When Rand Fishkin accidentally stumbled upon the software model in 2007, his rocket ship of success grew from zero to $30 million in revenue and millions of visitors, yet the challenge of selling his product in the early days of SaaS software was anything but easy.

You will learn how entrepreneurs built their path to success and the software products they used to help them get there.

Rand Fishkin is the founder of MOZ and SparkToro, two successful companies in the SEO and digital marketing industry. He has been involved in the SEO industry for over 15 years and is known for his transparent and genuine approach to business.

Rand Fishkin was never good at running an agency, so when he and his partner stumbled on the idea of a software product and put up a Paypal paywall, it took off like a rocket ship. Interestingly, venture capitalists didn't believe in the idea of self-service software, but Fishkin's years of blogging enabled him to provide a discovery model for customers that was successful. By 2014, the company was worth $30 million and had 180 people on the team. Today, Spark Toro offers audience research, but the challenge lies in explaining to customers how to use it as they are not familiar with the problem.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How do marketers discover an audience without having to resort to illegal and unethical tactics?

2. What techniques can marketers use to gain valuable audience research data?

3. How can businesses use dark traffic and personal referrals to increase brand awareness?

Resources:

https://sparktoro.com

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

Dan Kirby battles his own physiology and mental health issues to embrace the Wim Hof cold shower method, unlocking his full potential and a newfound sense of focus and discipline. You will learn how to use Wim Hof's argument of temperature equilibrium, music as a mental break, and Ray Dalio's principles of success to achieve success.

Dan Kirby is an entrepreneur and DJ from Bakewell in Darbyshire who has been using the Wim Hof method to reset his mental health and stress levels. He is also an avid vinyl collector and music enthusiast, and has a SoundCloud account where he posts his mixes.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. The Benefits of Cold Shower Therapy: Discover how taking cold showers can reset your physiology and mental health and the process of getting into a cold shower.

2. The Power of Music & Movement: Understand the value of taking breaks and how incorporating music and movement into your daily routine can help you focus.

3. Ray Dalio's Principles: Learn how Ray Dalio's book Principles was created and the importance of generous impulses and reciprocal relationships.

Resources:

Dan's LinkedIn

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

At first glance, it might seem like getting as many connections as possible is the key to success on LinkedIn. However, having lots of connections won’t necessarily help you engage your audience. In fact, it might even have the opposite effect. Here are some tips from Mark Williams — aka “Mr. LinkedIn”— on how to get the most out of your LinkedIn presence and create meaningful engagement with your followers. 

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. Connect with more people by understanding how to gain engagement on LinkedIn
2. Increase your LinkedIn engagement by creating interesting, authentic, and engaging content
3. Boost your professional image and career growth by increasing your LinkedIn followers

Resources:

Mark's LinkedIn

www.linkedinformed.com

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

Glenn O'Grady is an experienced IT project manager and business analyst from Australia who has been living in the UK for over 20 years. He is the founder of a successful software development consultancy that has grown significantly through referrals and a blended rate card.

Glenn was an Australian who decided to set off and explore the world when he was 21. He ended up staying in the UK and eventually started his own business after becoming fed up of living out of a backpack and wanting to set down some roots. After working with a modernizer in tech, Clifton, he gathered the experience and knowledge necessary to start his own business and was fortunate enough to be able to recruit a team of excellent developers. With his knowledge of the market, transparency, ethics and competitive prices, Glenn was able to grow his business by referral and eventually became successful.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How Glenn O'Grady decided to start a business after 20 years of living in the UK as a backpacker and freelancer.

2. How he and his business partner crossed the chasm from freelancer to business owners and started to scale.

3. How they grew their business using referrals and a system of understanding their client's needs, pricing points, and hiring high quality developers.

Resources:

Glenn’s Website

Glenn’s LinkedIn

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

Katie Street shares her do's and don'ts of being an agency leader and entrepreneur today, revealing her own journey from a difficult start to the top of the sales world.

Katie Street is a business marketing expert with over 20 years of experience in the industry. She has worked in sales and marketing for both big and small brands, and is passionate about helping businesses grow and succeed.

This is Katie Street's story...

Katie Street has always worked in sales and marketing, and she's good at it. She's been successful because she's not afraid to take action and she's always believed in the products she's sold. When she was younger, she had to be brave to get by, living in a hostel and working to support herself. She started her career in advertising, working her way up to bigger and better things. Now she uses her experience to help other entrepreneurs and salespeople be successful.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How Katie went from working in a call center to becoming the top salesperson at a major magazine publisher

2. How Katie’s background in sales and marketing helps her be successful as an entrepreneur

3. How Katie’s unique approach to sales and marketing generates leads and closes deals

Resources:

[email protected]

https://street.agency/ 

https://linktr.ee/street.agency

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/streetagency

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

Why do we need to learn from our mistakes?

Leon Milns is the founder of Adam, a business that helps ambitious businesses find great people. Milns has over 20 years of experience in the recruiting industry, and has used his experience to build Adam into a successful business.

This is Leon Milns's story...

I am Leon Milns, the founder of Adam, a business that helps ambitious businesses find great people. I got my start in the industry over 20 years ago, working for Michael Page. I learned a lot during my time there, including discipline, hard work, and how to treat people well. I left Michael Page to start Adam with two other partners. Unfortunately, after a few years, it became clear that one of the partners wasn't aligned with the direction we were going. We had to exit one of our partners, which was a challenge, but we were able to overcome it and the business is now better for it. I've learned that the market is always changing and that as an entrepreneur, you have to be prepared for anything.

We’ve all heard the saying, “You learn more from your mistakes than you do from your successes.” That’s especially true when it comes to running a business. Every successful entrepreneur will tell you that it takes hard work and dedication, but also that it’s important to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

No one likes making mistakes but they are an inevitable part of running a successful business venture. The key is learning how to handle those mistakes in a safe environment while also planning for worst case scenarios, should anything unexpected occur along the way. With advice from experienced entrepreneurs like Leon Milns, these tips will help ensure that your business stays afloat no matter what happens! Planning ahead helps reduce stress when something does eventually go wrong – don’t forget about this simple yet powerful tip! Knowing when and how to learn from our mistakes can ultimately lead us down the path of success as entrepreneurs.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How to get started in your business

2. What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur

3. The importance of planning for the worst case scenario

Resources

[email protected]

Leon Milns' Linkedin

www.weareadam.com

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

If entrepreneurs and business owners are after Inspiration, Imagination, and Uniqueness, then they have to check out this episode. This episode goes through the solution so that they can get the Inspiration, Imagination, and Uniqueness they are looking for.

"Rather than see that as a problem, yeah, I think we said, let's embrace that on the basis that we're going to go into this questioning all the norms. We're not going to be anchored to any kind of approach. We're going to be very fresh and different in the way we do it, because we're doing it from the perspective of what makes sense, what feels right, not what does the industry do." - Damian Horner

Damian Horner is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant who has worked in advertising, creative hot shops, book publishing, and the finance industry. He is the founder of Real Vision, a video channel for the finance industry which has over a million subscribers worldwide.

This is Damian Horner's story...

Damian Horner is an entrepreneur who has had a variety of careers, including working in advertising, writing a book, consulting, developing a mobile game, and starting a video channel for the finance industry. He attributes his success to his eagerness to learn new things and approach problems from a fresh perspective, not an industry norm. He believes that when creating content, it is important to add value beyond the content itself to stand out in the crowd. He encourages others to think creatively and tap into the power of personality and emotion for success. He has gone from 342 subscribers to a million, proving that hard work and dedication can pay off.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How Damian Horner approaches business problems from an unconventional perspective, embracing ignorance and questioning norms.

2. The importance of adding value beyond content to stand out in a saturated content market.

3. The underestimated power of personality and emotion in professional communication.

Resources
Damianhorner.com

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

Selling your business is tough. There is lots to consider both in your business and in yourself. Garret Turley has personally exited his business and helped multiple other do the same very successfully. In this episode he walks you through many of the things that he has learned.

Here is Garret’s story:

Garret qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Cambridge University and, after a few years as a practicing vet, co-founded Pet Doctors, one of the first buy-and-builds in the UK veterinary clinic market in 1998. After a successful exit to trade in 2010 he shifted to the private equity world and was a partner at Bridges Fund Management for 6 years followed by 4 years as a partner at August Equity - for both firms he focussed on the healthcare, social care, and education sectors. In March 2022 he commenced on a portfolio career and is a board chair and company advisor with roles at Avado and Blackrose. He is a keen but slow cyclist, a lover of Italian wines, and has a passion for Italian late medieval art.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How do you manage the psychological transition when you sell a business?

2. What are the key considerations for structuring an earn-out?

3. How important is it to due diligence the buyer of your business?

Resources:

Garret’s LinkedIn

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

When Captain Hoff (Steve Hoffman) tries to help startups scale their businesses, he discovers a unique pain point that people have and creates a solution for it. How can you take your service and make it a product that you can scale?

"The founders of YouTube, when they started, they did not think of the big idea. They did not think, we're going to build the largest video broadcast network in the world. We're going to change how the Internet works and people consume content. They did not think that..."

Steve Hoffman is the author of Make Elephants Fly and the founder of Founders Space, a global startup incubator and accelerator. He has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and has helped hundreds of startups around the world grow and scale their businesses.

This is Steve Hoffman's story...

I'm Steve Hoffman, and I'm the author of Make Elephants Fly. I'm also the founder of Founders Space, a global startup incubator and accelerator. I've been an entrepreneur for over 25 years, and I've learned a lot about what it takes to grow a business. One of the most important things I've learned is that successful startups don't just sell a product once to customers. Instead, they use a recurring revenue model to keep customers locked into their business. This allows them to grow without being limited by the number of people they can hire. I've also learned that it's often more effective to start small and solve specific problems that you notice in your customers' process. This was the case for YouTube, which started as a video dating

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How do successful startups achieve rapid revenue growth?

2. What is the difference between productization and standardization?

3. How can thinking small lead to big innovation?

Resources:

Steve’s website

Make Elephants Fly

Surviving a Startup

The Five Forces That Change Everything

Connect with Mike & Kevin:

Mike’s LinkedIn

Mike’s Website

Kevin’s LinkedIn

Kevin’s Website

In this episode of It's a Good Start podcast, Mike and Kevin are talking about what it takes to form a senior leadership team in the company. Learn about a founder role and the signals to start taking this next step of natural agency structure evolution seriously - whether you are getting to the £1 million barrier in your business or already there, find out how to move your growth forward, delegate and invest in people.

Check It’s a Good Start Youtube channel for more episodes and discussion.