Hooked On Startups

In this episode I speak to Connor Gillivan – a 27 year old serial entrepreneur who started his first drop-shipping company out of his dorm room at Quinnipiac University building it to over $20 million of sales on Amazon.com in just 4 years. After becoming an expert at hiring, he co-founded FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace bringing together the top 1% of freelancers with growing businesses. He is also the owner of ConnorGillivan.com, where he writes about entrepreneurship and eCommerce.

1:25 - Background information on Connor and how he started his first business.

2:33 - How Connor got started in his business with his business partner.

3:44 - Some of the obstacles in their business early on.

5:30 - What motivated Connor to continue on in the business and not give up; whose advice he sought.

7:06 - Being accepting of advice from mentors.

8:09 - Recognizing and cultivating a long-term vision while still being focused on issues at hand.

9:56 - What mentoring advice he would give himself now if he could go back and talk with himself two months into the business.

11:47 - Expanding the business into dropshipping and learning about that side of the industry.

13:29 - Starting a cash-flow positive business versus starting out without any profit.

16:42 - Challenges that still exist in dropshipping and ways to get started.

22:07 - The most effective way Connor has found to test a business and advertise through social media.

23:18 - Background on Connor's book, Free Up Your Business.

27:20 - Information on Connor's venture, FreeeUp and improving on the online freelancing marketplace.

30:11 - The pain point that FreeeUp is solving.

31:53 - Approaching growth in his various businesses and applying that to other businesses.

33:50 - Connor's view on the importance of a financial plan and how to approach changing circumstances.

35:25 - Story from FreeeUp about staying diversified and how that led to growth.

38:24 - What's next for Connor and he's looking into diversification to continue growing into different markets.

39:48 - Background on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service.

40:36 - Connor's view for his large scale goals.

42:06 - How his entry to e-commerce is comparable to the online hiring industry now and being driven by empowering other people.

Resources and Links Mentioned:

Free Up Your Business by Connor Gillivan

Amazon's Mechanical Turk service

https://freeeup.com/

http://connorgillivan.com/

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