Sept. 7 "Startup cracks grad job market": I cut out this article by Rick Spence in the National Post on Aug. 11, 2015. It was about the Talent Egg website creator Lauren Friese. You can read my blog and see that I put up a lot of articles from that website, and the articles are on Metro.
It was inspiring to read about how this young woman created a website and business and sold it. There are some good tips for entrepreneurs here.
Here's the whole article:
Nearly eight years ago, I got a call from London, England. Lauren Friese was a Canadian graduate of the London School of Economics who wanted to return to Toronto and start a Web-based careers site for post-secondary students. She was using Skype to cold-call HR executives and entrepreneurs to get feedback on her business plan.
Friese believed that the existing tools connecting new graduates to permanent jobs all relied on ads and articles in newspapers and magazines that students weren’t reading. When she told me her plan, I thought it was solid. But I didn’t like her proposed name, “TalentEgg.” I thought it was too abstract and obscure; when you’re investing to build a new brand, I said, you can save a lot of money and effort by using a name that more clearly communicates what you do.
Friese breezily replied that she’d given the name a lot of thought, and would stick with it. It’s your business, I said. What I really thought was, she’s making things tough for herself. Still, I reasoned, she might just be stubborn enough to make it work.
And she did. Last month, Friese announced the sale of TalentEgg, to Milton, Ont.-based Charity Village, a careers site geared to not-for-profits. Now with 20 staff, TalentEgg has become the go-to brand for post-secondary job-seekers across the country, with 350,000 unique visitors a month devouring more than 3,000 careers-related articles and videos, and ads from blue-chip clients ranging from Accenture and Barrick to Nexen and Xerox.
Friese wanted to share her journey, because she’s concerned about the growing notion, especially among young people, that entrepreneurship is all about “moonshots.” She worries new startups are too focused on founding the next Facebook, when building modest businesses that serve more addressable markets can also be lucrative – and much easier to do.
“A lot of potential entrepreneurs are overwhelmed by the idea that they have to build something huge,” Friese says. “Or, worse, that they can raise a whole lot of money and lose it without repercussion.”
Friese took a different track. “It’s always okay just to build a good business. And you can make a lot of money.”
She will remain president of TalentEgg until year-end. She won’t divulge how much the firm sold for, noting only that “There was no reason for me to do a deal I wasn’t happy with.” Asked if the sale price was enough to allow her, at 31, never to work again, she said, “Maybe – depending on how much you need to live on. My philosophy is to live simply. I will always buy $5 t-shirts, as long as they’re ethically produced.”
So what made TalentEgg a winner? Friese cited these critical decisions:
- She spent three months writing a business plan. That included calling potential clients and asking pointed questions such as: “Would you buy this service? What would make you buy? How much would you pay?” Startups today are often encouraged to rush prototypes to market, but Friese stands by her plan: “Even though I’ve never looked at it again, the process of research taught me what I needed to make the business successful.”
- She bootstrapped the business with just $5,000, the cost of her first website. After launching TalentEgg in 2008, she lived with her parents in Toronto for two years. In the company’s first office, Friese and two staff jammed into a one-person cubicle.
- TalentEgg leveraged available assistance. Friese signed on with Futurpreneur (then the Canadian Youth Business Foundation) to tap its mentoring services. Told she would first have to borrow money from the agency, which offered up to $15,000 in capital to startups, she took the lowest amount possible: $6,000. Soon afterward, she asked for the rest. That funding enabled her to hire a marketer to cold-call HR executives, and generated $35,000 in revenues.
- TalentEgg shifted with market conditions. In its first year, the financial crisis slashed demand for new hires. To sell careers ads, Friese had to prove she could build an audience. So she hired a journalism student to write careers-related articles that attracted students eager to learn more about the real world of work, and “How I Got My First Job.”
- Friese knew successful businesses don’t rely solely on their founders. In 2010 she hired an experienced account executive, Steph Morgan, as director of sales. Soon promoted to general manager, Morgan has freed the founder to focus on brand-building. “Most of our clients don’t know who I am anymore,” she says.
Friese thinks starting her business in the face of recession worked out. “The good news is, between 2008 and 2010, it would have been very difficult for a competitor to emerge.”
TalentEgg has made a profit every year since 2009, and Friese says she’s turned down many offers to sell. But last year, when another bidder called, she realized the business was ready to go on without her.
In her analytical way, Friese hired a business broker to sniff out potential offers. Six months later, she met with Charity Village. Negotiations accelerated in April, and the deal was completed in early July. Friese says being an employee again is liberating: “With all those responsibilities off my shoulders, I can do what I do best.”
Friese is considering other business opportunities, thinking about politics, and mulling writing a book. “My plan is to be patient, enough to allow myself to be unemployed,” she says. “Although I have to mention, as an economist, that I wouldn’t actually be unemployed, because I won’t be looking for work.”
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