Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Brandi Baldwin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Dr. Brandi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

As a new entrepreneur, I was so grateful when the company was ready to hire interns, contractors, and employees. It was such an exciting time, but I made many mistakes in the beginning.

Once of the things that is important for entrepreneurs and startup founders to do prior to bringing anyone on their team is to understand the various reasons why people will join your team. This was the most valuable lesson that I learned. Without having that understanding it can be frustrating and can also minimize results and waste company resources.

There are three core reasons why people will join your team. The first is the person who will be excited about your mission. This person is awesome because they will be passionate about executing on helping your company achieve its mission. The challenge, however, is that startups often have to pivot early on in order to stay profitable. For these team members, once the original mission shifts, their interest often shifts.

The second prospective team member, is the person who is excited about supporting you as a founder. They love you, your brand, what you stand for and want to be connected to anything that you are doing. The challenge with this is that once the company starts to grow and this team member can lose motivation if they’re not able to continue working closely with the founder.

The third team member is someone who loves working in their technical area of expertise. The marketing guru, the numbers person, the customer service person. The challenge, however, is that in early stage startups there are often an “all hands on deck” seasons where people need to help outside of their core area of expertise. In these cases, team members can lose motivation and interest.

Early on, I made several mistakes because I didn’t understand these very things. After understanding how to identify where people want to be and how to manage them as things change I was able to better recruit and retain candidates. It was a life saver to my business.

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

I am a bootstrapped serial entrepreneur who has never received investment over the years. I started off as an independent consultant and have since grown various consulting ventures and startups over the years. I am a mother of two and someone who has utilized my faith and personal values as a guide to being successful and being resilient through the ups and downs of business.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

During COVID all of our ventures closed because the business model was contingent upon us traveling to our clients to deliver services. I met with our team and we started white boarding ideas on how we could pivot or develop something new that would help us keep our doors open. During the meeting, we looked at the marketplace, what was “essential” at that time, and our skillset. We immediately came up with the idea to launch a diversity and inclusion firm as a spin-off to an employee-engagement firm that we previously had. Our team drafted a plan, cranked out a website within a week and launched within three weeks. It was the most lucrative launch that we’d had in five years!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As someone who got an undergraduate degree, master’s degree, and doctorate I have to unlearn many of the things that helped me become successful as a student because they didn’t translate into entrepreneurship. As a student it’s important to do months of research before you turn in a paper. As a student everything must be “perfect” before you turn in the assignment. In business, it’s the exact opposite. While research is important, you have to engage with the marketplace to get real-time data about how well your product or service is. In business all you need is an MVP to get started. Unlearning how to be a professional student is key!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.doctorbrandi.com
• Instagram: @thedoctorbrandi
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/thedoctorbrandi
• Twitter: @thedoctorbrandi
• Other: www.millennialventures.co (not dot com)

Image Credits
Kelly Klemmensen Photography