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 now—operating a multi-million greenback enterprise that employs a whole bunch of navy spouses identical 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 based mostly on the solidity of being a dual-income family, which was all of a sudden now not true. Given how onerous 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 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 plenty 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 attainable by matching them with firms that want versatile assist. After 5 and a half years of bootstrapping my enterprise, we just lately 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 palms within the face of financial uncertainty, listed below are among 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 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 revenue, 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, considered one of my purchasers got here to me expressing a necessity for extra assist. His firm was on the brink of broaden, 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 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 fulfill others’ wants, helped me establish actual alternatives for pure development as a substitute of attempting to pressure one thing.

We targeted our advertising 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 over the previous 5 years.

As an alternative, we hold our advertising focused towards communities for which we predict our kind of versatile VA assist can have probably 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 provide reductions to members. As a feminine founder myself, I understand how worthwhile it may be to have a little bit additional assist when working towards a mission you care about, so I felt like we may garner a excessive degree of curiosity from this cohort.

By way of our advertising messaging, we additionally deal with educating prospects concerning the impression that delegation can have. Our emails and social media posts will share concepts for duties to delegate, recommendation for tips on how to talk when delegating, and different actionable suggestions. By offering free assist up entrance, we create quick 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 all the time made certain our mission to make use of navy spouses is entrance and middle, which I feel helps folks really feel extra emotionally related to our model and excited to be part of one thing greater. Once we can say, “Hey, you’re going to be ten instances much less pressured 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 all the time been our largest advertising channel: 85 % of our new purchasers come from referrals. Whereas we do encourage this by giving a referral credit score to our present prospects, I feel the larger purpose they’re excited to share us with different enterprise homeowners is due to the standard of labor we offer.

For starters, we’re very choosy concerning the VAs we’ll rent. Everybody who needs to hitch our workforce goes by a rigorous utility 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 assume exterior the field, and being a workforce participant—and solely about 10 % of those that apply make it. As onerous as it’s for me to show away navy spouses given our mission, I do know retaining our high quality bar excessive is essential 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 most effective match on either side in order that our staff are excited to present their all to every consumer they’re working with. This often means we have now to ask purchasers to attend a little bit longer till we will establish the appropriate match, however purchasers have expressed they recognize 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 out there or hiring assistants that weren’t fairly to our commonplace. However I’d relatively develop extra slowly whereas retaining our purchasers completely satisfied 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 may very well be prepared at a second’s discover to employees up new purchasers. I may have paid for giant advertising campaigns to get a ton of recent 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 folks off when issues didn’t work out as deliberate. As an alternative, I’ve taken a extra incremental method to development.

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

— Shane Mac (@ShaneMac) January 2, 2023

I consider it virtually like a teeter totter method, seesawing backwards and forwards between development 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 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 path, I can gradual recruiting and ramp up advertising, rising 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—brief stints the place we’ve needed to ask purchasers to attend a little bit longer than we’d like to search out their good 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 appropriate than they’d be had we swung manner too far in a single path 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 they’d taken a extra incremental method to development, 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 now. It’s onerous to imagine one of many worst days of my life became this unimaginable alternative, and I hope I can hold providing stability to myself and my group for years to return.