Interview With Entrepreneurial Founder of 7Mainstreet.com
Title: Founder/CEO
Industry: Technology
Type of company: Dynamic Commerce Community
Year founded: 2006
Number of employees: 19
Location: Philadelphia
Questions:
1. What is the startup story behind 7mainstreet.com?
The startup story is actually interesting. The base premise for the idea came to me one day when I was on my way to the grocery store. I was listening to the radio and there was a band that came on the radio. The dj for the station asked them how they got so big in such a short period of time, I was curious too because I had never heard of the band myself. The band said that they joined myspace, sent out a ton of friend requests and over a period of a few months amassed a fan base in the 10s of thousands. The band then said that they sent out a bulletin to their friends saying that they had a new cd out. Thousands bought the cd and the rest was history. At that one moment I thought to myself “If a band can go from obscurity to a gold record using a network why couldn’t a business do the same thing?”. Needless to say I didn’t make it to the supermarket and pulled a U turn in the middle of the road and went home and started writing a business plan. This was on July 14th 2006.
2. What is your definition of success and has your company achieved it?
Success is when you have a company that can be a disruptor to another well established company. Something along the lines of a game changer that when someone sees it they say “Wow, that is cool”. If you get enough people saying that others start to take notice and the company really begins to take off and the revenue streams start to grow. 7Mainstreet is a fresh site so we are not there just yet but we have the tools, feature sets, future plans, and the right team in place to make it happen. We get the “Wow that’s cool” quite often and it is just a matter of time until all of the pieces fall into place and we reach that tipping point.
3. To what do you attribute your company’s recent achievements?
I can honestly say that I have the hardest working team that I have ever come across. They sacrifice weekends, late nights, and other activities that go on in their lives because they have tremendous pride in the work that they do and it shows. Without having the current team that we have in place 7Mainstreet would have never gotten off the ground.
4. How important have good employees and team members been to your success?
Good team members who understand your vision and the goals of the company are absolutely key. Without sharing the same vision as the founder of a company you will never get your idea off of the ground and into the real business environment. We have had employees come and go over the years and the ones that have believed in themselves and the product the most are the ones that have stayed on and have been extremely successful.
5. What three pieces of advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
If someone tells you what you are trying to do is impossible ignore them, they are probably jealous that they didn’t think of it themselves
Make sure your team is kept up to date on what is going on in the company, especially your key members, it helps build camaraderie and makes everyone know that their opinions are listened to and actually matter
Be prepared to make sacrifices in your life, if you really want to have your vision and dream become a reality be prepared to put in crazy hours, I don’t know how many late night conference calls and meetings I have had with my team starting at 2AM
6. What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
Never make a hire out of desperation to fill a position. This has happened to me 2 times while working on this project. What I’ve learned from it is that if you have a feeling in your gut that the person you are looking at doesn’t fit the bill 100% don’t roll the dice. There is always someone out there that fits your needs and it’s just a matter of time until you find the right person for that particular job. If you get stuck with a desperation hire the time you spent training them and bringing them up to speed is wasted. That time is better spent looking for the right person. It may be tough to do in some circumstances but you definitely do not want the distraction and aggravation that comes with the wrong hire.
Don’t stray from the game plan. We spent many hours tweaking, fixing, building, and adding on to the product early on in which just pushed our timelines out farther and farther. If the change isn’t completely necessary at the time then write it down and schedule it for a later release date. Everyone gets excited over thinking of new things to add and sometimes it can hurt productivity more than enhance it. If we had stuck with our original plans we may have been able to launch sooner. We have learned our lesson and try to keep a tighter timeline and accountability on our projects.
7. Describe/outline your typical day?
Fortunately for me over the past 2 years I have been able to bring talented people on board that I have been able to delegate tasks to, however I still have a very action packed day.
My day usually starts around 830AM and probably ends on most days around 9PM. I like to start the morning off finding out what the status of our open projects are and asking my team if there is anything they need help working on or closing out. I also like to use the morning hours to do follow up from previous sales calls and taking care of any scheduling of meetings. I try to fit in at least 2 to 3 sales pitches in the late morning and early afternoon. The afternoon is usually spent on testing out new features or changes to the site. The late afternoon I like to circle back with the team again to see what milestones were hit and what projects were completed. Throughout the day there are usually some meetings that I attend or lead depending on what the topic is. Later in the day, or should I say early evening, is spent finishing up any paper work or other business tasks that need to be taken care of. I like doing that type of stuff in the evening as its really the only quiet time I get all day and most other business in the world comes to a halt right around 530 or 6PM.
8. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Our funding is from private equity and I was able to raise it by presenting a strong business plan with great growth potential form a revenue standpoint. In fact the only way that I was able to take on funding was if I could show that the current business model is economically viable now and that it wasn’t dependent on placing banner ads on 7Mainstreet. Once I convinced the investors that the idea was novel and had growth potential I got the funding I needed to get rolling.
9. What stops you from throwing in the towel and giving up during those frustrating days of running your business?
Knowing that I have put over 2 years of my life and sacrificed many things in order to make my idea a reality. Even though some days are frustrating it’s not worth throwing away something that has tremendous potential and gives you so much pride because you hit a snag in the road. If every day was supposed to run smoothly then everyone in the world would be running their own business. Frustration and aggravating days come with the territory so you have to deal with them as they come, move on, and learn from them.
10. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Not at all. If you were to take a sample of 100 entrepreneurs out there they would all have a different story, come form a different background, and have different life experiences that allowed them to get to where they are today. If there is a pattern to becoming a successful entrepreneur someone would have found it at this point and started selling that formula to make a buck and become the ultimate entrepreneur. What I do think most entrepreneurs have to have is street smarts and common sense, without those basic skills it is tough in my opinion to get things moving with a business.
11. Who has influenced you most and been your greatest inspiration?
As cliché as it sounds, my dad has. He was able to take our old family business which was close to bankruptcy in the early 1980s and grow it to a 450 employee manufacturing operation which sold in 2002. Everything I know about business I learned from him as he has brought me up and involved me in the business since I was a kid.
12. What book has inspired you the most?
I honestly can’t say that any book has inspired me. Unfortunately I don’t get to read as much as I would like, so on the times I can read I spend them reading business magazines like Forbes, Fortune, and Business Week. So I would say business magazines inspire me the most because I get a wide breadth of news about different types of business models and business people.
13. How do you go about marketing your business? What has been your most successful form of marketing?
Everything we do at 7Mainstreet is designed to give us an edge and standout from the pack. This goes for our marketing campaign. We have devised a very interesting revenue share program that is different than what most people think when they hear revenue share. We have come up with a plan that pays individuals commissions based on what services they are able to sell to businesses the know. We have been able to recruit sales people from all over the country that are literally knocking on the doors of business in their communities to get them signed up. Every service that involves a transaction is commissionable. This includes profile creation, ecommerce fees, and advertising. This program has given us grass roots spread in areas that we can’t get to and has enabled people to make some extra cash in the tough economy.
14. In one word, characterize your life as an entrepreneur.
Adrenaline
15. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
eBay
16. How do you achieve balance in your life? Or do you?
My gym is open late so I like to try to get there at least 3 times a week. Running is a great stress reliever.
I also try my hardest to go out with my friends at least 2 nights a week after work. In that same vein I try my best to not do any work on Sunday and take the day to do the things that relax me.
Finding a balance is tough to do when you have so many responsibilities but without making time for yourself to get away you will make yourself crazy and maybe even burn yourself out.
17. Where do you see yourself and your business in 5 years? 10 years?
In 5 years my goal is to make 7Mainstreet the go to destination for business information and information about the goods and services that business supply. In 10 years its really hard to say where I think the company would be, although I know it will be successful as long as we are able to keep the current culture of being innovative and capitalizing on market niches. I do have every expectation that 7Mainstreet will accomplish the goals my team and I have set forth.
In terms of myself I expect to be very active in the strategic planning and goal setting of the company, and it would also be nice to have a couple of bucks to put in my pocket as the company grows.
18. What’s your exit strategy?
I get this question a lot. I do not have an exit strategy and I think that it is not really necessary to have one. My goal is to build a sustainable business. If I were to say that my exit strategy was to sell to Google in 2 years and it didn’t happen what opportunities would I have missed out on? If you take a common sense strategy and plan on growing your business into the future that leaves all doors open for you and you don’t get stuck in a lurch.
19. If we could introduce you to anyone, who would it be and why? (you never know who we know!)
Mark Cuban. He is a no nonsense guy who is intense and makes his own rules and shares similar philosophies to me. He has been extremely successful because he’s stuck to his guns and won’t allow people to intimidate him.
