Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Startups Personal Development
adriane schwager
adriane schwager

@aschwags3

14 tweets 12 reads Jul 08, 2022
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17 months ago, I co-founded my first business
Today, we crossed $5,000,000 in revenue with only 5 US full-time employees. Totally bootstrapped
I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO
Here are my top 11 learnings on leadership, entrepreneurship, and startups πŸ‘‡πŸ§΅
Hire an executive assistant before you think you need one - and offshore
When we can’t release control, we operate from a place of fear. Fear is not how you want to run your business.
By hiring an EA you’ll free up so much of your time, which is truly our most valuable asset.
Your first team members don't need to be onshore
Our first 5 hires were offshore. We crossed 3 million in revenue before our first full-time US hire.
Now, we still hire at least 3 offshore for every stateside team member.
Spend 20% of your time recruiting, even when you’re not hiring
Network before roles become available. When you have an open position, it will let you
1) hire faster
2) hire better
3) get more candidates referred
Actively recruiting is a growth hack.
Coach the sprinters
Naturally, I'm a sprinter. I get a lot done in a series of sprints. But as a CEO, I also need to be a marathoner who can pace and map the full race course.
Now, I grow my business by coaching a team of sprinters.
Be mindful about shutting down for the day
Loving your work-from-home job has some issues
β€’ No transition between work and family time
β€’ Easy to forget breaks
β€’ No time for exercise
Use a daily ritual like taking a 10-minute walk to close out and transition out of work mode
Build time for communication in your calendar
Email and Slack need to be built into my calendar.
When they aren’t, I find myself in back-to-back meetings, by 5pm I have 200 emails to review. That is not sustainable.
Time-blocking is essential when you manage big teams.
Keep your company top of mind
We send emails to all our past and current clients at least monthly. They aren't too salesy; just a few available GrowthAssistants and growth hacks
It’s driven over 100K MRR this year!
Twitter is great for marketing
We haven't spent a single dollar on advertising. Twitter, referrals, and networking drive 100% of our growth.
Use social media to grow your business without spending a ton on ads (and use a GrowthAssistant to do it!).
Focus on keeping people happy
Our main driver for success is keeping people happy. It's a key part of our company culture and I personally get involved to make sure everyone's happy with their job (our talent) or GrowthAssistant (our clients)
Happy people accelerate growth.
Treat people with dignity.
β€’ Pay on the high end of wages and bonuses
β€’ Focus on personal and professional growth
β€’ Offer PTO and healthcare
Treat people the way you'd like to be treated.
Focus on community, even with remote teams
Screen for people with a community mindset from the first interview. Working remotely doesn’t mean they want to work quietly in a dark room.
Our GAs coach each other, offer advice, share tips and tricks, and cheer on one another.
We think every startup/DTC Brand in the world will be a customer one day check us out and join our waitlist.
Our needs survey will give you ideas for how you can use someone offshore and the team will be in touch ASAP to help with your placement.
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If you enjoyed this thread, follow me @aschwags3
I’ll be sharing lessons about leadership, global remote teams, and entrepreneurship I learned from growing @growthassistant to $5MM and beyond

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