How I Turned Sudden Layoffs Right into a $20 Million Enterprise

I used to be laid off from my perfect-fit job as a digital assistant in 2015 as a result of the corporate imploded in a single day. When it occurred, I by no means would have imagined ending up the place I’m at this time—operating a multi-million greenback enterprise that employs a whole lot of navy spouses similar to me.

On the time, my life felt like a foul nation track. I used to be three months pregnant and had made the choice to begin a household based mostly on the solidity of being a dual-income family, which was out of the blue not true. Given how laborious it had been to search out this job within the first place, I wasn’t assured I’d have the ability to discover one other shortly—navy spouses are one of many highest unemployed demographics within the U.S. due to how typically we have now to maneuver. My husband had been deployed two weeks earlier than the layoffs, so I used to be alone attempting to course of all of this. I used to be a sizzling hormonal mess and undoubtedly let myself cry lots of tears that first day.

After which I began to show issues round, as a result of I didn’t actually have some other selection. At first, I began working for myself as a contract digital assistant (VA). Earlier than lengthy, I had extra work than I may deal with. Two years later, I launched Squared Away with the aim of ultimately using as many navy spouses as potential by matching them with corporations that want versatile help. After 5 and a half years of bootstrapping my enterprise, we just lately crossed $20 million in gross income, work with over 900 shoppers, and make use of over 390 navy spouses—numbers that also shock me day by day.

For anybody else seeking to take stability into their very own arms within the face of financial uncertainty, listed here are a number of the methods which have helped us scale quick but additionally sustainably over the previous 5 years.

We constructed the corporate based mostly on an actual want

Frankly, I believe a part of what has helped my enterprise succeed is that I didn’t stroll in with the aim of being a CEO of a giant firm. I didn’t even stroll in with the aim of beginning an organization.

As an alternative, I got down to meet wants I noticed. Initially that was my very own must have an earnings, together with the wants of the shoppers of the corporate that laid me off who expressed curiosity in persevering with to work with me. This kicked off my preliminary stint of self employment.

Just a few years later, considered one of my shoppers got here to me expressing a necessity for extra help. His firm was on the brink of increase, and he wished extra VA capability. On the flip facet, I used to be seeing a necessity from different navy spouses in my community for versatile, steady, fulfilling jobs just like the one I had. So many associates got here to me sharing how they couldn’t discover any jobs that labored for them, and asking how I did it. Seeing the overlap of these wants is how the thought for Squared Away initially took place.

Strolling the trail of entrepreneurship from the headspace of wanting sustainable careers for myself and people like me, in addition to searching for to satisfy others’ wants, helped me establish actual alternatives for pure development as a substitute of attempting to pressure one thing.

We centered our advertising and marketing on impression

When folks hear about our development, they’re typically stunned to listen to that we’ve spent lower than $1,500 on paid advertising and marketing over the previous 5 years.

As an alternative, we maintain our advertising and marketing focused towards communities for which we predict our sort of versatile VA help can have essentially the most impression. Over time, we’ve partnered with predominantly feminine founder organizations like Dreamers & Doers, Chief, and TheLi.st to share details about our providers and supply reductions to members. As a feminine founder myself, I understand how precious it may be to have a bit further assist when working towards a mission you care about, so I felt like we may garner a excessive stage of curiosity from this cohort.

By way of our advertising and marketing messaging, we additionally concentrate on educating prospects in regards to the impression that delegation can have. Our emails and social media posts will share concepts for duties to delegate, recommendation for easy methods to talk when delegating, and different actionable ideas. By offering free assist up entrance, we create rapid worth for purchasers and provides them a style of how a lot we may do for them in the event that they signal on.

Lastly, we’ve all the time made positive our mission to make use of navy spouses is entrance and middle, which I believe helps folks really feel extra emotionally related to our model and excited to be part of one thing larger. Once we can say, “Hey, you’re going to be ten instances much less pressured than you had been earlier than and, by the way in which, you’re supporting a significant trigger whilst you’re at it,” that’s a way more engaging pitch than simply one other subscription it’s important to pay for.

We’ve held a excessive bar for high quality to encourage referrals

Phrase-of-mouth has all the time been our greatest advertising and marketing channel: 85 p.c of our new shoppers come from referrals. Whereas we do encourage this by giving a referral credit score to our current prospects, I believe the larger purpose they’re excited to share us with different enterprise house owners is due to the standard of labor we offer.

For starters, we’re very choosy in regards to the VAs we’ll rent. Everybody who needs to hitch our crew goes via a rigorous software and coaching course of the place we’re always assessing whether or not they exhibit our pillars of over-communication, excessive consideration to element, the flexibility to assume outdoors the field, and being a crew participant—and solely about 10 p.c of those that apply make it. As laborious as it’s for me to show away navy spouses given our mission, I do know conserving our high quality bar excessive is important to long-term success (and we give suggestions to those that don’t get employed to assist them of their employment journeys).

We additionally gained’t match simply any consumer with simply any assistant. We all the time wish to discover one of the best match on either side in order that our workers are excited to provide their all to every consumer they’re working with. This often means we have now to ask shoppers to attend a bit longer till we will establish the appropriate match, however shoppers have expressed they respect the thoughtfulness behind our matching course of.

There have been definitely moments the place I may have scaled quicker by matching incoming shoppers with whoever we had obtainable or hiring assistants that weren’t fairly to our normal. However I’d moderately develop extra slowly whereas conserving our shoppers glad so that they maintain desirous to work with us, and maintain desirous to sing our praises to others.

We’ve deliberately grown extra slowly

As soon as we launched and noticed early success within the first yr, there have been definitely many individuals who inspired me to scale quicker. I may have raised cash to rent an enormous inflow of digital assistants so I might be prepared at a second’s discover to workers up new shoppers. I may have paid for large advertising and marketing campaigns to get a ton of recent shoppers.

However I didn’t wish to take the identical path of the corporate I had labored for beforehand, rising too quick after which having to put folks off when issues didn’t work out as deliberate. As an alternative, I’ve taken a extra incremental strategy to development.

Congrats to @michellepencz and the @gosquaredaway crew to kick off 2023 passing $20m in complete income pic.twitter.com/6sCXPYW3Yu

— Shane Mac (@ShaneMac) January 2, 2023

I consider it nearly like a teeter totter strategy, seesawing backwards and forwards between development on the consumer facet and the workers facet to maintain issues balanced. If we discover ourselves with extra shoppers than assistants, I can decelerate our advertising and marketing funnel and focus extra on recruiting, reaching out to navy partner boards or teams and asking our VAs to refer associates. If we swing the opposite path, I can sluggish recruiting and ramp up advertising and marketing, growing our social media or electronic mail pushes and reminding shoppers about our referral program.

Sure, this implies we often discover ourselves with minor rising pains—quick stints the place we’ve needed to ask shoppers to attend a bit longer than we’d like to search out their good VA, or the place we haven’t had sufficient work to fill our workers’s schedules. However these little imbalances are a lot simpler to right than they might be had we swung means too far in a single path like so many quickly scaling corporations appear to do.

It makes me assume again to the corporate I used to be working for earlier than this all began. If that they had taken a extra incremental strategy to development, possibly they by no means would have needed to lay me off within the first place—however then I’d by no means be the place I’m at this time. It’s laborious to imagine one of many worst days of my life became this unbelievable alternative, and I hope I can maintain providing stability to myself and my group for years to come back.