Successful Entrepreneurs Are Great Problem-Solvers: Laura Bennett

(Photo by leefotos)

Problems? Great! Let me help you.

If you are looking for “business ideas,” don’t look for some secret idea book. Instead, look around yourself for problems. Your problems, your friends’ problems, the world’s problems. Problems are business opportunities. Essentially, people pay to solve their problems, and that’s what business is all about.

Today’s guest for the Interview With Successful Entrepreneurs series is Laura Bennett, CEO of Embrace Pet Insurance. She had a friend with a problem – huge veterinary bill for her sick cat — and turned her life to solve the problem.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

Embrace Pet Insurance sells pet health insurance for the unexpected veterinary bills for cats and dogs. Our mission is to change the flighty image of pet insurance in the US. We have been selling policies since 2006 but my co-founder and I have been working on the concept since 2002 when we were at the Wharton Business School together working on our MBAs.

At the time, some friends of ours had a sick cat and after spending $5,000 on her, they’d looked into pet insurance and realized the offerings at the time were rather poor. As they were from the UK where pet insurance is a common insurance product, with many insured cats and dogs, they thought there might be a business opportunity there and four of us ended up putting a pet insurance entry in for the Wharton Business Plan Competition.

After a lot of hard work, we actually won it, and I realized I had a gem of an idea on my hands to pursue it after we graduated. My background is in insurance (I’m now the only full-time pet insurance actuary in the US) and I had wanted to get into an early stage company – I just hadn’t realized I was going to co-found one!

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

There are so many challenges, it’s hard to know where to start. If I were to pick three though, here they are.

a. Not starting a business in my home town.

Before I went to Wharton, I lived in Toronto and had a lot of connections and a solid reputation in the life and health insurance business (I had 12 years of work experience.) Post-MBA (which was in Philadelphia), I ended up in Cleveland because of my husband’s job and pet insurance is property & casualty insurance, a whole other world from where I had come from. So I had to start from scratch and build up my reputation with potential partners, which takes a lot of effort and is very time consuming.

b. Finding a partner was incredibly challenging.

We had a product our potential partners knew nothing about, my co-founder and I were unknown to them (see point a), and we had never run an insurance brokerage before. Three strikes again us and we could not find an American insurance company to have the courage to take a leap of faith in us. In the end, we partnered with 2 Lloyd’s of London syndicates, who had dealt with pet insurance before in the UK, and were much more willing to take a risk on us.

c. Which brings me to my final challenge – living with other people’s timelines.

Even with Lloyd’s, it took us 2 years 3 months from our first introduction to Lloyd’s to selling our first policy, which was incredibly frustrating. It’s understandable from a Lloyd’s perspective as that’s how they work (they have given us trust but it had to be built) but from an entrepreneur’s perspective, it was agony.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

Basically, it was good old fashioned networking, dogged persistence, and total belief in our idea. And of course, the ever necessary patience I never imagined I had.

I just got used to “warm calling” people with references from others who I knew and that’s how we eventually found our Lloyd’s partners (it started with a business acquaintance of mine from Toronto who moved to Philly who introduced me to a friend from his “buddy family” at his girls’ school and went from there – so random.) I also found great support from my Toronto connections and my long-time mentor stepped up as our first angel investor, giving us instant credibility with others we talked to. This really helped us raise our first funds and all of a sudden, we became a company with an interesting idea, rather than 2 people running around with a business plan.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

It’s such a cliché but it comes down to being able to build something from nothing that solves people’s problems. There’s no feeling like it.

I also like that if I am going to work hard, I might as well do it for my own benefit since I put my all into whatever I do. And finally, I’m not sure I could work for anyone else now – I would be such a horrible employee. I have too many opinions about how things should be run, particularly around company culture, and I’d drive everyone crazy.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

a. Get started.

If you are working on an idea for your own business, don’t wait for it to be perfect before you totally commit yourself to it. It never will be perfect; I can guarantee it. Even if you think it’s perfect (your salary replacement lined up, your prototype built, your business partners in pocket, etc.) it won’t turn out the way you think it will so just get going, learn from real experience, and adjust accordingly.

b. Surround yourself with supporters.

There will always be people who will tell you you aren’t going to succeed (maybe not directly, but it’s implied.) The founders of Google, Amazon, and Starbucks all heard it – being an entrepreneur is quite lonely so keep people around you who are going to provide you with the motivation to get up every day with the energy and drive to keep pushing forward when times are tough. There are more tough times as an entrepreneur than you can possibly imagine.

c. Learn to listen well.

So many people will tell you why your idea won’t work and it’s easy to dismiss them because from your perspective, they don’t really understand what you are trying to do. Underneath it all though, there could be some nuggets of truth to what they say, so you need to think about the criticisms carefully and make necessary adjustments or have an answer to why these things aren’t going to happen with your business. But do not ignore them – there is always something to be learnt.

My Takeaway
I really like her point of building “something from nothing that solves people’s problems”. This is just the essence of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are the problems-solvers who care about people’s problems. We put our life and money into helping others in need.

Her saying “if I am going to work hard, I might as well do it for my own benefit” echoes with Tony Laurence’ words “If I have to work for an idiot, I may as well work for myself.” It’s about taking control of our own life.

I also like her advice of listening to criticisms. With open and wise mind, we can learn so much from everyone. We find business opportunities and even potential solutions by listening well.

If I Have To Work For An Idiot, I May As Well Work For Myself: Tony Lawrence

(Photo by Leefotos)

The foe is within us, not outside.

We often take the perspective of “me vs the rest of the world”. It’s an easy way of thinking. If you are employed as professional, you probably have indulged in the “I’m wasting my time and talent working for an idiot. I’m victimized.” thinking. Nobody understands you. Nobody appreciates you.

And some of you start your own businesses thinking you are now on top of the world — only to find that your customers are now your foe who don’t appreciate you! You wonder what went wrong . . .

Because you are yet to realize the challenge is within you, not outside. If your customers are unhappy, it’s because the business you have built has some glitches. Review your products and services, marketing strategies, the business structure, your people management skills, and so on, rather than making the customers wrong. You can start taking this responsible perspective even as employee.

Today’s guest is Tony Lawrence, who has been in the computer and network business for 25 years. He has a well-established website A.P.Lawrence.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

In 1981 I was working as a customer support rep for a Tandy Radio Shack Computer Center (yes, Radio Shack made computers back then). The base salary was low, but I also was paid a percentage of the store’s revenues, and that was pretty good. Unfortunately, IBM came out with their computer in 1981 and the IBM PC started killing our sales. By 1983, I was living on the base salary and hurting badly.

I had always wanted to start my own business (in fact had tried and failed twice prior to this) and it seemed like I had nothing to lose: I couldn’t do much worse than I was doing. So I just stood up one afternoon and walked out – I was a self employed consultant. In those days I did a lot of programming for small businesses. I was originally operating system agnostic, but I began to have more and more disdain for Microsoft and drifted toward Unix systems primarily. I’ve stayed there; picking up Linux in the 90′s and Mac OS X more recently.

My business has changed a lot over the years. I don’t do much programming now, though I do some back end Web scripts and small Perl projects. I sell mail servers for businesses with 10 to 750 employees, do some work with security routers and firewalls and am generally available for troubleshooting. I often function as the “IT guy” for companies too small to afford dedicated staff. I mostly do that for Unix and Linux systems; Microsoft Windows has improved enough that I won’t refuse to use it, but I still find Unix based systems to be more powerful and stable.

2. What were the biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

I thought my biggest challenge would be finding work, but in fact that wasn’t hard at all. At that time there were computer stores everywhere and the people who sold from them always needed help for themselves and their customers. I just drove around, stopped in, offered my services and left my card. Business came by the bucket full.

So much so that by 1985 I hired employees – four of them. I quickly found out that managing people is very different from providing technical services. I’m a lousy manager and most of the employees took advantage of that, goofing off while collecting generous paychecks from me. I was six figures in debt before I caught on and fixed the situation: I fired all but one and made him my partner.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either. We worked well together, and made money, but his wife wanted to move to the West Coast and soon enough they did. We tried to keep the partnership going, joking that we were “conveniently located at both ends of Interstate 90″, but it became a bookkeeping nightmare so we shut it down and went our separate ways.

The other challenge that is on-going is keeping up with new technology. That’s especially difficult as I get older – the brain that could once memorize fifteen digits at a glance isn’t quite so nimble any more. As the small independent computer stores folded up, finding new business also became more difficult.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

I still struggle with learning – it’s a good part of every weeks work. It’s so important to keep your skills up in this constantly changing field. As I said above, the older I get the longer it takes me to learn new things, but I keep plugging away. It’s not that it is horribly difficult now; it’s that it used to be so easy..

An important part of finding work is paying attention to opportunity. If you listen carefully to what a customer is saying, if you take the time to engage with their employees and their customers, you may find income opportunities that your customer doesn’t even realize are there. One of my mottos in that regard is

“There are no problems, only income opportunities”

I am constantly alert for new opportunity.

The Internet brought new opportunities that I recognized very early on. I put up my first web page in the early 90′s and instituted http://aplawrence.com in 1997. Although originally this was strictly a technical site dealing with Unix and Linux issues, I now also write about Blogging and Self Employment there and 25% of my income comes from advertising revenues alone. Of course it also is a great source of consulting and sales opportunities: I have both consulting and mail server clients all over the United States.

I definitely would not have been so successful if it were not for the Internet.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

For me, freedom is the driving force that keeps me self employed. I love being able to work when I choose. I also love being successful enough to turn down work I don’t want; for example refusing work from difficult or nasty people. I also enjoy helping other people start their own businesses – I’ve helped out many people with lunch-time chats and have even given them startup clients to get them rolling. Not all of them make it, but it feels good to help them try.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

Consider that the most important thing in your life is happiness and that the happiest people are those who control their own destiny. I know it can be very scary to give up a “safe” job and set out into the uncertainty of self employment, but there are such tremendous rewards that it is worth the risk. Remember this also: if you are skilled and competent enough that someone else is willing to pay you money to work for them, you are obviously skilled and competent enough to work for yourself.

Another of my mottos is

“If I have to work for an idiot, I may as well work for myself”

I view employment as a form of slavery and hate seeing any one forced into it. Break free, be free.

My Takeaway
I love the resilient manner Tony navigated his way through all the changes. A market change can be a disaster or an opportunity depending on your perspective. Also look deep to dig out the hidden opportunities – I see that, if I can do this, I am ahead of all potential competition. And I think it’s great he likes to help out newer entrepreneurs!

Thanks to Steve for choosing this post as Editor’s Pick at Carnival of Career.

I Can’t Not Do This: Naomi Dunford

(Photo by Leefotos)

Real people. Real business. Real advice.

I love this interview series because I myself learn so much ! There are three major venue of learning, and we need to do all three:

1. Learn from books and seminars – these professional teachers do have something valuable to offer.
2. Learn from peers. If you want to have a small business that is tightly tied to who you are, other small business owners who have built such businesses may have valuable advice that the big office business consultants may not know or have forgotten.
3. Learn from firsthand experiences. Apply what you learned from books, blogs, peers, to your real business, use all your wits to do even better, and learn from your failures and successes.

This interview series covers #2. I pick entrepreneurs who have built profitable businesses that resonate with who they are. If you are working for a corporate job, dreaming to have your own business, check them out. They are not that different from you – and they made it.

Today’s guest is Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. IttyBiz is filled with practical and insightful marketing ideas that you don’t want to miss. I love how she describes complicated issues in her signature down-to-earth way.

1. Tell us a bit about your business and why you started it.

I’m a micro-business marketing coach. This means I play marketing and PR department for companies with fewer than five employees. In my business I wear two hats — I plan marketing campaigns for businesses
and blogs, and I do copywriting for people who know what they’re supposed to be doing but can’t sell their way out of a wet paper bag.

I started this business for two reasons. One, I can’t not do marketing and copy. It’s all I think about. It’s pathetic, really. Two, the service wasn’t being provided by anybody else. Most small business marketing firms charge at least a thousand bucks to start, and it takes a long time for a microbiz or a freelancer to recoup those costs. Iwanted to help the little guys who were being ignored by everyone else.

2. What were the three biggest challenges when you were starting off as a new entrepreneur?

One, growth came far, far faster than I was ready for. The small business books all tell you that 4 out of 5 businesses fail and to make contingency plans and blah blah blah. They don’t tell you that when you
succeed, it’ll probably happen overnight and you’ll drown. Plan for that.

Two, I didn’t have an office with a door and I couldn’t turn work off. I was working till three in the morning and then opening my laptop before I was even dressed again the next day. I didn’t separate and it caused
burnout.

Three, I didn’t segment my day. When you work online, there are so many things to do. Network. Fix your site. Respond to comments. Market yourself. Write guest posts. It was really overwhelming.

3. And how did you work through these challenges?

I fixed the first problem by convincing my husband to quit school and work for me. He was unhappy and in the wrong program, so it was the right time for him. He’s taken over administration, which has freed me
up tremendously.

I fixed the second problem by getting an offsite office. I don’t go much, but when I really need to knuckle down, it helps a lot. We live in a two-bedroom apartment, so this might not be an issue for people with houses and basements and doors, but for us, the office was a necessity.

I’m still working on the third problem. It’s a work in progress. I’m trying to prechunk my day into little pieces, but it’s taking time.

4. What is the best part of being an entrepreneur for you?

The time freedom. I get to play with my kid. I get to watch The Price Is Right every morning. I can have sex with my husband in the middle of the day. I can take naps whenever I want them.

5. Any advice for people who dream to have their own business and yet find it hard to make the leap?

Make the leap before you’re totally ready. I read in a magazine once that you should never be 100% ready to have kids. If you think you’re 100% ready, you’re missing something. I think the same thing applies to business. If you wait until you’re 100% ready, you’ll be dead before you launch. Be 80% ready. Do the best you can and just go for it.

If you wait too long, you lose your fire. If you lose your fire, your business will suck. If your business sucks, you’ll have to go back to your boring corporate job and prove your old boss right. You don’t want that, do you? Jump and the net will appear.

My Takeaway
First, I must tell you: Naomi is a real sweetheart. I swear! She started her business to help small guys. When I contacted her for this interview, I wasn’t sure if a busy person like her would do this for my three-month-old blog, and she was so graceful in accepting it.

Her growth problem is interesting. I’ve heard bigger companies face this – like an unknown company hits the market with great new product, and can’t fill the orders in time, forcing them to expand with little plan, which can be disastrous — but didn’t really think of its possibility for mini businesses. Be prepared!

Want to be on this interview series? Know someone who has an interesting business that is so Him or Her? Please let me know^_^

Thanks to Jeff for including this post in his review, to Patrick for including in Carnival of Careers.

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