How I Turned Sudden Layoffs Into a $20 Million Business

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 immediately—working a multi-million greenback enterprise that employs a whole lot of army spouses identical to me.

On the time, my life felt like a foul nation tune. I used to be three months pregnant and had made the choice to start out a household based mostly on the solidity of being a dual-income family, which was all of the sudden not true. Given how arduous it had been to seek out this job within the first place, I wasn’t assured I’d have the ability to discover one other shortly—army 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 making an attempt to course of all of this. I used to be a scorching hormonal mess and undoubtedly let myself cry a whole lot of tears that first day.

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

For anybody else trying to take stability into their very own palms within the face of financial uncertainty, listed below 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 feel a part of what has helped my enterprise succeed is that I didn’t stroll in with the purpose of being a CEO of a giant firm. I didn’t even stroll in with the purpose of beginning an organization.

As a substitute, I got down to meet wants I noticed. Initially that was my very own have to 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 number of years later, one in every of my purchasers got here to me expressing a necessity for extra help. His firm was on the brink of develop, and he needed extra VA capability. On the flip facet, I used to be seeing a necessity from different army spouses in my community for versatile, steady, 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 thought for Squared Away initially happened.

Strolling the trail of entrepreneurship from the headspace of wanting sustainable careers for myself and people like me, in addition to in search of to satisfy others’ wants, helped me establish actual alternatives for pure progress as an alternative of making an attempt to drive one thing.

We targeted our advertising and marketing on affect

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

As a substitute, we hold our advertising and marketing focused towards communities for which we expect our sort of versatile VA help 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 supply reductions to members. As a feminine founder myself, I understand how precious it may be to have just a little additional assist when working towards a mission you care about, so I felt like we might garner a excessive stage of curiosity from this cohort.

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

Lastly, we’ve all the time made certain our mission to make use of army spouses is entrance and middle, which I feel helps individuals really feel extra emotionally linked to our model and excited to be part of one thing greater. Once we can say, “Hey, you’re going to be ten occasions much less confused than you had been earlier than and, by the best way, you’re supporting a significant trigger when you’re at it,” that’s a way more engaging 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 all the time been our greatest advertising and marketing 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 prospects, 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 hitch our crew goes by way of a rigorous software and coaching course of the place we’re continuously assessing whether or not they exhibit our pillars of over-communication, excessive consideration to element, the power to assume outdoors the field, and being a crew participant—and solely about 10 p.c of those that apply make it. As arduous as it’s for me to show away army 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 need to discover the very best match on either side in order that our staff are excited to offer their all to every consumer they’re working with. This sometimes means we’ve got to ask purchasers to attend just a little longer till we will establish the precise match, however purchasers have expressed they recognize the thoughtfulness behind our matching course of.

There have been actually moments the place I might have scaled sooner by matching incoming purchasers with whoever we had out there or hiring assistants that weren’t fairly to our commonplace. However I’d relatively develop extra slowly whereas conserving our purchasers pleased so that they hold desirous to work with us, and hold 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 12 months, there have been actually many individuals who inspired me to scale sooner. I might have raised cash to rent an enormous inflow of digital assistants so I may very well be prepared at a second’s discover to employees up new purchasers. I might have paid for large advertising and marketing campaigns to get a ton of latest purchasers.

However I didn’t need to take the identical path of the corporate I had labored for beforehand, rising too quick after which having to put individuals off when issues didn’t work out as deliberate. As a substitute, I’ve taken a extra incremental method to progress.

Congrats to @michellepencz and the @gosquaredaway crew to kick off 2023 passing $20m in whole 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 employees facet to maintain issues balanced. If we discover ourselves with extra purchasers than assistants, I can decelerate our advertising and marketing funnel and focus extra on recruiting, reaching out to army partner boards or teams and asking our VAs to refer buddies. If we swing the opposite route, I can gradual recruiting and ramp up advertising and marketing, growing our social media or e mail pushes and reminding purchasers about our referral program.

Sure, this implies we sometimes discover ourselves with minor rising pains—quick stints the place we’ve needed to ask purchasers to attend just a little longer than we’d like to seek out their excellent VA, or the place we haven’t had sufficient work to fill our employees’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 route like so many quickly scaling firms 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 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 immediately. It’s arduous to imagine one of many worst days of my life changed into this unbelievable alternative, and I hope I can hold providing stability to myself and my neighborhood for years to return.