We were lucky to catch up with Lani Rosales recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lani, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.
In 1981, I was born to two very young parents – an accident, which they never brought up or punished us for.
You may not realize it, but that sentence packs a LOT of information, for example, you now know I’m an elder millennial on the verge of a Gen Xer, that my folks were pretty light hearted, and as you suspected, there was a shotgun wedding.
For many of my formative years, it was just Dad raising us, and the best way to describe him is a gifted artist who is also black belt in karate and whose bookshelves were filled with biographies on despots, alongside Tolkien and McMurtry. A brilliant wild child, if you will.
Despite his affinity for the arts and constant reading, fart jokes reigned supreme in our home. And despite being a “broken” home where he sometimes skipped meals because he “wasn’t hungry,” we were happy and well adjusted kiddos.
There wasn’t much coddling in our home, but there was strong affirmation for anything that proved you were self reliant. While that can hurt a marriage in adulthood when someone thinks you never need them, it does become a superpower when you own a business, because you bust *ss constantly no matter what, and you don’t wait for help or pray for an answer, you just go do it.
I have a strong memory of asking at age four, “Dad, how do you spell ‘sophisticated’?” and his answer was “go look it up.”
He never pushed us into any extra curricular events, but we did always fill our summers with camps, and filled the school year with countless endeavors. We were allowed to explore without pressure or boundaries.
Dad always assured us that we were no better than anyone else and that we’re all just skin and bones.
When you combine all of these parenting angles into one umbrella, you find the perfect recipe for entrepreneurship, with self reliance, a drive to stay curious and “go look it up,” no matter how small the detail is. My personal super power comes from my father’s insistence that we were superior to NO ONE – it accidentally taught me that if we’re all skin and bones, no one is really intimidating, and there’s no reason to focus on the intangibles since we’re all equal as non-robot humans.
Dad isn’t an entrepreneur, but his parenting sure as hell lent to ME becoming one!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Because my childhood caretaker during the day was my grandmother who was teaching dyslexic adults in her garage, I read the entire Nancy Drew series before kindergarten and was a published poet by age four.
At the core, I’m a writer and would love to turn off the internet and bang out novels on a typewriter, and my husband who started our business in 2006 always knew that, and crafted a corner for me to occupy as a writer. From there, I took on many other marketing tasks, and eventually, co-ownership of the brand.
He started the company to fill a gap in the market, and it has blossomed from a one person blog to a full-fledged national news network (TheAmericanGenius.com & TheRealDaily.com) that also offers vibrant communities (Big *ss Social Happy Hour, Austin Digital Jobs, and Remote Digital Jobs).
What everything in the network has in common is a deep desire to improve one’s standing either professionally or as a business owner, and we work hard to diversify viewpoints to meet people where they are at any given time in their career.
We’re really proud of serving, and we’re extremely protective of our community, which is why 90% of advertisers that approach us are turned away – we have worked hard to vet any potential partner, and while that’s a terrible business move, we sleep well at night knowing we’re serving people with sincerity!
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
Like many thriving businesses today, ours started out as a side hustle that eventually dominated our time and actually began making more money than our day jobs.
That’s not unique.
What is unique is that because we served a niche market at a very opportune time, we didn’t have a sales program, we literally had ad partners reaching out to US, funding all of our initial capital needs.
That was 16 years ago, and everything has changed since then. Like any business, we’ve sought out additional capital, especially during more dry times.
We’ve had really good experiences, but mostly bad experiences when it comes to capital:
1. BAD: Investors. We’ve had several investors poke around and hope for a piece of this pie, but giving up even a percentage of ownership or decision making power over our brand has never been an option for us.
2. GOOD: PayPal. For companies that do a lot of business through PayPal, they have a business credit card with really fair rates, but they also have “working capital loans.” This has been a life saver before for us. Their terms aren’t credit based, they’re based on the volume and frequency of business you do on PayPal, then if approved (which is easy and takes 30 seconds), you’re offered three amounts to choose from, and the higher the amount, the more they’ll automatically take from your sales until it’s paid off. There’s a fee, and an easy to reach monthly repayment minimum, but no interest. Phenomenal funding option.
3. BAD: Loans. So many business loans have hidden fees, rates that shift (despite literature assuring that never happens), poor customer support (call centers offshore), and accelerated due dates. We had one small business loan through a company wherein our autopay was messed up (I entered a digit incorrectly), so the payment was “missed,” and 7 days later and 0 emails later, they called the entire loan due. A small legal battle ensued, we lost, they screwed us.
4. GOOD: During COVID, the SBA offered emergency loans (EIDL) and that worked out quite well for us. That opportunity probably won’t come again.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
While I’d love to talk about empowering all team members to make decisions, that’s not very unique in the entrepreneurial world.
Instead, I’ll share with you a tiny quip that has had an immense ripple effect in our company… Brené Brown says, “clarity is kind,” which around here we’ve adopted as a core tenant and evolved into “clarity is kindness.” Simply. Easy. Effective.
It’s such a tiny mind shift, but for a team of independent thinkers who are all extremely self reliant, it is endlessly helpful. Most of us naturally rush off to execute, and while that is admirable, it doesn’t lend well to team cohesion.
On the other end of the spectrum, corporations tend to over communicate and play office by hosting endless meetings that could be emails, a luxury that entrepreneurs simply cannot afford.
So how does one find the middle ground and manage effectively?
Communicate.
When I’m starting a project, I send an extremely concise note to applicable team members sharing what I’m doing, what they can expect, and timing. In the past, we would all just start projects and plow through them.
When someone is shifting strategy, they share that info. When another is doubting a move, they share that info. When someone is feeling down, they share that info.
It’s always done respectfully and concisely, but remembering that clarity is kindness helps folks to pause, evaluate, and include others, instead of assuming everyone already knows OR that they’re imposing by adding another email or Slack message to the pile.
Clarity is kindness.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://theamericangenius.com/about
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/lanirosales
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laniar/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanirosales/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/laniar