Project Overview
After graduating from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in December of 2018, I knew that I was going to be moving to Boston in July to start my first post-graduate professional experience. In order to keep myself occupied, force myself to keep learning and to gain experience starting a business, I created Clever Fox Agency LLC.
The idea was born out of some experience that I'd had in a previous internship where I was tasked to establish a digital marketing strategy for a small financial services firm. Through that internship, I realized that there was an opportunity for entrepreneurs who were willing to sell their technical services to get small businesses and professional organizations up to speed with the modern digital landscape.
What I Learned:
Starting a Business is Hard:
Aside from the legal process of establishing a commercial entity, there are many challenges to starting a business. There were many more challenges than I had previously considered. Hiring was very hard as a new business. Legal costs can be significant. Building a brand is difficult. Closing sales was hard, especially when I had no sample work to demonstrate to prospects. I felt overwhelmed, which was not something that I anticipated, given I had been doing digital advertising and basic web development previously.
Scaling Services is Hard:
Many of my challenges, I learned later on, was in part because I had unwittingly started a service-based business. As a result, my business depended on selling services that required more touch points, time and effort over a long time horizon than simply building and selling a product. This is especially true for independent entrepreneurs, who must balance creating processes, systems, marketing materials, client communications and more in addition to the provision of services to paying clients.
I Should Start a Product Company:
As discussed, one of the key things I learned through this experience was that it was difficult and costly from a time perspective to offer services. As such, my effort was high for negative profit margins. This was certainly a learning experience for me, and I would not consider this to be a "successful" business venture.
That being said, we learn more in life from our failures than we do from our successes. As a result of this experience, I began to shift my educational goals and professional experiences away from providing services and instead towards building usable products.