We recently connected with LaTecia Johnson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, LaTecia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One thing we always find fascinating is how differently entrepreneurs think about revenue growth and cost reductions – both can be powerful ways to improve profitability. What do you spend more of your time and energy on?

Both. That’s probably not the answer that you typically receive, but it’s true. I’ve spent a good portion of my career as a Revenue Operations and Strategy consultant, telling businesses how to be fiscally responsible with their revenue while also developing strategies that enable them to increase their revenue. In my current role as Head of Growth for a startup, that’s my primary focus: growing revenue while also ensuring that my team delivers results at cost. We’re in the midst of a time as founders and entrepreneurs where being cash-positive and also hyper-aware of how you’re spending can only be a good thing. I think it’s a lot easier to focus on this when you’re bootstrapping because you just don’t have a choice – the goal is to get to revenue as quickly as possible so that expenditures don’t sink you before you start. I bootstrapped my first company, Visionary Rising, from zero to six figures within a relatively short period – I think something like 6-months. Service businesses as fickle though, so when COVID came, I went through another down period. Because we’d been fiscally responsible and focused on revenue leading up to that point, I was able to accelerate our growth once a clear plan emerged, and in 2021, we hit 7 figures while other agencies were shutting down, we were just hitting our stride.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

These questions are always tough for me because I’ve done a lot of things throughout my career. I guess the easiest way to tell the story is that I’m pretty good at a lot of things but always lacked the focus to lean into THE thing. I did a lot of things out of necessity and tended to just go with the flow, but in 2016, I asked myself “Since you’ve done a lot of things out of necessity, can you imagine what would happen if you applied that to the things you want?”, and I haven’t looked back from that moment to this one. So, here it is – the fancy bio – I’m a senior entertainment & technology executive and entrepreneur at the intersection of culture, community, and creativity. As Founder of Visionary Rising (VSNRY) – a hybrid consultancy and creative studio for startups and brands – I’ve been focused on developing strategies that drive revenue for our clients through insightful design and high-converting campaigns.

My career has included stints at Fortune 100 companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Nielsen Media, as well as high-growth startups such as Decent Labs, A Cloud Guru, FORMLESS, and more. I was an early team member at Royal, a platform that enables artists to sell revenue from streams directly to fans, where I delivered category-defining activations for global acts such as Nas, Diplo, The Chainsmokers, and Royce 5’9” while championing campaigns for rising artists Yemi Alade, and 27Delly. In addition, I spearheaded strategies to drive creator-aligned incentives, educating artists, managers, distributors, and label teams on engagement and, leading the charge on agency partnerships.

In the last few years, I’ve focused my attention on working with partners that are championing a more integrated ecosystem that positions creators and founders at the forefront through the development of tools, resources, and strategies where they can monetize their audience directly, retain ownership of their intellectual property, and benefit through authentic partnerships with brands.

Have you ever had to pivot?

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’d better get used to pivoting. That’s some advice that I received pretty early in my career and something that has stuck with me as I’ve continued to expand – I think the most recent example of a pivot occurred in 2020. I’ll preface this by saying that our team had a very solid expansion plan in the works with plans to expand to Toronto and London that year via a series of in-market events with our partners. We’d also planned a pretty epic party at a conference to launch the initiative and were all systems go until the conference was canceled and the world shut down shortly after.

I think about this time often because I had to shut down my agency for a few weeks and I remember telling my team that I had no idea what we would do, but that I would call them in six weeks to either tell them the new plan or let them know that we’d given it a great run, but I would close the agency. I honestly had no clue what to do next, but I decided to listen. I went to every discussion that I could find, was on calls with clients for hours talking through strategies, and after the shock wore off, a small glimmer of hope started to emerge because there was a clear trend emerging through the conversations I was having and it was this: so often, companies get bombarded with consultants who develop strategies that they can’t execute because they simply don’t have the time. I started asking clients what they would do if they had a partner who could execute it for them and 100% of our clients agreed to go in this new direction with us- that’s when the Visionary Rising that exists today was born. We pivoted quickly to deliver both consultancy and growth tactics to our clients, then added in design and strategy to provide a total view of the things businesses need when they are focused on scale.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I’m the queen of building your leverage and jumping when you’re ready. I was building my side hustle for 5 years while also pursuing my career in tech. I sought out roles that I knew would supplement the business I wanted to build: who else to advise you on your growth strategy than someone who has scaled multiple companies to tens of millions in revenue? Executing at a high level meant that I had to operate the business during my off hours, grow the team, learn to delegate, and stay focused on the goal. I started Visionary Rising because I wanted the freedom and flexibility to pursue the types of projects that excited me without limiting my reach – having the stability of a full-time role meant I could take more risks with the business as I grew. Our initial offer in 2016 was $1,500 – and I remember when I closed my first $100K deal, then another, and started to realize that the side hustle was transitioning to the full thing and I owed myself the clarity that comes from not being divided. That was a key milestone for me: understanding that large companies wanted to. work with us and were willing to pay for that exclusivity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.visionaryrising.agency
• Instagram: instagram.com/lateciarising
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/lateciajohnson
• Twitter: twitter.com/lateciarising

Image Credits
LaTecia Johnson