“We bring them on board (kind of as a consultant or like a subcontractor) for a three-month position to make sure it’s really a good fit …” she says. “As an early-stage company the culture is really so important and one bad person can completely poison the energy of the group so we hire quickly and we fire fast too.”

[hr]

“As an early-stage company the culture is really so important and one bad person can completely poison the energy of the group so we hire quickly and we fire fast too.”

[hr]

It’s not uncommon for startups to date before marriage. For Weebly, a San Francisco-based web-hosting service, when hiring their first outside employee, a graphic designer, they “asked each candidate to [work on a well-defined] project so the work could be assessed.” For David Rusenko, chief executive and co-founder of Weebly, it turned into a cornerstone of their culture. (The New York Times)

Fearless Future

With $18,000 in initial seed money from a local accelerator and a $150,000 angel investment, Hello Fearless plans to move full steam ahead. “I was building relationships with investors and sharing my vision for the company well before I wanted to raise capital,” she recalls. “I built those relationships … ten months before we even raised capital.”

Davidson will allocate funds to product and marketing. “We’re in the process of building our education technology platform that will serve as an online university … [where] the world’s leading experts, coaches and consultants can host their own classes through our platform,” Davidson remarks.

When asked what lesson has made the biggest impact throughout her startup journey, Davidson credits collaboration and partnerships. “We’re not limiting ourselves by not being able to partner with anyone else.” When seeking partners Davidson warns entrepreneurs to “make sure that it’s a mutually beneficial partnership.” She adds, “It just has to be a win-win situation not only from a positioning standpoint, but also marketing and profitability.”

[hr]

“Find your quickest way to cash. And don’t get paralyzed in your vision. You have to start somewhere and launch things quickly and pivot as soon as you can.”

[hr]

Davidson learned that success is rarely a straight and narrow path. To become a successful entrepreneur, she offers the following tip: “Find your quickest way to cash. And don’t get paralyzed in your vision. You have to start somewhere and launch things quickly and pivot as soon as you can.”

Connect with Hello Fearless on Twitter and Facebook.

© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.