From SEAL To CEO - Sam Havelock - Entrepreneur Intel - Episode # 20

Joining the show this week is a former Navy SEAL and Marine who uses his entrepreneurial expertise to inform a community of over 30,000 strong. Please welcome to the show, CEO and Founder of the SOFX Network, Sam Havelock! 

Sam sits down with Host Wes Mathews to explore the importance of having focus, and other strategies for entrepreneurs. Sam shares the importance of building trust, how privacy is an important aspect of community, and how to cut through the noise. 

Takeaways: 

• Focus is the most important thing for any entrepreneur to have. Many entrepreneurs have a strong vision and a drive to feed their own intellectual curiosity. However, without focus, you can end up chasing every idea you create. 
• When you work in a profession that is heads down and fast paced, you often don’t have time to understand what the rest of the world is saying about you. Having a quick access feed that aggregates and summarizes allows professionals to stay in the loop. 
• When creating media, it’s important to tailor your content to your audience. For the special forces community, quick updates on happenings matter more than opinions on command decisions. 
• While entrepreneurs aren’t running secret missions, they do have some overlap with special operations forces. Both groups are under-resourced, have more tasks to accomplish than time to accomplish them, and are less risk averse than peers. 
• In the current media landscape of news and social media, it is a challenge to cut through the noise. The best way to reach an audience is by targeting a specific niche and creating a high trust environment. 
• Creating a walled garden for your community can be attractive to users as it creates a sense of privacy. Users who don’t have to worry about their data being sold or used to train AI will have a better connection with your community. 
• While situations don’t always pan out as expected, it’s always worth taking a swing at an idea. Failure is better than regret, and if you can afford to take those risks, you should take them. 

Quote of the Show:

• “It’s really all about the people.” - Sam Havelock

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samhavelock/ 
• Website: https://www.sofx.com/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sam.havelock/?hl=en 

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2I9O1Du2CFBfhGkvR1Oyem 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/entrepreneur-intel/id1720785558 
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4d7fcd6e-e68f-4855-bb8a-8f872fc5b799 
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/entrepreneur-intel-5556614