For most entrepreneurs, the real test isn't whether or not you can grow a successful business, but how well you can bounce back from failure. For some, this will prove to be too much and they'll hang up the gloves and never try again. For the true entrepreneurs, though, they'll find a way to jump back into the ring no matter what.
That is exactly what Eugene Woo, co-founder of Venngage, did.
“I had like a taste of failure, but I still went ahead anyway and did it again,” Woo says.
After his first startup went under, Woo found himself back in the corporate world feeling like a failure. Despite it all though, he dusted himself off, took it all as a learning experience and refused to give up.
Armed with nothing but a nagging idea about helping job applicants by turning their resumes into beautiful infographics, Woo went ahead and pitched his idea at Startup Weekend in Toronto and, to his surprise, he won. One thing led to another and he found himself quitting his job once again to work on his startup full time.
The startup known as Visiualize.me blew up, getting featured in places like Mashable and Tech Crunch and gaining more than 200,000 signups before the product was even properly released.
But, once again, it was anything but smooth sailing for Woo.
“I made a lot of the classic mistakes. One of the main ones was I started a company with people I didn’t know very well.”
Within a few months, founders started leaving the company, with one even refusing to turn up to an interview with Y Combinator and leaving shortly after. Stung by failure again, Woo didn't know what to do and ended up selling his company. Despite it all, he knew he had a good idea on his hands. He charged right back into the startup world, this time with Venngage, a tool that allows you to easily make your own infographics, and armed with lessons he learned from his previous failures, he was determined to make Venngage a success.
Today, Venngage has tripled in size with over a thousand new leads to their site every day, and over half a million users per month.
We talk with Woo about the invaluable lessons he learned on his journey to success and ask him to share his best advice on how entrepreneurs can overcome their fear of failure, and the best marketing tactics to quickly grow your startup.
In this episode you will learn:
- How to know when to give up or keep on going with your startup
- Why so many startups are doing content marketing wrong
- The secret to getting your company to start ranking high in SEO as soon as possible
- How and why you should do blogger outreach
- What the most important metrics are for growing your brand's exposure and visibility
- & much more!
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan