Drones, Doughnuts and (App) Downloads: Lessons in Business from Young Entrepreneurs
Best Buy and Forever 21 just weren’t working out.
After failing to find a typical, minimum-wage sales associate or retail job in high school, Carissa Lintao turned to a Google search for online work. Search results connected her with Upwork, an online freelance writing company, where Lintao began to apply for writing projects.
Lintao’s first gig was a $7 short-story creative writing project. Soon afterward, she was hired through Upwork by an independent app developer who was creating a trivia app for the TV show “House of Cards.” With a $50 contract and the app developer’s Netflix password, Lintao began watching episodes and writing content for the app.
Lintao said that working on that project with this app developer opened the floodgates of opportunity for her to learn about the app industry.
“(The app developer) was like, ‘This is a million-dollar industry right now,’ and now each category in the app store is worth a couple billion dollars,” Lintao said. “’He said, ‘You don’t even need to learn to code and program. Just keep doing what you’re doing with the content stuff, learn how to market an app, learn branding, get an app on the app store, and just do that.’”
So that’s what Lintao did. She didn’t anticipate that just a few years later, she would not only have built a five-figure side hustle and completed three internships while still in college, but also own her own app marketing agency, Apptuitive.
Read. Watch. Listen. Think. Learn everything about what you want to do.
Alexandru Barker began college pursuing a degree in law enforcement, but less than two years into the program, he realized that wasn’t what he really wanted to do. After spending some time working with videography and drones, Barker realized that business and technology were his true passions, and that he wanted to combine those passions into a company.
“I was like, ‘Alright, I’m going to do it.’” Barker said. “Then I realized that I had no money and couldn’t just buy a drone.”
Barker began reading all the books that he could get his hands on, learning the ins and outs of running a business and drone technology.
“I started doing advertising with another drone company, getting involved and going out and calling people and drone businesses in the area, saying, ‘Hey, can I help you? Can I work for free? Can you teach me?’” Barker said. “Just doing everything I possibly could to get as much experience as I possibly could.”
In her blog post about freelancing and becoming an entrepreneur, Lintao stressed the importance of taking advantage of free information and taking every opportunity to learn.
“I ran some numbers for kicks and giggles, and I read approximately 104 books, listened to 172,800 minutes’ worth of podcasts, and watched 1,500 videos,” Lintao shared in her blog. “At this point, I’d like to think I have a tiny Ivy League education. I’ve listened to more Stanford, Harvard, and Cornell talks than any normal 21-year old should.”
Barker said that if aspiring entrepreneurs don’t take the time to stop and think through their ideas in light of both quality research and practical experience, they are unlikely to succeed.
“If you have a great idea but you go into it blindly, and think you’re going to be the greatest thing, you’re probably going to fail because you haven’t really researched the market,” Barker said. “You don’t know what people are doing and why things are working.”
Learn to learn from and work with other people.
Before college senior Abigail Daniels started operating her artisan doughnut food truck, Dawn and Dusk, she thought that the life of an entrepreneur was a highly individual endeavor.
“The reason I wanted to be an entrepreneur was because I didn’t want to work for someone. I viewed it as: I get to be alone and do my own thing. But that is not the (reality),” Daniels said. “I realized entrepreneurs need community with one another. If I had tried to do it alone, I would have missed out on so many great relationships.”
Daniels has operated Dawn and Dusk for the past year with the help of her family and several close friends. Business needs now require the hiring of additional employees, which is an exciting phase of the entrepreneurial process, according to Daniels.
Barker said that seeking guidance from business professionals or experts in the field is another element critical to success for beginning entrepreneurs.
“I started calling CEOs, getting on the phone with people, asking people, ‘Hey, who do you know that I could talk to?’ Barker said.
Those professional connections, along with utilizing peers with specialized skill sets, are what helped Barker to begin his businesses. Barker said that people need to realize that they’re better together than they are apart in order to start and run a successful business.
“Why do we get married? Why do we have relationships, period? Because usually we’re better together than we are apart,” Barker said. “That’s when Apple becomes Apple, and (that’s when) your company will become the next greatest thing.”
Just do it.
Jeremy Lyman and Paul Schlader opened the first Birch Coffee coffee shop on 27th Street in Manhattan in 2009. Less than 10 years later, they are in the process of opening their 11th store in New York City and looking into branching out to the Midwest.
Lyman said while he was still tossing around the idea of opening a coffee shop, he finally came to the conclusion that he simply had to fully commit. He quit the job he had at the time, dove into the planning process, and hasn’t looked back since.
“Just make a mistake,” Lyman said. “Be okay. But keep an open mind, be teachable.”
Lyman said that in looking back over the past decade of starting up and operating a coffee business, he doesn’t see any part of the process as failure or a waste of time. Lyman and Schlader have learned from their mistakes, and as their knowledge of the business has expanded, they have grown and adapted the business as necessary.
“I think failure is where you miss where you went wrong in the past, and if you make the same mistake again and again and again, come on. That’s failure,” Lyman said. “But when you recognize the issue and you shift, and you’re able to recognize that, that’s (success).”
Daniels said that before fully investing in Dawn and Dusk, she felt like someone needed to give her permission to move forward with her business idea. She didn’t view her intelligence or work ethic as particularly impressive.
But Daniels was willing to try, and according to her, that’s what made the difference.
“I want people to not be afraid to do the things they have in their heart, because God gives all of us dreams. Even really little ones,” Daniels said. “Just do it. Do the one thing getting closer to that goal, and if you fail, at least it’s out of your mind and you can go on to something else.”
When asked how she would advise young, aspiring entrepreneurs, Lintao responded along the same lines as Lyman and Daniels.
“Just do it,” Carissa said. “I love Nike for their saying, because, ‘Just do it.’”
Look forward.
While the skills of an entrepreneur can be cultivated, Barker said he believes that the visionary quality of a successful entrepreneur is inherent to the individual and unusual in today’s world.
“I’m a dreamer, I’m a big vision kind of guy, and I think that is something you’re born with,” Barker said. “I think you can develop that, but ultimately, if you can see the big picture and you can have a vision for something — that’s something very unique nowadays.”
Self-awareness is critical for anyone developing a company, according to Lintao.
“Know yourself. Do you actually have the passion and drive to do what you’re doing?” Lintao said. “I feel like that’s the biggest takeaway I’ve had for myself this year — getting in tune with when is the right opportunity and being so in tune with myself that everything else kind of falls into place.”
Lintao said that although she has a big vision for her app marketing business and technology in general, the day-to-day work doesn’t always feel profound.
But ultimately, the slow, learning phases are the growing phases.
“As much as I’m passionate about changing the world, you also have to run a business and it has to be profitable and practical. I don’t want to keep living with my parents and four other siblings forever,” Lintao said. “Right now I’m doing a bunch of warm and cold emailing, trying to get sales, trying to figure out what services I should be offering and what price point should I be offering them at, (and) figuring out how I operate and lead people as CEO of a company. Every day I’m learning something new. It’s a good kind of very stressful, but that’s the phase I’m at right now.”
Originally published October 12, 2018.
