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 right this moment—operating a multi-million greenback enterprise that employs a whole bunch of navy spouses similar to me.

On the time, my life felt like a nasty nation music. I used to be three months pregnant and had made the choice to start out a household primarily based 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 be capable to discover one other shortly—navy spouses are one of many highest unemployed demographics within the U.S. due to how usually we’ve got to maneuver. My husband had been deployed two weeks earlier than the layoffs, so I used to be by myself attempting to course of all of this. I used to be a sizzling hormonal mess and undoubtedly let myself cry loads of tears that first day.

After which I began to show issues round, as a result of I didn’t actually have some other alternative. 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 finally using as many navy spouses as potential by matching them with firms that want versatile assist. After 5 and a half years of bootstrapping my enterprise, we not too long ago crossed $20 million in gross income, work with over 900 purchasers, and make use of over 390 navy spouses—numbers that also shock me day-after-day.

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

We constructed the corporate primarily based on an actual want

Frankly, I feel a part of what has helped my enterprise succeed is that I didn’t stroll in with the aim of being a CEO of an enormous 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 purchasers 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.

A couple of years later, one in every of my purchasers got here to me expressing a necessity for extra assist. His firm was on the brink of broaden, and he needed extra VA capability. On the flip facet, I used to be seeing a necessity from different navy spouses in my community for versatile, secure, fulfilling jobs just like the one I had. So many buddies 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 concept 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 looking for to fulfill others’ wants, helped me establish actual alternatives for pure progress as a substitute of attempting to drive one thing.

We targeted our advertising on affect

When folks hear about our progress, they’re usually shocked to listen to that we’ve spent lower than $1,500 on paid advertising over the previous 5 years.

As an alternative, we hold our advertising focused towards communities for which we expect our kind of versatile VA assist can have probably the most affect. Through the years, we’ve partnered with predominantly feminine founder organizations like Dreamers & Doers, Chief, and TheLi.st to share details about our companies and provide reductions to members. As a feminine founder myself, I understand how invaluable it may be to have a bit additional 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 messaging, we additionally give attention to educating clients in regards to the affect that delegation can have. Our emails and social media posts will share concepts for duties to delegate, recommendation for learn how to talk when delegating, and different actionable ideas. By offering free assist up entrance, we create speedy worth for patrons and provides them a style of how a lot we may do for them in the event that they signal on.

Lastly, we’ve at all times made certain our mission to make use of navy spouses is entrance and heart, which I feel helps folks really feel extra emotionally related to our model and excited to be part of one thing greater. After we can say, “Hey, you’re going to be ten instances much less careworn than you had been earlier than and, by the best way, you’re supporting a significant trigger whilst you’re at it,” that’s a way more attractive pitch than simply one other subscription you need to pay for.

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

Phrase-of-mouth has at all times been our greatest advertising channel: 85 p.c of our new purchasers come from referrals. Whereas we do encourage this by giving a referral credit score to our current clients, I feel the larger cause 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 desires to affix our staff goes by means of a rigorous software and coaching course of the place we’re consistently assessing whether or not they exhibit our pillars of over-communication, excessive consideration to element, the flexibility to suppose outdoors the field, and being a staff 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 vital 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 at all times 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’ve got to ask purchasers to attend a bit longer till we will establish the proper match, however purchasers have expressed they admire the thoughtfulness behind our matching course of.

There have been actually moments the place I may have scaled quicker by matching incoming purchasers with whoever we had accessible or hiring assistants that weren’t fairly to our customary. However I’d relatively develop extra slowly whereas conserving our purchasers completely happy in order that they hold eager to work with us, and hold eager to sing our praises to others.

We’ve deliberately grown extra slowly

As soon as we launched and noticed early success within the first 12 months, there have been actually many individuals who inspired me to scale quicker. I may have raised cash to rent an enormous inflow of digital assistants so I could possibly be prepared at a second’s discover to workers up new purchasers. I may have paid for large advertising campaigns to get a ton of recent purchasers.

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 method to progress.

Congrats to @michellepencz and the @gosquaredaway staff 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 method, seesawing forwards and backwards between progress on the consumer facet and the workers facet to maintain issues balanced. If we discover ourselves with extra purchasers than assistants, I can decelerate our advertising funnel and focus extra on recruiting, reaching out to navy partner boards or teams and asking our VAs to refer buddies. If we swing the opposite course, I can gradual recruiting and ramp up advertising, growing our social media or e-mail pushes and reminding purchasers about our referral program.

Sure, this implies we often discover ourselves with minor rising pains—quick stints the place we’ve needed to ask purchasers to attend a bit longer than we’d like to search out their excellent 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 appropriate than they might be had we swung means too far in a single course like so many quickly scaling firms appear to do.

It makes me suppose again to the corporate I used to be working for earlier than this all began. If they’d taken a extra incremental method to progress, perhaps 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 right this moment. It’s laborious to consider one of many worst days of my life become this unbelievable alternative, and I hope I can hold providing stability to myself and my neighborhood for years to come back.