Happy Thursday, Hard Knocks community 💰 

Today we are talking all about finding success within a competitive industry. We sat down with an entrepreneur that has reached over 8-figures in annual revenue within the first 5 years of his company’s existence. This interview will be extremely helpful for anyone looking to stand out and overcome the difficulties of running a business in any competitive industry!

Today’s Schedule

• $15 Million at 28 Years Old: How this 28 Year-Old Entrepreneur Overcame the Cut Throat Tech Industry to Make 8-Figures

• From the Hard Knocks Library: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

• In Case You Missed It: Our Podcast with Jeremy Miner, World Class Sales Trainer

Lets Dive In!🔥

$15 Million at 28 years old

How does someone start a tech company in a very competitive industry, disrupt the market, and scale the business to $15 million in annual revenue, all while being just 28 years old?

That is no easy feat, so we sat down with someone that did accomplish this - Jason Alvarez-Cohen.

Jason started Popl when he was 24 years old after working at Boeing and realizing that the 9-5 life just wasn’t for him. Popl is a digital business card service that allows users to share their contact information directly to others devices without having to use a physical card.

In our time with Jason he broke down how his company survived the brutal early years of getting a tech company off the ground. He also shows how you can apply the lessons he learned along the way to any industry you are in.

Here is our Interview with Jason:

Q. What was the biggest difference between your company that was able to scale versus other tech companies that crashed and burned?

A. Two things were key to our success.

1 - Even when we were starting out and we didn’t have a lot of customers we would constantly have conversations with our existing users and have conversations with them. What do they love? Not love? Why did they use us? What were their pain points?

The reason this is so important is because your existing customers will tell you exactly what you need to build next and how to improve your already existing product.

2 - We switched our business model to focus on building monthly recurring revenue(MRR). When we were first starting out we were doing a lot of one off purchases of a product. Our business changed completely when we swapped from being a product company to more of a software company. MRR allows you to know what resources you will have available going forward and scale more predictably.

Q. If someone has an idea for a product or service, how can they validate that their idea is worth pursuing?

A. The first thing you have to do is identify your market and then start talking with them. Within these conversations you need to discover whether your product / service is a “need” or if it’s just “nice to have”. If you can find a market of people who “need” your product then that is a great start.

Our example of this was when my co-founder and I would network and meet new people we had the NFC tags on our phones, and when we met people they were amazed and had genuine interest in using our product for themselves.

Q. How do you scale while ensuring product quality as you scale?

A. Launch and iterate. When we first started we didn’t have a quality product, it was barebones and was a minimum viable product (MVP). Our product was essentially an NFC tag from Amazon that we slapped a sticker with our logo on it. After we launched this, we improved our product over time until we got the high-quality product that we have today. Even though the product we launched with was not to the quality we wanted, it allowed us to scale quickly.

Q. How do you go about finding investors if you don't have the help of an incubator or know investors personally?

A. Cold email outreach is great for this. For example if you are in fintech, look up firms that invest in fintech businesses and when browsing the websites of those firms, reach out to a few of the investors that are listed by sending them an email.

You are going to want to keep this email very short like “Hey I am building something awesome, it has this much traction, it is right up your alley in X industry that you usually like to invest in, do you have time for a 15 minute call?” Even if you don’t have direct connections to investors within your industry, this has been a great way for me to meet with investors.

Q. Any last words of advice for up and coming entrepreneurs?

A. When you start a business, whether it’s a success or a failure, the fact that you started it and you learned along the way is a win. People go to business school wanting to learn things that you will learn on your own starting a business. Life is short. Go do it.

You have to live a life that most people won’t, in order to live a life that most people can’t. You will have to put in those hours that most people are just not willing to put in. Believe in yourself and get going! I’ll see you at the top.

Watch our Full Interview with Jason here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4dm3E3R7gZ/?igsh=MWswZTAycHM1YzRkcA==

You can connect with Jason here: https://poplme.co/jason

Check out Popl here: https://popl.co

Words of Wisdom

From the Hard Knocks Library

In Case You Missed It

This week we dropped a podcast with Jeremy Miner a world class sales trainer and master communicator. During his 17yr sales career, he was recognized in the direct selling industry as the #45th highest earning producer out of more than 108 million salespeople, selling ANYTHING worldwide - Jeremy's earnings as a commission-only sales rep were in the multiple 7-figures, every year. In this podcast Jeremy talks about how anyone can become successful in sales, the psychology behind what makes people buy, and how to be a master communicator.

Let Us Hear From You

What were your thoughts on todays newsletter with Joel Kaplan? Please reply back with your thoughts or things you would like us to include in future newsletters!