We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Xavier Vallhonrat a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Xavier, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

I personally really enjoy having a family business. Sure it can be challenging at times. but for me it’s a rewarding experience being able to work with family. The biggest pitfall of having a family based business, for me, is family not respecting your role. No one sees you as the boss, they see you as Brother, Husband etc.. instead of President and CEO. This unfortunately can be a deal breaker with some family members who can not respect your role as the leader of the business and not Uncle X. On the flip side, having a family that respects you and lets you lead can help you to see your blind side and things you may overlook in a loving way that can really help your business shine.

I really enjoy the flexibility it affords me. The ability to be able to work around my family’s schedule or work from different locations is super convenient as well.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My obsession with technology started when I was young, playing Nintendo as a kid. As I got older and PC’s became more accessible I was fascinated on how they worked. When my father purchased our first home computer it was everything. From gaming to using email for the first time to building my first website in freshman year of high school.

As a kid I loved to draw and create artwork. You could catch me on the floor with a drawing pad and pencils sketching. Fortunately I was able to blend both of my early interests into a career. At the age of 23 after working with other companies and going to school to get my IT certifications I started Microhound.

My goal was to create value with the services we offer. Microhound embodies the underdog, the small business owner. That’s who we are as a company, a small nimble family based web design agency. Not the big dog agency.

We have been extremely fortunate to be profitable every year for the past 16 years. Our focus is small business and nonprofits, website development and marketing. We pass the savings from our team working remotely to our customers. Compared to other local agencies our prices tend to be more than 75% less.

Our most common services we implement are Website Design and Development, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Management and Logo Design.

At this point in our journey as a small business, we are looking for partnerships instead of customers per say. We want to get to know you and your business on a personal level, so we can help create amazing digital experiences, when customers land on your website we want them to be impressed.

We don’t have paid advertisements as a business, and new customers are from word of mouth, and our Search Engine Optimizations strategies.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Search Engine Optimization has been an amazing source for new clients. One reason its so easy to “sell” customers on SEO is because it flat out works!

Having content created every month targeting the local cities, and or services and being consistent month after month can have an enormous impact on bring in new customers.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I think communication, empathy and deadlines are a big. Managing a team can be challenging, we have a team of 9 and what has worked for me is first, keeping the communication open. Listen to your team, be there for them by just listening to their problems can help to build trust and loyalty. Showing empathy and not taking out your anger on your team is critical. We have all had that Boss who is just an asshole, I try my best to never be that type of leader who rules by fear and intimidation. There are times to reprimand and warn the team if there not doing things correctly, but always with respect. And the final piece of advice is giving random bonuses can really help with morale. Incentives, lunch bonuses, and little gifts can mean a whole lot to the team. I try to save a portion (give or take 6%) of all our net profit into a bonus account that we use to give back to the team.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.microhound.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/microhound/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/microhound/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xavier-vallhonrat-a670a945
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0HEUKRXnZvBObaV6EnnZIQ/videos
• Other: https://g.page/r/CWmN-ORQENuTEBM/