the business, but the elder Gokongwei soon discovered that this was
not always ideal.
Lance said that “there were situations where some of the marriages did not work. Loyalties
change. Sometimes relationships between the different in-laws from the second generation
became strained. Feelings get hurt. It is tricky deciding who among the in-laws is more
deserving, who is smarter, who would do a better job.”

There is no single formula to ensure the success of a family business and transitioning it to the
next generations. Family upbringing is, of course, a very important factor. This is one of the
reason why children who stand to inherit the reins over the business are usually assigned to the
lowest positions in the company first before being promoted. This is to remove from them a
sense of entitlement to the position of power and control, to give them a better understanding of
the sentiments of the workforce and of the consumers. Getting a masteral degree from the best
universities abroad will not ensure that the child will be able to run the business as efficiently as
the parents did. It is not just a matter of the child surviving inside the business. What is more
important is how the child, or the succeeding generations, will be able to compete against other
businesses, improve on it, keep it attuned with the needs and demands of the time, while still
staying true to the company’s core values.

Not so hidden agenda

Still on the topic of JG Summit, it’s banking business Robinsons Bank has accelerated its digital
initiatives while continuing to put customers at the heart of their business development.

As a testament to this, Robinsons Bank was awarded the Omni-Experience Innovator Award for
its RBank Sign Up in the recently concluded IDC Digital Transformation Awards 2020
Philippines held by leading IT market research and advisory firm International Data Corporation
(IDC). It was also recognized by the International Business Magazine as the Most Innovative
Retail Banking Product - Philippines 2020.

The RBank Sign Up app is one of the newest products launched during the pandemic as a
response to the needs of many Filipinos. The Sign Up capability lets customers open a bank
account through an all-digital and online process. With just one ID card, e-KYC, and internet
connection, customers are sure to have their account details within minutes of completing the
application.

RBank chief digital officer Ramon Abasolo explained that they are re-engineering primarily to
improve customer’s experience and enable them more in a digitized environment.

RBank’s mobile banking has taken a new form with the new RBank Digital, which has over a
hundred listed billers, from utilities (electricity, water, cable) to insurance, among others. One
can also manage their savings account, credit cards, time deposit accounts, and more in just a
single RBank Digital account.

For comments, e-mail at mareyes@philstarmedia.com

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5 STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE APPROACHING AN INVESTOR FOR

YOUR STARTUP
Enough has been said about how investors choose startups, but how
should a startup choose the right investor?

By Hillel Fuld, Tech marketer and startup adviser@hilzfuld

Credit: Getty Images

When building a startup, like it or not, in most cases, you are going to have to raise external
capital to give yourself some runway. There are, of course, companies that don't raise capital and
bootstrap, and while that is recommended, it is not feasible for most companies who want to
invest in growth. Once you decide that the time has come to raise that capital, the worst thing
you can do is take the first check offered to you without doing your research. 

Here are five steps to take before approaching an investor for your startup:

Narrow down your search by stage and space.

This is a crucial step that so many entrepreneurs don't understand. Not every investor is right for
every company. Some investors have an appetite for early stage companies, while others avoid
them because of the high risk involved. Some investors avoid certain verticals and will never
invest no matter how great the company is. 
As an entrepreneur, it is your job to have a target list of investors who are relevant for you,
because approaching the wrong investor makes you look bad and wastes everyone's time.

Study the portfolio of that investor, mainly for competitors.

Once you have narrowed down your search and have a list of relevant investors, you are going to
want to make sure that the investor you are targeting does not already invest in a competitor. The
last thing you want is to send your confidential investor deck to someone who can give it to your
biggest competitor.

Additionally, the chances of an investor deploying capital in two companies that are direct
competitors are slim to none and it is your job to do that research and not pitch that investor.

Speak to entrepreneurs who have raised from that investor.

This might be the most important step of all. Once you have an investor in mind, speak to CEOs
who have raised money from that investor in the past. Some of the questions you should ask are
"Is the investor entrepreneur friendly?" "Does the investor provide value beyond a check?"
"When the going gets tough, does that investor step up or give up?"

It is a very big mistake to take money from someone who will make your life more difficult.
Being an entrepreneur is hard enough as it is, the last thing you want is an investor who will
make it harder.

Research the investor using their social channels and search engines.

If the investor you have in mind passed all the above tests, now it's time to do some deeper
research. Now, you don't have to agree with everything that investor tweets about, but it is
recommended to read what he puts out there, just to make sure that there is a cultural fit.
Remember, this person is not just an investor, they are going to be a partner for the whole
journey of your startup, you are going to want to get along.

Find your mutual friends and ask for a warm introduction.

After you have done all that research and decided on an investor you would like to pitch, don't
send a cold email, but rather, find someone who knows him and is willing to make a warm intro
and maybe even put in a good word.

This sounds like an obvious point, but any investor will tell you that they get endless cold pitches
every day and most of the pitches that end up with a meeting or even an investment come from
warm intros made by people they trust.
We all read about these mega investment rounds and we glorify raising capital. Not enough
attention is paid to the process of raising capital from the right person at the right time.

Inc. helps entrepreneurs change the world. Get the advice you need to start, grow, and lead your
business today. Subscribe here for unlimited access.

Nov 29, 2020

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Build Your Company

3 Reports That Every Entrepreneur Should

Generate in Their Business
Making sure your employees are aligned with your business goals will be easier if you track your
progress with these 3 reports.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Riaz Khadem y Linda Khadem

November 30, 2020 6 min read

This article was translated from our Spanish edition using AI technologies. Errors may exist due to this
process.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Editor's Note: The following excerpt is from the book Total Alignment by Riaz Khadem and
Linda Khadem.

The three reports that every manager should use are part of a reporting system that was first
described in our book, One Page Management . They are ideal for keeping track of alignment in
an organization. Let's take a closer look at what those three reports can do for you and your
teams.
  To learn more: The MaDeCa Template for entrepreneurs who want to succeed after COVID-19

The Focus Report

Report: Depositphotos.com

The Focus Report shows an employee's performance in relation to the actual status of each of the
process indicators assigned to him. The "state" of those indicators is the number that shows the
result of the indicator in the previous reporting period. For example, suppose the metric on a
scorecard is "Customer Returns Rate" and the return rate for April was 3 percent. Then the status
of this metric in your May Focus Report would show that employee performance is 3 percent in
the status column. This lets you know how your employee is performing so you can help align
their efforts to improve the indicator.

When your status is assessed against some agreed upon criteria, you can determine whether it
was "good" or "bad." We like to use goals to establish those criteria. So for each critical factor on
a scorecard, you will set three levels of objectives: minimal, satisfactory, and outstanding. The
minimum target is the level below performance that is not acceptable. Satisfactory is the level
that would make you feel good about your performance, and outstanding is the level of
excellence.

For some factors, such as "number of units produced", more is better. For other factors, such as
"scrap percentage," less is better. This is why you should set a "minimum or maximum target".
In this way, you can identify acceptable performance as being above the minimum level or below
the maximum level, depending on the type of factor. With these criteria, you can determine three
scenarios:

1. Excellent performance when the status is better than the pending objective.
2. Good performance or positive exception when status is better than satisfactory goal.
3. Poor performance or negative exception when the status is worse than the minimum target.

Besides "status" and "targets", other important information is "trend". The trend shows whether
an employee's status is getting better or worse. For example, your performance last month could
be worse than the minimum, but the trend in the last five periods could be good. On the contrary,
its performance last month could be better than satisfactory, but the trend could be bad. This is
useful information.

 To find out more: It's time to undertake! Here the business model for the rental of mini
warehouses

Completing focus reports for your employees is a rewarding exercise. It allows you to reflect
more deeply on the success factors you have assigned to them, the formula that defines them, the
data that goes into your calculation, and the positive action they will require.

The Feedback Report

Image: Depositphotos.com

The second report is called the Feedback Report. This report is a summary of the "good news"
and the "bad news" based on the status of your employee's indicators. It illustrates the factors
that have fallen below the unacceptable range in the state and those that are above the
satisfactory level. Those that fall between the two are considered in the acceptable range.
This report also illustrates the number of time periods in a row where the factor has been better
than the satisfactory goal or worse than the Min / Max goal. At a glance, you can see the
feedback on your performance. You try to build feedback reports for each of your employees.
Look at each factor on your Focus Report and compare their status to the goals you set for them.
Consider whether it is better than the successful goal or worse than the minimum / maximum
goal. You also need to take into account how many times in a row this factor has performed
better than the successful goal or worse than the minimum / maximum goal.

The Management Report

Image: Depositphotos.com

As a manager, you will need to know the reality of what is happening in your pyramid of
responsibility, from the bottom up and from the top down. To do this, you can study the
individual focus reports of those who report to you directly and indirectly, although this could be
time consuming and ineffective. To provide you with performance insights in a more useful way,
there is a third report, the Management Report, which gives you a quick overview of the
highlights of the Feedback Reports from everyone in your accountability pyramid, the people
who inform you directly and indirectly.

This approach is "management by exception". What does that mean? People who perform within
the acceptable range will not appear in this report; they are doing a satisfying job, and at this
point you have little need to address their individual performance. But star performers as well as
those who are having challenges will show up. You are looking for the exceptions at both ends of
the performance spectrum in this report. Obviously, reporting on all exceptions in the
Management Report would saturate this report and reduce its effectiveness. Therefore, an
escalation scheme is built into the reporting system to determine which exceptions are reported
upstream.

 To know more: 8 quick questions to define your business model

Based on a customizable escalation rule, positive and negative exceptions increase when they are
recurring. The rule we recommend is two or more consecutive exceptions worse than the Min /
Max level or above the satisfactory level to start moving up to the next level. Beyond that, the
speed of the climb depends on the importance of the factor. Some can quickly climb to the next
level after three consecutive exceptions and others more slowly.

The rationale for the escalation rule is that, for example, a supervisor who has a rebate problem
may have little time to resolve it. If not, notification of the problem will escalate. The boss has a
predetermined period of time to help him fix it. If the problem continues, the next level is alerted
and so on. If it's a serious problem and no one seems to have the answer, then the most important
person in the organization finds out. Most likely it is a systemic problem that is beyond the
control of the supervisor who is at fault. When the problem appears in your Management Report,
you know that everyone has tried to fix it. Now you have the opportunity to step in and solve the
problem.

You'll get good news too: with the Management Report, performance is transparent. Outstanding
performance is reported upward and the right person is recognized.
Entrepreneurs

Leaving Your Job for Entrepreneurial

Aspirations? Keep These Things in Mind
Develop a strategic plan and an action plan.

Image credit: The Good Brigade | Getty Images

Jennifer Spencer

Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

CEO of Energent Media

November 29, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

If you have entrepreneurial aspirations beyond your current 9 to 5 job, you aren’t alone. Fortune
reported that as of last year, 49% of Americans under the age of 35 have a side hustle, which can
range from a part-time job driving for Uber or owning a small business. Many will remain
content with the juggling act of both their full-time responsibilities and their side hustle,
especially with today’s more precarious economic environment. It can feel too risky to consider
one day leaving the comfort of a steady paycheck. Others, however, wonder how to start laying
the groundwork for their eventual departure from their full-time jobs to pursue their business
idea. 

Here’s the good news: Laying the groundwork can feel far less intimidating than plunging into
the abyss. If you can plan for an assigned date of when to bid adieu to the company you currently
work for, you can plan for details like your finances and how to launch your new business or
transition into it full-time. This can create a more seamless transition to the entrepreneurial life.
If you’re ready for the "gear up," here’s what needs to be on your mind. 

Prove to yourself that you can rely on your business

Leaping passion is great, but it’s far more logical to ensure that your business can actually make
money — and enough money. The best way to prove the economic viability of your business
idea is to just get started as if your livelihood currently depends on it. Sure, market research and
competitive analysis can help you understand how your business will do, but nothing will help
you take realistic stock of the economic feasibility like pretending you already solely rely on
your business. 

Related: Big Businesses That Started as Side Hustles

Camilla Love is the managing director of eInvest, a company that provides Active ETF
investments. During a recent email exchange, Love underscored the importance of having a
financial and mental safety net. She explained, "Having a mental safety net can be hard to
achieve. Using an advisory board to help guide you and to bounce ideas and challenges around is
very useful so that you aren't fighting all the battles yourself. Personally, I allocate times during
the day when I'm working on the business, not in the business. Keeping your mental health in the
green is critical for the sustainability of your business success."

Relish in the overlap 

Ensuring your business’s economic viability inevitably means that there will be an overlap
between your full-time job and running your business full-time. Some hopeful entrepreneurs may
feel wary about being spread too thin between both, but this overlap can also come with its own
opportunities. In The Harvard Business Review, marketing strategist Dorie Clark advocated that
ideally, you should stick with your day job alongside your personal business endeavors for as
long as you can. Benefits of this overlap include more time to validate your entrepreneurial idea
and funding opportunities for your own professional development. 

Clark also noted that beginning to take strides for your business aspirations before you need the
money can be quite advantageous. “If money isn’t your primary object at first, you can be far
more selective, over-indexing on unpaid but prestigious engagements (guest lecturing at business
schools or giving TEDx talks, for instance) and avoiding low-margin work or questionable
clients that could taint your brand later on,” she wrote. Take advantage of the overlap interim by
making strides for your name and your new company’s name, so you have a launchpad when
you finally quit.

Related: You Don't Have to Be a Starving Artist

Plan six months ahead

Even if you’re close to verifying your business’ full-time viability, a six-month plan can help to
ease anxieties and ensure that your launchpad has everything you need. One of the major
changes that newly full-time entrepreneurs confront is the inevitable ebb and flow of income.
Some months may be slower than others. So, using at least six months to save a nest egg and
plan for these lulls can help the transition feel more seamless.

A general rule of thumb is to ensure that you have six months of expenses in savings. So, if your
monthly expenses total $3,000, make sure there’s $18,000 tucked away. It’s natural to be
optimistic about your business’ potential when you’re just getting started, but it’s also important
to be smart. You’ll never regret saving that extra money, even if that means that you have to stay
at your full-time job longer than you’d hoped. 

As founder of the Debt Roundup, Grayson Bell wrote for Mint.com, “While you may think
saving up six months worth of current expenses will be tough, it will be easier to already have it
socked away before quitting your job. It's easier to save money when you make money.”

When you set your gaze on the end goal of being your own boss, it marks an important transition
that many entrepreneurs inevitably make. Take it at your own pace and complete the evolution in
a way that feels good for you and your business. You’ll know when it’s time to trust the call.
6 things I wish I knew before I bootstrapped
my first SaaS startup
It failed miserably, but my second SaaS is booming.

Story by
Pierre de Wulf

Co-Founder, ScrapingBee — Pierre is a data-geek turned bootstrapper. Building businesses and

documenting the journey.

PierreDeWulf
Three years ago, Kevin, a life-long friend of mine, and I left our jobs and decided to start our
own bootstrapped SaaS at the tender age of 25. It was a dream we’d be nursing for a long time as
bootstrappers like Rob Walling or Pieter Levels, and communities such as IndieHackers by the
Courtland Allen had been a source of inspiration for us ever since 2010. 

So we decided it was finally time to see what we could make of it on our own… but it failed
miserably. Here’s what I learned. 

Let’s start off with a bit of background. Before this, Kevin and I launched a small Chrome
extension that had around 3000 users. This extension allowed people to save products they
wanted to buy online and receive emails once the price dropped. Basically, it was similar to 
ShopTagr, just uglier. 

It was a fun project and the first real thing we had released to the world. We quickly realized
though it would be tough to grow it into something we could make money from. But we did
learn that several of our users were e-commerce owners — rather than regular consumers — who
used our extension to spy on their competitor’s product’s prices.

[Read: Neural’s market outlook for artificial intelligence in 2021 and beyond]

From this observation came the idea to build a price-monitoring tool for small and medium-sized
e-commerce owners. Both Kevin and I were tired of our 9-to-5 jobs, and we thought this was the
perfect timing to try and develop something that belonged to us: PricingBot. 

We thought we had finally found the idea that would make us truly independent. Boy, were we
wrong.

Fast forward one year, we were barely making any money and only had three customers. We just
barely managed to reach $600 MRR. It was a complete failure. 

After nine months, we abandoned the project (we actually sold it for a small amount of money
because the traffic was nice) and moved on to a new idea, ScrapingBee, a web scraping API. We
had more success with this one, and we managed to reach $180K ARR in less than 18 months.

So what was the difference between the failure of PricingBot and the success of ScrapingBee?
Simply put, experience. Here’s everything I wish I knew when I began my first bootstrapped
SaaS — I hope it’ll help you on your own journey.

This thing takes time

One thing you have to realize from the start is that bootstrapping a SaaS is a slow process, very
slow. Of course, you’ll hear about fast growth, but real overnight successes are sporadic and not
really something you should aim for.

Most of the time, when you look behind a fast-growing bootstrapped business, you’ll find:

 Years of building an audience

 Several failed attempts 
  Consistency

If you take Convertkit, for example, one of the most successful open-startup projects of all-time.
Their monthly revenue stalled between $1,000 and $3,000 during the first 18 months, but now
they are at $2.1 million MRR!

Credit: BareMetricsConvertkit revenue chart

We can also look at LemList, an email marketing tool that was wholly bootstrapped and is now
experiencing incredible growth. They launched less than two years ago and have already reached
3 million ARR! 

That success was far from being an overnight occurrence though. Before its rapid growth, the
team had already spent a few years building an audience while launching other tools. You can
read more about their story here.

Had my partner and I known how much time it actually takes to make money with a SaaS, we
would have probably done A LOT more research before launching PricingBot.

If you need 30 emails to sell a $30/month product, the problem isn’t your emails

With PricingBot, we often had months-long email exchanges to secure a $50-100 subscription. 

It clearly was never going to work.

People don’t like to tell others that they don’t want their product and don’t plan to use it. This is
human nature: we tend to avoid conflict and we don’t want to harm. 

So if a lead hasn’t had time to use your product for three months, they probably never will. As a
founder, you need to keep that in mind while talking with a potential customer. And if all your
discussions tend to span weeks or months before someone even signs-up you probably need to
do one of these three things:

 You should increase your price, by a lot

 You should change your audience
 You should change your product

Do not expect to be able to make data-driven decisions from day one

In the early days, data, usage, and user count should be low. That will make your decision
process much harder though, as it’ll make it impossible to do things like reliable A/B tests or
draw real insights from usage.

Knowing this, it’s useful to look out for clues instead of undeniable proof that something is
working or isn’t.

Here are the ones that I find quite relevant.

Clues that you are doing something right:

 People are angry when your product does not work

 People say that your product is too expensive but pay anyway
 People ask you a ton of things, even if your onboarding is awesome

Clues that you are doing something wrong: 

 You had a three days down-time and no one bat an eye

 You have < 1% conversion rate on your landing page
 People love to talk to you but never pay you

Your best source of information won’t be data, but rather a good conversation with your users.
Convincing someone to have a quick chat with you can be hard, but Kevin had a great idea when
we launched ScrapingBee that allowed us to have around 60 conversations with our users in less
than three months.

We offered 10 times what our free plan offered to people willing to spend 15 minutes on the
phone with us. And we made sure people knew about the offer by displaying it directly on their
dashboard.
Another corollary to that whole “low data” thing, is that even if something is bothering all of your users,
you can’t expect all of them to tell you about it. Some people just don’t care enough to tell you.

This is why we have decided to assume that for every customer giving us feedback, ten others
felt the same way, but were just not voicing their concern.

Using that, we made a new rule: we’d start talking about implementing a new feature every time
three users asked for the same thing. Pareto and all that.

And finally, I want to urge you not to experiment with small changes when your problems are
big! If no one is signing up or if no one is using your product, a 10% price decrease or a copy
change won’t make the difference. Only optimize once you have something to optimize.

I know it’s hard because most of us would rather try out a lot of small changes instead of
rethinking the whole product, but every time you do that, you are lying to yourself.

That’s what Kevin and I did with PricingBot. We thought changing the copy or the pricing
would move the needle. The truth was, we had much bigger issues.

When starting, focus on what matters, don’t waste your time on futile things

When bootstrapping, time is both your friend and your enemy. It is your friend because you are
owning your time and you can do whatever you want with it. It is also your enemy because this
sense of ownership will often make you focus on futile things, and next thing you know, it’s
been one year and you haven’t shipped a damn thing.

Here is a list of futile things we used to focus on, and in the end, it does not make any difference:

 Product name
 Domain
 The color of that button (see my previous point)
 Logo
  Tech stack
 Scalability

On the other hand, here are some points that are often overlooked:

 Clean landing page. Your landing page must create trust!

 Copywriting: no typos and clear sentences
 Talking to your users.

Do not expect the acquisition channel to be “plug and play”

Before launching PricingBot I knew that acquisition was hard, but I had no idea it would be that
hard. For ads, I thought you only needed to set up a Facebook campaign, add some USD and
wait for the money to trickle in. For content, I thought you just needed to write good content and
wait for it to rank on Google.

I was wrong. 

Marketing is really hard. And all acquisition channels are very different and complex. It’s ok to
try several things in the early days to see what sticks, but once you have found something that
works, even a little bit, you should definitely focus on it 200%. If you are new to this and you
managed to get something to work, you can get 10 times better at this just by spending time
learning about the subject.

It’s not fun because it often means doing the same thing and repeating the same process, but I
can guarantee you that this is not a waste of time.

With ScrapingBee, we quickly saw that content marketing was something we were good at. It
wasn’t ideal, but it was definitely working for us. 

So we spent the whole year learning a lot about SEO and content marketing — and now we have
around 30,000 visitors per month on our website, with (almost) zero ads. Kevin has worked a lot
on creating an efficient process to create, publish, and promote our articles, and even it if feels a
bit tedious to do the same thing every-time, it’s worth it.
Offer top-notch support

In the early days, your product will probably offer fewer features than your competitors, and it’s
nothing to worry about. But that doesn’t mean you can’t outplay them in more than one key area.

One easy way to do it is to offer top-notch support. Install a live-chat on your website and try to
be as reactive as possible. Sure, I’ll admit it doesn’t scale and you will lose focus, but honestly,
that isn’t important at this point.

By offering top-notch support and talking a lot with your customers, you give yourself a chance
to:

 Better understand your users

 Convince some people to leave a testimonial on your landing page
 Prove users that even though you are the new kid in town, you are serious and dedicated to
your customers
 Find an evangelist who will promote your product for you.

Other key areas to focus on are documentation and onboarding.

Conclusion

All in all those last two years have been crazy and exhausting but I don’t regret choosing
freedom over comfort. In retrospect, I think that it would have been hard to not fail with
PricingBot considering all the things we didn’t know about how to launch and run a profitable
SaaS. I guess the best decision we ever made was to just move over and try something new.

We are now 18 months in with ScrapingBee, a web-scraping API, and things are looking better
now. We are building this thing in the open and I regularly share our adventure on Twitter, come
and say hi!

Published November 24, 2020 — 07:00 UTC

How Generation Z Is Altering the Face of
Entrepreneurship for Good
Generation Z-ers are approaching business differently and the results have been thrilling.

Image credit: SrdjanPav | Getty Images

Chidike Samuelson

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor

Entrepreneur, Lawyer, Author and Freelance writer

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November 24, 2020 7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

For the longest time, my generation, the Millenials, were touted as the Entrepreneurial
generation. For the most part, we have lived up to the billing. However, as the world evolves, the
art of business evolves with it, and it turns out that Generation Z has more to do with this
evolution than many care to admit. 

Generation Z entrepreneurs are springing forth at such a startling rate that a recent Gallup
Student Poll found that 40 percent of students surveyed from grades five to 12 stated they wanted
to run their own business. Then, 24 percent said they have already started. At this rate, it isn’t at
all challenging to see Generation Z take over as the most Entrepreneurial Generation. 

What I find interesting as I observe this generation is that they are distancing themselves from
the generation before them in the way they innovate and do business. There are some interesting
differences between the way this generation is carrying on and the traditional entrepreneurial
pattern. 

An early start

Generation Z is drawn to starting businesses at an early age, born into the entrepreneurial
message's boom. Many of their parents (Millenials) are also Entrepreneurs, and this has
encouraged a shocking amount of kid entrepreneurs to take flight. 

Seeing kid CEOs is becoming somewhat normal. Examples abound like Moziah Bridges, who
started Moziah’s Bows at age nine years old and quickly grew his business to earning
$150,000/year. Moziah has employed several employees, gone on Shark Tank, and has been
featured in several popular magazines. There are many more examples than this article can
cover. 

Related: 10 Ways to Become a Millionaire in Your 20s

Traditionally, the bulk of Millennial entrepreneurs started in college, after college, or a few in
high school, but the trend is skewing more towards a younger age-group. The advantages of
starting this early are pretty obvious; investors and sponsors are more willing to sponsor young
people’s businesses than older ones. 

The story of Trey Brown, the 14-year-old founder of  SPERGO, a boutique fashion collection
receiving a $25K from Sean Diddy Combs, made the rounds recently, and that’s just one of the
many. Generation Z isn’t just starting early; it is reaping the full benefits of starting early. 

Community mentorship

As far as we know, mentorship has been one and will remain one of the significant pillars of
successful entrepreneurship. This fact has not changed with Generation Z, but they are certainly
not getting their mentorship in the regular ways we got ours. 

Communities within social media have become the go-to for Generation Z entrepreneurs to get
their counsel and mentorship. Mutual interest communities have always existed, but  Generation
Z has taken it a notch up. 
A large portion of generation Z entrepreneurs is self-taught utilizing Google, YouTube, and other
platforms. Still, a significant chunk relies on Mutual-interest communities to sample ideas, get
guidance, and make business decisions. 

‘Streetwear Startup’ is one of those communities that has gained notoriety for the closeness of its
community and how many successful streetwear startups it has helped push out, a simple Reddit
page, with rave reviews. 

Jaffry Jan Mallari is the young CEO of RSG RESURGENCE and one of such success stories
from Streetwear Startup. In his own words, “Reddit is one of the main sources of Resurgence’s
success, the community helped skyrocket my visibility attracting fans such as Dustin Wang, who
has gone on to become a repeat customer.”

Related: Meet 16 Teen Founders Who Are Building Big Businesses -- and Making Big
Money

Jaffry Jan went from Initial Highschool failure to business failure, then massive success. He
claims that, like many others in his generation, leveraging community mentorship is one reason
he has bounced back and is well on his way to building a six-figure business. The name,
Resurgence, has a poetic ring to it, all things considered. 

The benefits of these communities to this generation are that they can swap ideas and seek more
experienced members’ opinions. They have elevated collaboration over competition, a key that
seems to be propelling them towards immense success beyond Millennials. 

Kings of disruption

If it isn’t different, it isn’t cool; this seems to be the mantra for generation Z entrepreneurs.
Everyone seems to be trying to reinvent the wheel or to disrupt whatever industry they are
entering significantly. 

They have taken the idea of disruption way deeper than we anticipated. Caroline and Isabel
Bercaw, co-founders of Da Bomb bath, took the bath bomb industry by surprise when they
launched their strange bath bomb product that included a small toy within. They were just 11 and
12 years old at the time (2012), and they have gone on to grow this business to a massive self-
funded business generating over $20 million annually. 

Disruption is in this generation’s DNA, and we can expect a greater deluge of creative ideas and
businesses in this decade. 

Identity entrepreneurship

Identity politics has been condemned repeatedly in some quarters as being evil and divisive, but
Generation Z has found a way to apply the concept to business to significant effect. 

Identity entrepreneurship refers to branding your business and business idea around a theme like
race, religion, or location. This has always existed but has been brought to the fore by this new
generation. 
New Generation Z businesses are continuing to brand themselves as Young Black Entrepreneurs
(YBE’s) or Young Latino Entrepreneurs. Due to the powerful impact of social media and the
internet and their adept abilities at navigating it, Generation Z has managed to gain more
powerful results from this Identity Entrepreneurship than generations before. 

The effect is clear: it causes an influx of traffic from people who identify with the same
affiliations. If done well, it’s quite genius! 

Expansion minded

In the last 5- 10 years, while we have seen many businesses started by members of Generation Z,
we have not seen many new platforms created. It does seem to me that these young entrepreneurs
are comfortable utilizing the platforms created by Millenials and earlier generations in the early
internet age and building massive and expansive businesses.

Platforms Facebook, Youtube, Google, Amazon, Instagram, and the likes have taken over the
internet. They are not getting any serious competition from Generation Z’ers for apparent
reasons. Still, these brilliant entrepreneurs have built some staggering businesses wholly on these
platforms, and some have even built such expansive businesses that link throughout a number of
these platforms.

Related: Meet 12 Young Founders Who Are Disrupting the Way Business Is Done

Entrepreneurs like the 9-year old Ryan Kaji of Ryan’s World, a youtube channel that reportedly
makes about 22 million Annually from youtube, is a great example. 

On the other hand is Cheri Wang, CEO of Coshipper, who has successfully built one of the most
expansive and successful Amazon FBA businesses in the United States that offer comprehensive
services across air, land, and sea.  Wang believes that these platforms are the future of
entrepreneurship though he admits that it doesn’t make entrepreneurship easier nowadays as
there are still massive obstacles. 

This generation’s ability to build something massive on these platforms is a deviation from many
Millenial Entrepreneurs who still focus rather unproductively on trying to develop new
platforms.  

This fantastic generation is doing a great deal of good and competing in some complicated
industries, and we would love to see even more. It’s always refreshing to watch evolution
happen, and all we can do is follow the trends when necessary.