We were lucky to catch up with Komal Shah Kapoor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Komal, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

While interacting with students at Pepperdine, I realized how curious they were about different careers! For me, teaching applied courses meant bringing real-life experiences into the classroom through hands-on projects, case studies and guest speakers. It was always fun to come up with projects and easy to discuss case studies but it was incredibly tedious cold-messaging on LinkedIn to find experts to come to my classroom.

I also discovered that educators everywhere were dealing with the exact same issue. Departments in big or small colleges had ZERO budget to pay guest speakers and in this process, the students suffered. I wondered how much harder it would be for first-generation students with no mentorship at all. It was this insight that prompted me to create SpeakerPost.com!

SpeakerPost works because it is FREE. It works because it’s not just a platform, it’s a community of folks who believe in paying it forward. It works because there is something in it for everybody: Interacting with students, giving back to academia, personal branding opportunities, and sometimes, a paid engagement! What excites me is in the process, we are able to touch the lives of students in wonderful ways!

Komal, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Komal Shah Kapoor. I am a social impact entrepreneur and a girl on a mission. After graduate school and 10+ years of working in the media and marketing in New York, I found my way back to academia in Los Angeles. While teaching college-level classes, I realized that there needed to be a better bridge between academia and industry so I created SpeakerPost.com. This is a free global platform where educators could find and invite industry guest speakers to their classroom to share their work experiences with students.

In the last few years, the SpeakerPost community has helped hundreds of students across the world shape their career journeys. We’ve organized career panels, mentored youth and inspired students across the world. We have also shared our subject matter expertise on college campuses where our industry is nascent and collaborated with industry and academic experts globally! All for free.

This year, I also launched ‘1000 Spotlights: Why We Give’ magazine that features folks donating time or money to socio-economic and academic causes. The thinking behind this initiative was that when people read inspiring stories, they choose to give back in their own little way and as a society, we all become better people. Through this magazine, I have met some amazing people and this has had a profound impact on my everyday life. This magazine has been a successful endeavor – Turns out most people intend to do good and are often finding ways to give back!

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

In 2017, I was working full time as an educator at the prestigious Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and part-time at UCLA-X’s high school to college pathway for underserved youth. Academia was a welcome change as I had spent many years in the corporate workforce before that. Teaching was an enjoyable experience, and satisfying especially when working with first-generation students.

That said, I have always had an ideating mind and an entrepreneurial spirit. I wanted to do more, leave my mark on the world, and make a difference in the lives of students everywhere. It was around then that I launched a side gig – a social impact platform called SpeakerPost.

Over a few years, the public interest in the platform grew, and I realized that I was the happiest when I was working with SpeakerPost community members. I was encouraged to apply for a tenure-track position at Pepperdine which I eventually declined. That’s when my side hustle turned into a full-time career.

As a serial entrepreneur, I had learned a few things from my past experiences – Social impact businesses need a lot of heart. Get free publicity. Build a community and trust. Be comfortable with failure. Aim for a critical mass. Find ways to monetize a free platform but have a lot of patience. Most importantly, don’t give up.

The road has not been easy but it has been a meaningful journey. In the last three years, technology on the SpeakerPost platform has improved significantly. What started as a local Los Angeles footprint is now global with college and high school guest speaking requests from many parts of the world. Our member base has grown multifold.

In the last two years, we had two successful additions: The mentorship initiative for at-risk youth and the career panels program! We also launched the 1000 Spotlights speaker bureau to keep the lights on at SpeakerPost.com. This year, we introduced the 1000 Spotlights magazine and LinkedIn newsletter, both of which have positively benefited the SpeakerPost community, and indirectly, students!

Given that SpeakerPost was launched in the middle of a pandemic and with no external funding, I think we’ve come pretty far. As SpeakerPost continues to grow, I anticipate that funding and sponsorships would be the logical next milestone in the next 12-18 months.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I had to work hard to build my audience on social media. I also had to be quite patient and deliberate. My platform of choice was LinkedIn because that’s where I found most people who believe in the guest speaker method of teaching.

What I have seen in my work is that you can be visible by empowering others around you. I think of mentorship and relationship-building as a two-way street. You help others, they help you. You help them build their personal brands and they will help you build yours.

When I am doing something good and giving back to society, I find a way to put it out there. In my posts, I tag others who were involved, as that’s how some of these social media algorithms work. When others are doing cool stuff, I celebrate them by sharing their posts which inspires my followers to do their bit.

To be visible in your career or business, I believe one should focus on building trust and credibility. Personally, I work toward being authentic and interesting.

My one advice to anyone starting to build their social media presence is to choose the platform where their audience is. In terms of platform strategy, I would suggest that you be very focused, don’t be afraid to try out new things but be audience-centered.

I also think that to build an online presence, one should have expertise in a specific field and then market those skills! YOU are a brand and you have to build a positive presence by being recognized in your field, positioning yourself as an expert and seizing opportunities to talk about your work – all while being humble!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.speakerpost.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/speakerpost/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/komalskapoor/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpeakerPost
• Other: www.1000spotlights.com