After I finished my studies I was lucky enough to get an internship at one of South Africa’s largest commerce companies called kalahari/takealot its the Amazon of our country I learned so much about digital marketing and eventually specialists in SEO I then moved to a company called travelstart and worked there for a year and working with google and fixing sites to improve their search rankings I was helping my company bring in millions I sales and yet I wasn’t benefiting much from the improved performance so I thought since this skill is pretty handy and recruiters would always message me on LinkedIn with offers why not try my hand starting my own business in 2016
So I went to a few job interviews and pitched them me working as a contractor and I was able to win 2 clients while working out my months notice! I left my job with 2 clients and began work and then hunting for new clients! My manager at my previous job quit a month later and joined me in the new venture and in 2 months we had 5 clients! We did not take a salary for the first 3 months until we had enough capital to support ourselves we later signed up a few more clients to become self sustainable
We then started our website that offered free marketing advice for digital marketers and how to’s for small business owners wanting to take advantage of digital and the website began to grow! So much so that we were featured on national TV and won South Africa’s best business blog of 2017
While servicing clients we found a lot of pain points and decided to build an SEO tool for small businesses which we hoping to launch this year! It’s b be a fun ride so far and enjoying every moment of it
Wow, what an incredible journey!! How cool that you learned such a valuable skill from your employer, and then realized you were making THEM tons of money. It’s so cool to hear that you took a risk and jumped out on your own with only two clients, but it has obviously paid off! Congrats on winning South Africa as best business blog last year. That is a huge achievement! Especially considering that you only started your business in 2016.
Thank you so much for sharing your story. It was so inspirational!
Well that’s the summary that I can share there were quit a bit of ups and downs a long the way! Lost money, lost clients, clients that didn’t pay but it’s all part of the journey and you learn everyday!
You can only learn by doing it’s all trail and error and there’s no set formula or way to do thing, in fact it’s better to try making your own way that way you come with innovative new ways of doing things instead of being held back by preconceived ideas! There’s also an element of luck involved I have to admit!
Your post caught my eye because it’s something I’d like to do myself! I actually started steemit because I wanted to earn a side income and build an audience so I could start an entrepreneurs podcast where we can share our stories!
Ooh that’s a great idea for a podcast. Have you ever listened to “side hustle school? It is a daily podcast where he share stories of people who are doing side income generating projects. The point is not necessarily for full-time entrepreneurs, but for people, like me, who are still working a day job, but want to create additional income.
He does not actually have the people on the show, and the episodes are usually less than 10 minutes. It is really interesting to hear peoples ideas, but it would be fun for a podcast to actually interview the person on a longer segment to hear more of the details of their success. :-)
No I haven’t, but on your recommendation I’ll give it a listen I’m always open to new ideas and ways of innovating it’s how we create value and remain competitive
I’m also always looking for ways to diversify income! At the moment I work on clients sites, my blog brings in income via ads, I invest in stocks and other financial instruments, into crypto and I do workshops training peopl in digital marketing and writing for the web
Yeah I’m looking at a 1 or 2 hour informal chat about business, start up stories, side hustles, promoting new business etc! Not just from the owner but employees too! I’d like to get into all the untold stories normally never spoken about as I feel there’s a wealth of info that employees sit on because they don’t have a platform to share it on!
When I do start the show I’ll tag you in the first episode and hopefully get you on as a guest too
Your podcast idea sounds awesome! I like the idea of telling the untold stories. Definitely tag me on your first episode so I can listen!