Art of the Start for World Consulting, Inc.
Two and half years after the formation of my consulting firm, I can finally look back and reflect on the past journey and IMAGINE the future road ahead.
The Journey and the Lessons:
Prior to launching World Consulting, I have been in the financial services industry for over a decade, providing individuals and small businesses investment and insurance solutions. The part I truly enjoyed the most was ‘helping families and businesses to be in a better financial position’. The underlying reason for doing the work was my ‘desire to serve’. When the pandemic hit full force and nationwide was shut down, fear and uncertainty gripped the hearts of the business community. With finance being the center topic of most of my business conversations, I went through a series of rapid learning on the various financial assistance available (federal, state, local, and nonprofit) and we offered pro-bono services to a few businesses. Our service was so satisfactory that we started to receive an overwhelming number of calls from their business friends. Here were some the questions I pondered before launching the firm:
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Why are these businesses coming to us? Why aren’t they getting the help from their accountants, lawyers, or NGOs like community organizations or chambers of commerce?
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What other VALUE (services) can we provide to help them deal with the pandemic shutdown?
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What is the TEAM we need to build in order to serve these businesses?
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What SACRIFICE am I willing to make in order to pursue this opportunity?
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How do I price my service FAIRLY when majority of the work is unknown?
Lesson 1: Operate in the Unknown
To be honest, I did not have a clear answer for EVERY question above! One can NEVER be sure about the success of a business. Statistically, most businesses are more sure to fail than to succeed. One thing I was CERTAIN about was the UNKNOWN will become more and more KNOWN. As long as the team desired to approach our work with humility and courage everyday, we would overcome any obstacles along the way. Learning how to operate in the unknown and ‘ANTICIPATE CHALLENGES AHEAD’ was a lesson I treasured.
Lesson 2: Build the Team…Hire quickly!
We brought onboard 3 assistants, all around the same time! The first assistant was let go from an event planning position; the second assistant was a former banker and was referred by a CPA; and the third assistant was a friend who worked in the credit card servicing industry. Each client had a dedicated representative to communicate with and having 3 dedicated assistants allowed us to pursue multiple assistance options with speed because most programs required similar documents and were first-come first-served. Without the teammates EARLY, we would have to turn down many requests, thus delaying the economic recovery for many businesses.
Lesson 3: Be Ready to Pivot.
In 2020-2021, we helped over 300 businesses acquire over $3.2M in funding to address the economic challenges due to the pandemic. As the COVID recovery funding was winding down, we had to look for other opportunities to help businesses to access capital for growth. One client was our early referrals who did not qualify for COVID assistance because the company had no revenue. What this company had was a green technology that had the potential to be commercialized. This company retained our service to ensure a proper R&D grant application submission. Since then, we have expanded our technical assistance to innovative technology-based startups in applying for research and development grants with agencies such as the National Science Foundation and US Department of Agriculture. Because of our expertise in access to capital, we now serve as a “Capital Access Specialist” for non-profit chamber of commerce USPAACC-NE via the SBA-sponsored Community Navigator Pilot Program, providing consulting services and education to underserved minority/women/veteran owned businesses in the New York and New Jersey. What an amazing journey so far!
In the book “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki (if you haven’t read it, there’s a 28 page preview you can access HERE), he outlined a format for GIST (Great Ideas for Starting Things) in Chapter 1. Although I did not follow these 5 steps precisely, I hope this can serve as a guide for anyone wanting to START!