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

Rashad, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

My biggest struggle when I first started my entrepreneurial journey was my lack of knowledge and experience in business. Days and weeks went by with me being absolutely lost. I vividly remember thinking to myself, “what am I supposed to be doing today” and “what is missing that is keeping me from progressing further”.

The turning point for me was a strike of luck thanks to a friend. I was randomly browsing Facebook one day and stumbled upon a post from a friend where she shared that she helped a local restaurant grow their sales by 20% and grow their instagram by an extra 1000 followers.

“Bingo!” A light bulb went off in my head, and I said to myself, “that’s what I’m missing.” If I learn the skills she had to grow that restaurant’s revenue by 20%, then I could grow my own revenue by 20%. I had to admit to myself that I lacked the skill of “making money”. I did not know how to attract customers and close sales.

I hoped on a Zoom call with her and learned that she had a degree in marketing. Immediately I dedicated the next 3 months to learning everything I could about sales and marketing. I found a few great marketing blogs like DigitalMarketer.com and Backlinko.com. I bought a ton of books, attended webinars, seminars, and joined several sales and marketing related online groups.

After a while, a lot of the content I was consuming started to repeat itself. I hoped on another Zoom call with my marketing friend to share what I had learned, and she gave me the stamp of approval that I finally understood marketing.

If I had to come up with five things I’d do differently it’d be:

1. Hire a business coach before quitting my job or meet with entrepreneurship advisors at business resource centers in my city like the SCORE program.
2. Read books and take courses on sales & marketing.
3. Interview leaders from each department of my job before quitting the company in order to learn how each department functions and how they’re all connected.
4. Start networking and building relationships sooner rather than later.
5. Build an audience on social media, YouTube, or a newsletter sooner rather than later.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a web designer and app developer. I run a web design and app development agency called Beyond Light Creations. I majored in Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and worked at several tech companies before starting my entrepreneurial journey; most notably Yahoo and Eventbrite.

Early in my career I immersed myself in the tech industry by interning at several tech companies in Silicon Valley. A lot of my friends who I went to college with still work in Silicon Valley or in other major tech cities and some of the biggest tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, etc.

I first got started in tech in high school by way of my interest in entrepreneurship. I knew I wanted to start my own company someday, but in particular in tech. My first idea was to start a video game company because I was a heavy gamer at the time.

Then I wanted to start an internet company because of the buzz in Silicon Valley start to creep into pop culture covering the new emerging trend of these young CEOs founding these billion-dollar companies like Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, the founders of YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify.

In Spring 2009 as a 14 year-old sophomore in high school, I decided to start teaching myself how to code by reading a book on how to build websites. The rest is history.

Nowadays, aside from running my agency, I am building a new app called AcmeBuilder. AcmeBuilder is a website building platform that allows anyone to easily setup a website.

My goal is to build a platform that will make setting up a website as easy as setting up a social media page. Likewise, I want to build a platform that will make it easy for other web design freelancers and agency owners to easily manage projects for their clients.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

My biggest projects and opportunities have come through referrals. The strongest validation a potential client has in entrusting a service provider with their money is when that service provider comes recommended by a friend or someone they respect endorsement.

Referrals can come from friends, family, past co-workers, people you meet at events, and other networking circles. I’m sure this resonates with every new entrepreneur, especially service-oriented entrepreneurs; their first question is “how do I get clients and customers.” And whenever a more established entrepreneur told me, “referrals”, I assumed it was luck. Early-on I associated referrals with luck or something I couldn’t control because I did not have a large audience or network.

However, I learned a trick from a successful salesperson who told me referrals don’t have to be random luck. You can intentionally increase your volume of referrals by building a referral network.

Identify who would be the best referral partner for you, identify what events they go-to, and identify what social media groups they hangout in. Ask them if they would be interested in being a referral partner.

You can grow a successful business with just ten solid partners, but some businesses have amassed over a hundred partners. Chasing partnerships could be more profitable than chasing clients because one partner could send you multiple clients.

While I am in my early stages of growing AcmeBuilder, I am attending more networking events, and reaching out to prospective partners to discover how we could form mutually beneficial relationship.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I view entrepreneurship as a collection of skills. There are 5 skills you need to master to be a successful entrepreneur: sales, marketing, product development, operations, and finance. I’ve read several books on business, applied what I’ve learned, and assessed what works and what doesn’t. I’ve also had plenty of conversations with millionaire entrepreneurs asking what was the turning-point in their business.

I recommend reading one or two books on each of these five topics or indulge in some other form of learning whether it be buying an online course, attending a seminar, or reading blogs.

A business makes money two ways and two ways only: sales & marketing; so, I would push further and say you should spend the most time learning sales, marketing, and also product development because you need a product to sell.

For sales, my top three books are “$100M Offers” by Alex Hormozi, “Cold Calling Techniques” by Stephan Schiffman, and “Million Dollar Consulting” by Alan Weiss.

For marketing I recommend “Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth” by Justin Mares and Gabriel Weinberg; “Traffic Secrets” by Russell Brunson, and the entire DigitalMarketer.com blog by Ryan Deiss.

Read “The Lean Startup” by Eric Reis to learn product development.

Read “The E-Myth” by Michael E. Gerber to learn about business operations.

I don’t have a recommendation for business finance. I took personal finance classes in school, listened to a lot of Dave Ramsey over the years, and have been good with not overspending.

This is an area where I am still learning, and might be a never-ending cycle. I think the first finance lesson for early entrepreneurs is learning personal finance. If you can’t properly manage your personal finances, then you won’t manage a businesses finances either.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beyondlightcreations.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamrashadrussell/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamrashadrussell/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashadrussell/
• Other: https://acmebuilder.xyz

Image Credits

Rashad Russell – Founder of Beyond Light Creations