← How I Built My Small Business
How I Built My Small Business
Alexa D'Agostino - Secrets to go from $0 to 7-8-9 FIGURES from a Serial 6x Exit Entrepreneur
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- [00:00]
Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Foreign.
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Ann McEntee
Welcome to How I Built My Small business. I'm Ann McEntee, your host. And today, Dr. Alexa D'Agostino is coming on the show to share insights on how to build a company from six to seven figures or seven to eight. Alexa founded her first official company at 18 and went on to build and then exit multiple businesses, achieving over nine figures in exits by the age of 30. As a part of her journey, she has raised over $100 million for charities worldwide. As the CEO of Think Consulting Group, Alexis specializes in scaling businesses through strategic marketing, sales, and leadership development. Her expertise has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
I'm so excited to be here and have a great conversation.
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Unknown
So starting your first company at 18 is pretty impressive. And I was wondering if you could share a little bit of your backstory. What shaped you into being an entrepreneur at science such a young age?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Yeah. So my family's from Cuba, so when they came to America, they had no choice but really to be entrepreneurs because they didn't come from a family that allowed them the opportunity in their country to, you know, build a life for themselves. So when they came to America, they couldn't speak English, they didn't know anybody, they couldn't get a job, and they had no choice, really, but to become entrepreneurs. And so I grew up, everybody in my household, for my mother, my father, my sisters, my cousins, my aunts, my grandparents, everybody was entrepreneur. So I kind of automatically knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. And I loved it at a young age. I was starting businesses at 5 and 7. And I have a lot of content on this, where I tell stories of these businesses I started and how much trouble I used to get into because I used to sell, like, things to, like, second graders. And when I was in second grade and my teachers would get mad at me, like, what are you doing? Like, but everything to me was a business. And I just realized at a young age that if you have something people want, you could sell it and make money off it. And so I had a business well before that. It's just I didn't make it an official business until 18. But part of why I made an official business is because I, I kind of got off the ground. But when I was starting to go to college, I was like, I need to make some extra money. And I said, I'm just gonna throw an ad on Craigslist and see what happened. This was before Craigslist. Was like creepy. I literally put an ad up and was like, I'll build your website for 300 bucks. Like I didn't care how much money I made. I believe you have to char. You don't want to do anything for free. But when you're first getting started, like you shouldn't worry so much about pricing. You got to build your reputation, build your portfolio. And that's exactly what I did. I just 300 bucks and that one client ended up becoming one of my biggest clients in my first company and helped me intro to so many other people to help me build my business.
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Unknown
Amazing. It sounds serendipitous in some ways. So what exactly was that first business that you started?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Well, it's interesting because where it started and where it ended is actually a pretty cool story. And this is, this, this is a good lesson for everybody that's starting a business to be open minded to where you can go and it might not be where you envision and it might not be where you thought in the beginning. So I started as an app developer. I was nerdy. I loved developing and I love building apps. And that was originally my first business was websites and apps. It wasn't marketing at all, it was just straight web and app. And I was a computer science major and that was kind of where I thought I was heading. And what ended up happening is I started doing some projects for some pretty big names. So CIO at Morgan Stanley, a CIO at a major college, a CEO at one of the leading tech companies in the world. And while I was working on those projects building apps, all three of them were like, hey, I have this idea for a side project. I don't have time to do it. I'll go 5050 with you. You build it, I'll fund it and you do everything else. And I was like, huh? So the good thing was is I was open minded about it. And I was like, yeah, give me the challenge. So what ended up happening is I ended up building these apps and the CIO at Mor and Stanley was like, hey, now how do we market this? I go, I don't know. I, at that time I was like, I have three technical degrees, I have two masters in cybersecurity and Internet technology. I was like, I have no idea how to market. He goes, well, we gotta figure it out. And that's when I was like, okay. And I ended up learning marketing and realizing what a value there is to having somebody who's technical and on the data side as a CMO rather than the creative side, which is 80 to 90% of CMOs out there. And I really became more of like a chief revenue officer, really driving through data and tech integration. And I had to learn the creative side. And now I have a creative, you know, perspective. And now I do have an MBA marketing and a PhD. But at that time I had no training in marketing at all. And I had, I pretty much had to teach myself. And that's how my company transitioned into a digital marketing agency that then was sold in 2014.
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Unknown
You were absolutely putting yourself out there. I mean, contacting people on Craigslist and taking any jobs that you could take.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Well, what's interesting is Sarah Blakely, who came up with Spanx, somebody asked her, how the heck did you get into Neiman Marcus? And you want to know what her response was? I called them. And a lot of times we forget that. It's as simple as just picking up the phone and calling somebody and saying, hey, here's what I do. How can I help you? And that's essentially what I've done my whole career is I'm not afraid to speak up at networking events and saying, hey, here's how I think I can help you. And it's how I've gotten into a lot of the circles that I am, and I'm actually not a huge networker. I don't go to, you know, all these events and this and that. What I do is I do a really good job for, for my partners. And I have people that sell me because they believe in me. And that's the most important thing is you get your inner circle of people that are going to sell for you. And you can't be afraid to ask people that are in your circle, how can I help you or people in your network.
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Unknown
And again, I feel like one of the lessons I'm hearing from what you're saying is that you're offering to help, which is what is attracting people to come to you, is that you're in it for them, not necessarily 100% for yourself. So that is attractive. I'm wondering across all of the businesses that you have scaled and sold, what are the patterns that are part of.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Your formula at this point? I've had nine figures worth of exits and I've had a ton of failures. I've had companies that I thought were billion dollar companies. I've had companies that we did 100 million in two years and still failed and ended up bankrupting. And what's interesting is there's principles that I've seen of why Things were successful, and there's principles why I thought things weren't successful. And so principle number one that I found is when you go into business, you have to be all in. If you have a business yourself or if you have business with partners, every single person that's on that cap table has to be 100% invested. If they are in 10 other things, it doesn't matter how great the idea is, it will fail because everyone's not fully 100% invested in that business. The other thing is persistence. You have to have money sometimes to persist, but you have to personally have the attitude to want to persist. Entrepreneurship is hard. It's like a wave that crashes down on you. Do you get up or do you leave the ocean? I never leave. I always get smacked with a wave and I get right back up, no matter how big it is. And that's entrepreneurship. If you can't persist, if you don't have that kind of personality to be able to just get up and go as hard as it is, that's something else that I've seen as well. When we either don't have the money to persist or we don't have the right team with the right attitude to persist. The third thing I would say is product market fit. Do you actually have a product that makes sense that people want? You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't have people that will actually buy it, it doesn't matter. So this is where I say to people, don't the way to the end, building something. Build an mvp. Get something that people can test and feel, even if it's at 20%, where you can give them the vision and see if people are actually interested in it. I've seen people spend years building something that nobody wants, rather than building an MVP or an idea of something to see if people even want it. I have seen great ideas that other people beat them to market because they took too long. And so it's kind of a dual lesson there. It's one, get something out quickly, make sure it's a product market fit, and then two, don't try to make it perfect. Perfection is not going to win the game. Speed is going to win the game. The last thing which is very important is building the right team. You can have a great, great product, but if you don't have the right tech team, you don't have the right marketing team, you don't have the right people leading it, you're never going to get to the finish line. It's going to Be very, very challenging.
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Unknown
And that will circle back to someone that is in an episode a few before yours. Who is Jeff Smart. He like the world's number one expert on hiring. And he also says, yeah, the team is really. It's everything.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
It's everything.
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Unknown
So a lot of our listeners are either entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. There are a lot of curious listeners who just love these stories. But anyone that is currently owner operating a business, what advice do you have for them to scale from say six figures to seven figures or maybe seven figures to eight figures?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Yeah, I actually think it's easier to scale from seven to eight than it is six to seven. Because when you're scaling to six figures, it's mostly you and it's you, yourself and you. Right. Where when you start to hit seven figures, what matters? People marketing, which are the two hardest part of building a company. And a lot of people are scared to invest in marketing because unless they have a direct roi, they can't see it. They're scared to put money into it. But marketing takes time. You have to test things out, you have to put things out. You have to see what's working. You have to be willing to put 10% minimum of your budget into marketing, knowing you might not get it back immediately. Because nobody knows. I don't care how good a marketer is, nobody really knows what's going to work until you actually try it. I've seen campaigns for the same exact type of company fail. Because just because company A did it successfully doesn't mean company B will. Why? There are different brands, different reputation, sometimes different offerings. Right. And so you've got to start to build your marketing. And what I call, it's a trademark that we have called marketing by modification. You've got to start testing what is and isn't working. You could do 10 a day, you could do a couple hundred dollars a month. It doesn't matter. But you got to earmark a little bit for marketing. And then people we just talked about, it's the most important piece and the hardest piece of building a business is making sure you have the right people in place. And I could even add processes in there, making sure you put the time and energy and money aside to set the right processes. There's a lot of inefficient businesses out there because they're not taking the time to build the correct processes. And so my advice is focus on those things as you're growing. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself and in your business.
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Unknown
When you start a new business and it's the very beginning. What are the strategies and tactics that you're looking at to gain traction quickly?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
You know, don't be afraid to leverage your personal social. You don't have to have 20,000 followers. I made my first million dollars having 5,000 followers. That's it. I would say half of them were like family and friends. You can't be afraid to put yourself out there. Sometimes people are like, oh, I don't want to put myself out there. You have to. You have to let people know what you're doing and not necessarily ask for help. But you never know who in your circle will refer you. So my first business, I was put myself out there to family, friends, anybody that would basically listen. And that's how I built my name, my portfolio, and it kind of weaved out from there. So first is putting yourself out there. Second is seeking advice, getting a coach. It doesn't mean go spend a hundred thousand dollars on a coach, by the way. It could be a mentor. It could be somebody close to you. You want to have a sounding board of people, whether it's like a little advisory board that you put together of people that you can ask advice for and whatnot. You want to make sure that you're you' doing that. The third thing I would say with that piece is putting yourself in rooms with people that are doing what you're doing. There's very few of us that are creating companies that don't exist, right? So if you're a marketing agency owner, get in a room with people that have built agencies, and there's plenty of meetup groups and things like that of people that have done it. So don't recreate the wheel. And that might mean hiring a coach that has done it, but you want to make sure they've actually done it and they've done. What you are looking to do is there's a lot of coaches out there, or what I call coaches that coach coaches. And you want to just make sure you get the right mentor or coach. And again, it doesn't mean you have to go, you know, spending crazy amounts of money to hire somebody. And sometimes you don't have to hire anybody at all. And don't be afraid to pick up the phone. It's going to require you to roll up your sleeves to build this thing. And part of that is figuring out where are your people. Facebook groups is a fantastic place to start. For instance, if you're selling a pet product, how lover Facebook groups are there, right? So figure out where your people hang out. Maybe they're sitting on Reddit. Right? So I have a company that we have a $500 million sports venture fund. It's a private equity company that I'm part equity in. And it's like, where are the sports fans? They're on Reddit, they're on Twitter. So that's where I'm going to be, right? So figure out where these people are and build relationships. Put yourself out there. Don't be afraid to share what you're working on. So there's so many free ways to build a company and then with funding, you know that side, if you do have funding, start putting stuff out there, see what messaging's working, see what design's working. Don't be afraid to test things out. You can take a thousand bucks a month and that will tell you a lot about what is and isn't working, what people do and do not want.
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Unknown
And let's say that there's a small business owner who's listening in. They've never really spent any money on marketing before and they are a little nervous. They don't really have a pre assigned budget set aside for it and they've got, okay, a thousand bucks that they're saying, fine, I'll give it a try. Where are you going to recommend that they first try?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
So Facebook is still the number one app for marketing. It is more expensive than it was in the past, but it still is the number one advertising tool. TikTok is good, but the problem with TikTok is that it's very content driven. If you don't have the right content, it's not going to work. It's going to bomb where Facebook, you don't necessarily have to have the exact right content to get leads. Where TikTok is very, very creative driven. And you know, depending on what you're doing, like if you have a fitness brand or a food brand, Pinterest is great and it's cheap, right? So I think it really depends what kind of business that you have. But there's a lot of platforms out there and you've got to kind of test. But Facebook is still the number one. Google's great, but it's expensive. And Google to me is, is great if you want the low hanging fruit, AKA people that are sear. But once you start to go into like video and you need a lot of assets for that and then you know, you don't really use the display network, that's more of retargeting and whatnot. So to me that's not the top of the funnel that's kind of more mid funnel unless you're doing search. But again, that's not gonna tell you much because people are already searching for you. What you want to know in the beginning is people that are not searching for you, can you capture their attention? And that's where you would use like Facebook ads.
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Unknown
So have you ever taken a major risk in order to take a big leap for one of your companies and not have it pan out?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Oh, yeah. I've had more failures than successes now in saying that I've had income rise and revenue wise or wins in dollar amounts is bigger than my losses. But the sheer number of losses are way more than my failures. And it's kind of like you invest in a hundred things and five pan out, but the five that pan out are more than the losses. Right. And I think that's really important. It's you. You want to diversify in what you're doing and, and try different things. And that's what I've done in my career and it's why I've been successful is because I'm willing to try anything I believe in. I won't waste my time on, on something I don't believe in and that I don't believe will work or I'm not passionate about. That's part of my criteria to take on projects. But I've had, I mentioned this earlier that I've built up to nine figures and then they went bankrupt. And I've had companies that built to nine figures and, and we sold successfully. You have failures that you learn from and you have wins that you learn from. But the most important thing as an entrepreneur and a human is to make sure you learn from everything. The good, the bad, the ugly, and, and learn how you could be better.
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Unknown
I think if we could figure out.
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Ann McEntee
How to teach people to be okay.
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Unknown
With that piece, then that would be phenomenal. It's a repeated advice that we hear. But some people are so scared of what others might think of them. So if you have anything that you'd like to offer on that, please.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's. Start by not thinking of it as a failure. Think of it as a stepping stone. I've had failures in hiring. I've had failures in companies. One of my biggest failures in the last five years was a company. It was a new industry I've never been in. It was a CPG brand and we had very quick traction. We were getting into major box stores very quickly. People loved the brand, what we were building and we failed because of the operational side of the house. It's a very complicated story, but it kind of is a bunch of lessons. And one, and one was what I was telling you about is if you don't have all partners involved and all partners concentrating on this, that was part of it. And two, we almost had so much success in and the want for this very quickly we weren't set up to do it properly. And we had major issues with our factory and manufacturing the product. And then we pissed people off. And then you're sending out product that wasn't good. And so we, we almost did too good of a job on marketing in the beginning because we tried to scale too quickly because everybody was impatient. Right. And so it was, I thought was gonna be my billion dollar exit. And I was, in the first 12 months, I was like, holy crap. Like we have everybody interested from Target and Costco and everyone wanted us. And I literally saw my tens of millions of dollars in, in my head already before we even had it. And it is still to date, like my biggest failure because there were so many things that were missed on the way. And so, you know, for me, it was looking back and seeing, okay, now when I evaluate opportunities, it's not just the marketing of it, but it's also the partners. It's the, the plan to market. It's. There's so many other things besides marketing that I need to look at when I'm evaluating these opportunities. So the good thing is, is I walked away with a whole new industry. I knew nothing about cbg. I knew nothing about going to trade shows and this. And, and there's so many things that I learned from the failure. But also there were. So I learned from doing the project. And now I can say I know how to onboard a Target. I know how to get products into Costco and what they're looking for. I know exactly the criteria Whole Foods is looking versus Costco, who cares more about the design than the ingredients. And Sprouts is very crazy about ingredients. I wouldn't known all of this if I didn't do the project right. So as much as it was a failure and we ended up bankrupting that company, I walked away with so much knowledge that's something you can't buy.
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Ann McEntee
Yeah.
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Unknown
With the failures that I've had, which is plenty. I always say that, look, it costs money to get an education. And learning by doing is worth the money, even if you lose it because there's your education right there. So how do you determine when it is the right time? To exit a business.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Actually one of my failures was exiting a business too early. That's a hard question because one of my exits, I exited a company, I was 20 and it's now a multi billion dollar company and I sold it for a sheer couple million, but I was 20 and back then that was a lot of money. But I sold it to one of the largest financial companies in the world and they obviously saw where it was heading. And now the patent that I had is now the patent at every casino. Now granted, I wouldn't have had that connection to even get this in casinos to begin with. With, but they are large investors in some of the largest casinos in the world. But what I should have done is negotiated to keep 1 to 2% of that company. So I think it's a couple things. It's one, do you have the current team? Because sometimes the team to get it to seven figures isn't the same team to get it to eight or nine or ten. So do you have the right team in place currently or the right advisory board to get you in front of the right people? So the answer, I'll use that company as an example. I did not, I had the right product, I didn't have the right connections, I didn't have the right team to take this to a billion. So it would have never happened. The second question is, would you rather be a hundred percent of a million dollar company or 2% of a billion dollar company? And that's what you have to ask yourself. And is that even something that you want to do? And so if I own 2%, I, I could walk away with, you know, $20 million, it's going to take me. If you even have a 20%, you know, return on your million dollar company, that's going to take you 40 years to get that 20 million. So is it better to sell it, to have the chance at 20 million than taking the risk of waiting 40 years? Yeah, it is. Right. So I think I'm at the point where I most likely will never a hundred percent sell a company outright. Because if you're selling it, you're selling it either because you want the money up front or because you're selling it to a team that can take it to the next level and that determines whether or not you would 100% sell or not. And so it's kind of a complicated answer, but I hope that kind of gives some framework of kind of the thinking. You've got to think about what you want, right?
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Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. And thinking about what you want, what Drives you to keep on creating and scaling and exiting businesses. Especially since it sounds like you likely don't need the money anymore.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Yeah, it's a really great question. So my wife and I, I mean, I wear like, look what I'm wearing. Like, I wear like Amazon Basics. Like, I'm not. We're not very showy people. I believe that real wealth people don't show. I think people that show it are not wealthy. People that brag about donating aren't really wealthy or they have something to hide or they are insecure. So for us, like I walk around in, you know, a T shirt and shorts all day. We drive a Ford. Like, I live in a humble house. Like, we're not, we're not crazy people. For me, it's more about the financial freedom, right? So if I don't work for the next 20 years, it doesn't matter. I could still live the same life that I live right now. So that was the most important thing for me to get to where we are now. Now the next phase of that is impact. And everything I'm involved in is something that can make major impact. And that's the most important thing for me. So if you look at my portfolio, I'm part of really amazing projects that I love to do. One, I. I don't think I can ever not work. Work that would be really boring. Two, I think it's important for my kids to see us working hard. I work just as hard now as I did when I was broke. And it's important for them to see that, right? And we live a great life, we take great vacations and we do things. But I'm constantly talking to my kids about how important it is to work hard, how important it is to be your own boss. I think it's important to show them that they will be working as soon as they can again. They're not going to be trust fund babies. So to me now, this next part is impact. My wife, you know, loves donating and being a part of something, but not just donating with money, but donating with time and really investing in organizations that we care about. So first it was financial freedom, now it's impact.
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Unknown
And is there a specific legacy that you're hoping to leave behind? Is there a certain industry or cause that to you is. Is just the most meaningful?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
What I think everybody should do is think about when this is morbid, but when you die, what do you want on your tombstone? Do you want on your tombstone, alexa made a lot of money or do you want on your tombstone. Alexa impacted a lot of lives, and that's what I think about every day. I don't want on my tombstone. She made millions. What I want to be on that is she helped millions. So for me, my legacy is more about how can we make an impact in this world? How can we change lives? And that might be for my employees, it might be for our customers. It might be in the sake of a nonprofit. You know, it could mean many different things. And that's the legacy that I want to leave. Honestly, I would say the biggest part of my legacy will be my kids. I want to raise good humans. That is my number one priority. And I want them to change the world. I don't want to change the world. I want them to change the world.
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Unknown
That's amazing. It's an amazing way to live. So if you could give one lesson you wish someone had taught you earlier in your entrepreneurial journey, what would that lesson be?
- [26:43]
Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
What I would say is, there was a point in my career where I did get burnt out. And a part of it was that I thought I had to be everything to everyone and everywhere. And you can't. You have to have help. You have to not be afraid to hire people as good as you are better. That should be your aim as a leader. And sometimes when you're building something, you think you have to be in every part of your business, and you don't. And that's how I burnt out. I mean, it's why I sold my first agency in 2014, because I was burnt out. And writing those big pages, checks every single month for salaries, you know, was scary. The truth is, I was young. I had no idea what I was doing. I had an ego. I thought I knew everything. I didn't seek help. I. I just did it. I figured it out, which is pretty cool. I did. But at the same time, if I had somebody, a mentor, somebody that would just sit me down and say, hey, you're forgetting this piece or that piece. I think I wouldn't have been so stressed out being somebody that didn't know. So if you're somebody that's just starting a venture, seek somebody to mentor you. You should always have somebody in your corner. And the other thing that I would. I would add to that is keep your circle tight. I have a lot of people in my network, but my circle, my inner circle, is very, very small. And, you know, sometimes we have too many people giving us advice, and we have people like family and people that really, deep down, family and friends, they don't always like to see you happy and successful. And I've had to cut people out in my inner circle that really deep down wasn't happy for my success. You know, making comments like, oh well, you could afford it, but I can't, things like that. Right? And so you want to pay attention to those things because you don't want people in your inner circle that are, are maybe not to your face, not voting for you or helping you. And so that's really important. Your inner circle needs to be tight and you want to make sure that you're very careful who you let in.
- [28:54]
Unknown
That's so true. And I also know that the burnout that you're talking about, I think I read the other day that something like 75% of business owners fear that they are on the brink of burnout. So it's hard to see the symptoms because they can really go unnoticed for quite a while. So just for a final question here, if you could go back and speak with yourself when you were in your early 20s, what life wisdom would you give yourself that has nothing to do with business?
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
That's easy. Remember to appreciate the journey. Don't forget that you can have success. But if you don't actually live your life and enjoy the people around you, family and friends, then what's the purpose? Right? Tomorrow is not guaranteed. So make sure you live today while also building for tomorrow. And having that balance is, is incredibly important.
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Unknown
Alexa, thank you so much. You've really shared some incredible insights.
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Dr. Alexa D'Agostino
Thank you.
- [29:59]
Ann McEntee
Today's Key Takeaway if you have something that people want, you can sell it. If you have a skill or ability and want to make extra money, focus less on pricing at first. Instead, build your reputation, expand your network and grow your portfolio. Stay open minded. Where you start and where you end may look very different from what you initially imagined. To establish a connection and get your foot in the door. Sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone and saying, hey, this is what I do. How can I help you? One of the most effective forms of networking is simply doing excellent work. Your clients, collaborators and partners will become your best advocates. When you go into business, you have to be all in. Everyone involved must be 100% invested. You have to approach business with persistence. It's an essential ingredient for success. Build an MVP Minimum viable product have speed to market and launch quickly. To test for product market fit don't aim for perfection. Speed and adaptability win the game when scaling from seven to eight figures. Focus on first testing your marketing strategies and figure out what works and Second, build the right team. This is the most important piece. The team that gets your business to seven figures may not be the same team you need to get to eight figures and beyond. Take time to establish strong processes and address inefficiencies in your business. When starting a business, put yourself out there. Let everyone in your circle know what you're doing. You never know who might refer you have a sounding board, a personal advisory board of mentors you can turn to for advice and perspective. Put yourself in the room, whether digital or in person, with others who are doing what you aspire to do. Every step, whether a win or a so called failure, is a stepping stone. Treat it as such. Don't let one department outgrow or outpace the rest of your company. Evaluating whether to sell your business can be complicated. Ask yourself, are you selling to cash out and pursue something else? Or are you selling to bring in someone who can take it to the next level? When you die, what do you want on your tombstone? What will your obituary say? Don't be afraid to hire people who are as good as or better than you. That should be your goal as a leader. Keep your inner circle tight. You can have an expansive network, but be selective with the people you trust for advice and support. And lastly, appreciate the journey. Success means little if you don't enjoy life, family and friends along the way. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.