- As an entrepreneur, it's smart to ask others who are more experienced for nuggets of wisdom — right?
- Well, these nine founders actually decided to ignore the advice they received from mentors, investors, and advisors, and it turned out for the best in all their cases.
- Some common pieces of wisdom they debunked included being too young to start a successful business out of school and not being profitable enough while focusing on sustainable products.
- They also proved that you don't need VC money to grow or have to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way.
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As a startup founder, it's common wisdom to seek advice from mentors, advisors, and those who've been down the entrepreneurial path before. After all, if you're completely new to the scene, they're likely to know more — or better — than you, right?
But what if their input is, well, wrong?
Here's one example.
Ask any retail brand in 2020 about their marketing strategy, and you'll likely hear "influencer marketing" as a key component. At present, 85% of marketers spend more than $1,000 annually on partnering with influencers, with 89% saying that this kind of marketing performs better than or comparable to other channels, Mediakix reported in its 2019 "Influencer Marketing Survey."
But that wasn't always the case. Fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff told Business Insider that, during the dawn of the Instagram era in 2010 and 2011 when she started to engage with customers, influencers, and bloggers online, she was advised by many of the most prominent retailers in the world not to. "[They were] being touted as D-list celebs at the time when that industry was starting to take off," she added. Wanting to maintain a more exclusive brand image, some even threatened to stop carrying her lines if she continued.
Spoiler alert: She didn't listen. "And it has been the reason for our successes and the boilerplate for tons of other brands to see growth," said Minkoff, whose company saw 100% growth in shoe sales after her 2012 "Shoe of the Day" Instagram campaign and reported more than $100 million in annual sales in 2014. "It is now considered the absolute norm."
How do you know what advice to follow and which to ignore? Here, eight other founders share the advice they bucked and the success they've seen as a result.
'Raise money as soon as you can'
When Allison Esposito Medina founded Tech Ladies, a community for women in tech and companies that want to hire them, "Everyone [I told about the launch] told me that the only way to build a real company was to raise millions of dollars in venture capital. They said this was necessary to scale, grow, and have product-market fit," she recalled.
She instead chose to bootstrap her business, charging companies to hire from the community and charging members to be part of a more intimate group within Tech Ladies.
"What we do — growing a real, dedicated community of women in tech — doesn't need to blitzscale in that way," she explained.
Without VC funding, Esposito Medina shared, TechLadies has gained 100,000 members, helped more than 1,500 companies hire tech talent, and seen 40% year-over-year revenue growth since its founding in 2016.
"It's hard to say what may have happened with venture capital, but I've seen startups overspend on marketing budgets and do things that don't get them the right customers," she said.
Abigail Cook Stone, founder of design-forward candle brand Otherland, agrees. She knows the ins and outs of venture capital — she was an associate at Founder Collective, a seed-stage fund, and a partner at Dorm Room Fund, First Round Capital's student-run fund — but when it came to launching her own startup, she eschewed advice to raise money right away. She knew her business wasn't ready for the inevitable expectations that venture capital comes with.
"While the typical direct-to-consumer brand path is to raise venture capital from the get-go, it's not the only route," she explained. "I encourage early-stage startups to try to avoid venture capital early on, and wait until the right moment when you're ready for venture scale, pace, and growth expectations."
For her, that was a $2.7 million seed round she raised two years after launch, when the company had seen product-market fit and was planning expansion.
'People won't care about sustainable products'
Social and environmental responsibility matters to consumers today, with one study conducted by Nielsen in 2018 showing that 81% of respondents across the globe feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment, and another by Shelton Group showing that 86% of consumers believe that companies should take a stand for social issues.
But that's not what siblings Reem Rahim and Ahmed Rahim heard when they founded Numi Organic Tea, a line of organic, fair trade teas, in 1999.
"We were told that if we chose to start a business driven by ethical sourcing and a commitment to environmental responsibility, we would not achieve success," Reem Rahim recalled. "We were told that … we would forfeit profitability" as compared to traditional, profit-at-all-costs models.
Profitability wasn't their sole driving factor, so they forged ahead and built a social enterprise.
"[We] were deeply invested in creating a company that was ethical, environmentally responsible, and a force for positive change in the world," Reem Rahim explained. Numi is now classified as a B Corporation, a for-profit corporation that meets rigorous social and environmental standards.
And they've seen the success that matters to them. Business success, yes — their teas are distributed in more than 50 countries — but the company has also contributed more than $1 million in projects in its farming communities, sponsored projects like hospitals and schools, and developed innovative sustainable packaging. It's also been named to the "Best for the World" list, an award given to B Corps with outstanding positive impact scores for over four years.
"By staying true to our core values, we've been able to thrive as a company, and find recognition far and wide for our achievements," shared Rahim.
'Don't start a business straight out of undergrad'
After graduating from college, Sophia Edelstein had a job offer at a top consulting firm but was also contemplating starting her own company. When running the decision by mentors and colleagues, she said she was told that "it was too risky to start a business straight out of undergrad" and "a recent college graduate would have no idea how to begin running a business."
She had, in fact, already begun — she had raised a small financing round from Silicon Valley investors and convinced a former head of product from Warby Parker, Lee Zaro, to join the team. And she decided to keep going, ultimately launching PAIR Eyewear, an online retailer of children's eyeglasses.
While she felt "unnerved" by the concerns she received, "I also knew that the only way to learn how to run a business was by actually doing it," she explained.
That's not to say that she thought she could do it all alone. "I began PAIR with the philosophy that early on I would try to recognize exactly where we needed expert guidance and experience and try to recruit those folks to join our team," she said.
At present, PAIR now has more than $3 million in venture funding and thousands of kids wearing its glasses — and will also be featured on the upcoming season of "Shark Tank."
'Say yes to every opportunity that comes your way'
Aishwarya Iyer described her company Brightland as a "kitchen essentials brand that was founded to celebrate a traceable supply chain, thoughtful design, and California living." Launched in 2018, the company's signature product is a line of extra virgin olive oils, harvested by a master miller in a certified organic mill.
In other words, everything about the company is infused with thought and care. So, when Iyer was starting out, she said there was one piece of advice she received from the entrepreneurial community that didn't sit right: "You are a small startup, so you should just hustle and say yes to everything that comes your way."
Instead, she explained, "whenever we were approached by potential partners, retailers, etc., we always took a step back to assess whether they were aligned with our core brand DNA. It's very easy to get caught up in the noise, and we really focused on what made sense for us as a brand."
This meant saying no to a few tempting opportunities early on — such as a retail agreement with a national food company that didn't align with Brightland's values. But ultimately that was the right call.
"Months later, other better, more aligned opportunities arose that would not have, had we gone down the road of saying yes," she said. One of those partnerships? A collaboration with sweetgreen, selling a specialty olive oil in the brand's retail outposts.
'Don't try to offer too much to customers'
When Beatrice Dixon founded plant-powered feminine care company The Honey Pot Company in 2014, she had a vision for offering women a suite of products to meet all of their needs, from healthy washes and natural wipes to clean cotton tampons. But friends and potential investors alike told her that, as a small company, she should focus on creating and launching just one product, rather than investing in too many, too quickly.
"I had a gut instinct that my customers wanted more than just one product," she recalled. "I also knew as a woman that feminine care is an entire ecosystem of offerings."
Of course, as an early-stage company, it's hard to do everything at once. So she got creative. Shortly after launch, "I decided to offer third-party vendors who made other feminine care products that were complementary to my washes, and the customers went crazy over them," she explained. "We doubled our revenue online when we offered [these] additional products."
Eventually, The Honey Pot Company phased out those third-party products and now manufactures everything itself — which has brought even more success.
"The biggest win was Target reached out to us in 2016 because of our diverse range of offerings and became our first national big-box retailer," she said, noting that the company has tripled revenue since 2018.
She's taken this lesson to heart by continuing to evolve the company. "We continue to develop new products that we know our customers need and desire," she shared.
'You should spend a lot on marketing to attract clients'
Paulina Karpis founded the professional development community brunchwork out of a personal need — she wanted education that would help her succeed at work, but the investment and time commitment of an MBA didn't seem worth it. So she built a company that helps professionals in key US cities learn from the tech leaders of today, monetized by a subscription model for individuals and companies.
Analyzing what she wanted personally was her approach to marketing, too. Experts were telling her to spend money on digital ads, she remembered: When she started the company in 2016, "most consumer-facing brands raised VC capital and pumped those dollars into Facebook, Instagram, or banner ads," she shared. But, she continued, "When I analyzed my own spending habits, I realized that I only tried products that were either recommended by someone in my social circle or someone I admired. I ignored all digital ads."
So that's the approach she took — she didn't raise money and instead focused on creating an exceptional experience for members, figuring that, if done well, members would tell their friends.
"We still don't spend on [that type of] digital marketing — our members love the program and content so much that they share with their social circles," she said.
brunchwork also has a content platform and sends regular emails to engage the community, as well as constantly updates its programming based on feedback. "As a small team, we were highly receptive to our members' needs and feedback, and could iterate quickly," she explained.
It's worked — since Karpis turned brunchwork from a side hustle to her full-time gig in 2018, the company has expanded from New York to two other cities, recently launched a weekend clubhouse, and is "flooded with requests to open more cities," said Karpis.
'You need a network — cold outreach doesn't work'
When Rachel Renock left her job as an agency creative director to found the tech startup Wethos, the network she had built in her previous career didn't exactly translate, especially as a young woman and first-time founder.
This, many in the startup world told her, was a problem. "I received a lot of advice that cold outreach to investors was a dead end," she said.
But she tried anyway. "I made it my job to get in front of 117 target funds, and ultimately raised a $1.1 million seed round from folks that had been complete strangers to us only six months prior," she stated.
Things have only continued to build from there. "With the validation of our seed round and angel investors like Fabio Rosati (the former CEO of Upwork), our cold outreach approach to out-of-network contacts has led to a total of $4.6 million in venture funding to date."
The company, which builds teams of marketing and creative experts for brands, nonprofits, and political campaigns, has 18 full-time employees and more than 4,500 freelancers in all 50 US states.
Now, Renock makes sure to pay it forward. "Knowing how difficult it is for emerging founders to navigate the tech jargon and 'invite only' atmosphere of venture capital, I've ignored related advice to keep my contacts and playbook close to my chest," she explained. "I carve out time each month to transparently share tools, templates, and strategies with folks from underrepresented backgrounds who are just starting their fundraising journey."
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