Shelley Zalis:
After 148 rejections in the first funding round, Kathryn Minshew co-founder and CEO of the Muse took note of what she did wrong and upped her game when she went looking for new financing. Minshew scored close to $30 million thanks to the new approach.
In Kathryn’s money story you will learn
-How Kathryn and the Muse team re-vamped their strategy the second time they raised money
-How Kathryn rebounded from the 148 rejections in the seed round of financing
-How The Muse raised $30 million from investors
-How they were able to ask for less money and come out with more than the original targets
-The way Kathryn structured her process when pitching investors
-How they organized their pitches and research to be more effective
-Kathryn’s investor prioritization strategy
-The specific thing Kathryn said to investors to get them to the table faster- and with more interest in her company
-How a second round of financing is different- and should be approached differently from a seed round
In Kathryn’s lesson you will learn:
-The advice Kathryn found most helpful from her networks and mentors
-How she got help from other entrepreneurs
-How to tell if the investors are wrong not to invest- or if your idea and pitch is missing the mark
-How to figure out who your end users are- and why it is important
-Strategies and specific things to ask in order to get honest input about your company
In Kathryn’s money tip you will learn:
-Negotiations can be about more than just cash
-How to ask for signing bonuses, signing bonuses, flextime, vacation time, better titles.
-Why budgets for professional training are essential and how to negotiate for them
In my take you will learn:
-How to learn lessons from rejection, and incorporate them in your next venture
-The importance of taking the time to throughtfully plan and customize presentations and pitches
-How to level the playing field even when the other party is clearly more powerful.
Episode links:
TheMuse.com
Kathryn’s book with Muse co-founder Alexandra Cavoulacos The New Rules of Work
Follow Kathryn and The Muse!
Instagram @kminshew @themuse
Twitter: @Kmin and @TheMuse and @TheNewRules
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thedailymuse
https://www.facebook.com/minshew
Transcription
Kathryn Minshew:
If you tell someone you're the founder of a company and ask for their input, they are more likely to give you positive impact because they don't want to hurt your feelings. If you tell them that you're a consultant helping a company understand how its market positioning lands, or helping a company better understand what it's doing well and what it's not, people are much more likely to give you totally unfiltered feedback for the series A because I was running a process.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to "Financial Grownup" with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of "How to Be a Financial Grownup". You know what? Being a grownup is really hard, especially when it comes to money. But it's okay, we're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money story from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, everybody. This is an episode about rejection, and what you would do differently the second time around. How to tell were they wrong to reject you? Maybe your message could be a little bit more on point. The Muse founder and CEO, Kathryn Minshew has told the story many times of how she and her colleagues were rejected 148 times when they when to raise money for their startup, The Muse. Once the company got off the ground, it has been a massive success, and many people would say, "Well, those 148 people, they must be so sorry that they rejected it." And of course, that is true to some extent. But also, Kathryn looks back and realizes she had a lot that she would do differently the next time. And in fact, she did do it differently when she went back for the next round of financing, and that's what we talked about. Here is Kathryn Minshew.
Bobbi Rebell:
Kathryn Minshew, you are a financial grownup. Welcome to the program.
Kathryn Minshew:
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you are well known as the founder and CEO of The Muse, the amazing job site, and also well known for being rejected when you went to raise money. Tell me how many, 140 something times?
Kathryn Minshew:
148 times. It was like rejection for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a few meetings and noes inbetween for fun.
Bobbi Rebell:
And you are the queen of resilience, and one thing that you talk about in your book, "The New Rules of Work", which I should have mentioned to everybody. She is the author of a fabulous career book called "The New Rules of Work".
Bobbi Rebell:
You talk about your personal brand, and how important it is to define it. That fundraising and the lack of it for so long became your personal brand. So you brought with you a money story that has to do with what happened next, after you finally did get the initial funding and you went back for me. Tell us.
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. Well, first of all, I'll say it's much easier as we all know to talk about failure once you've moved past it. So it became much easier to tell the story of the 148 noes after we had already successfully raised our series A and B rounds. So we've raised almost $30 million in venture capital so far for The Muse.
Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing.
Kathryn Minshew:
It's been a totally wild ride. So my financial story involves what I set out to do, or rather what I did in the series A to ensure that we had an outcome that was very different than the seed round. Because, obviously, I knew how important it was for that next round, to get it right from the go-ahead. And so to try and condense the story into something very quick, we wanted to go out and initially we were thinking about raising six to $7 million. But actually given the advice that I got while preparing for a fundraise, we were actually told to start out saying we were thinking five to six or five to seven, and then slowly let the demand build. So instead of us going out for a big number and being less sure if the market would respond, start out with a smaller number. And then, if the market is really excited about our business, let the negotiations and the demand push it up, which ended up working really well for us because we ended up raising 10 million after we had overwhelming demand.
Kathryn Minshew:
I also was incredibly structured about the process probably because I was a little bit paranoid after having such a difficult time with our seed round. So ahead of time, I really worked the story, got all of our metrics out there. I thought about how best to position them, which numbers to lead with, what to put first so that we could really grab people's attention. We were obviously lucky in that we had really great revenue growth and a lot of very strong metrics.
Kathryn Minshew:
And then, I actually created a spreadsheet. I took all of the investors that I was even remotely interested in talking to. I put them in a spreadsheet. Divided it up by location, so that when I was in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, DC, et cetera, I could meet with people who were there. Then, I included information about whether they had invested in any similar companies, any competitors. Any companies that might give them a better understanding into what we did at The Muse. I would include notes from different meetings. I actually would also rank how excited I was after each meeting to continue conversations, so I could prioritize the ones that I was most excited about. I would say that really helped to keep me on track, and so we were also able to run a pretty tight process, where we pinned all of our first meetings with investors to the same two-and-a-half or three-week period.
Kathryn Minshew:
It was really interesting because in the seed round, we had a lot of trouble with investors saying, "Oh, I'm busy, right now. But how about in a month?" I wasn't confident enough in the business, so we would just take whatever we could get for the series A because I was running a process. I would write back to people and be like, "You know I'd love to talk, but unfortunately, I need to get all of our first meetings done by X date. So I can push it a few days, but let me know if you're going to be able to make it work. And if not, I'm totally fine. We'll keep in touch and maybe there'll be another round that you can participate in." And what was fascinating is a lot of people would say, "Oh, let me move around my schedule. Absolutely, I can make it work." And suddenly, we were negotiating from a more even position. And the ones that weren't able to or the ones that said, "No, sorry. I can't do it," they probably would have never backed the company to begin with.
Bobbi Rebell:
True. Do you think looking back, obviously when you were going for the most money, the second round, you were a stronger situation to begin with. But had you used the techniques that you were now using that you just talked about, would you have had more success the first time?
Kathryn Minshew:
You know, maybe. It's so hard to know because the seed round for a startup is really different than later rounds because people aren't necessarily looking at your metrics. They are to some extent, but they're really betting on you. And I think the fact that it was my first proper company that I was fairly young at the time, this was six-and-a-half years ago, so it was very early in my career. And I think that plus the lack of knowledge or understanding about what we were trying to do in the business were some of the biggest concerns. So I do think we could have had a better time and controlled the process a bit more, but I also think there were just some fundamental and structural things that we had to get through and really prove on very limited capital before we could really go out and successfully fundraise from bigger investors.
Bobbi Rebell:
So now, what is your advice to listeners and especially want-to-be entrepreneurs that are looking to raise money, start businesses, and especially to young women?
Kathryn Minshew:
I would say, firstly, you can't understate the importance of perseverance because it is so hard in the early days. But I think that doesn't mean that you just keep doing the same thing without adjusting your tactics and thinking about how you could be more strategic. I found it to be so invaluable to get the advice from others, especially other female entrepreneurs. Because sometimes we have a lot of great friends who are entrepreneurs, who are men, but sometimes the tactics or the approaches or behaviors that would work for them, didn't work the same when I did them because of unintentional or unconscious bias or other things. And so I found that it was really helpful to surround myself with a network of entrepreneurs of both genders to get a lot of advice, to test out different approaches to see what felt natural and normal to me. Because if it feels too unnatural to you, investors will probably pick up on that, and it won't help you communicate that confidence that you are looking for when you're starting to talk to investors about your business.
Bobbi Rebell:
So one last question about this for our listeners, how do you know the difference between maybe your idea just isn't that good, and that's why you're not getting funding and you should stop, or you should persevere as you did because your idea just isn't hitting the right people at the right time with the right message?
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. So you've just gotten to the crux of what makes this so hard, which is that there is no silver bullet, and you will never have 100% confidence or certainty either way, which is incredibly difficult. However, I think there are a few things you can use to help you directionally get that sense of whether your business is likely to be successful. The first, and I think the most important is to figure out who are your end users and do as much as possible to get unfiltered feedback from them.
Kathryn Minshew:
For example, if you tell someone you're the founder of a company and ask for their input, they're more likely to give you positive input because they don't want to hurt your feelings. If you tell them that you're a consultant helping a company understand how its marketing positioning lands or helping a company better understand what its doing well and what it's not, people are much more likely to give you totally unfiltered feedback, and you need that unfiltered feedback when you're trying to ascertain if you really need to keep pushing forward on your business.
Kathryn Minshew:
So in my case, even though we were getting rejection, after rejection, after rejection from a lot of investors, we were hearing things from our users and from people who were signing up to use The Muse that indicated we had tapped a nerve and we were on a path that people love. They wanted us to use the product. They'd say I love The Muse, but can you do these five things? Make it better here. Change this. That's all positive feedback because that shows you that there is a need. You just have to keep getting better, and I think that is what gave me the oomph to keep going. But I will just call out it's not like I knew the whole time, oh my gosh, this is a great idea. I just have to keep going. I definitely struggled with whether I should accept that these people that were much more experienced than I, that were successful investors, maybe they knew something I didn't, and I just had hubris.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right. Let's do a money tip. You are the career guru, and you have so many amazing ideas and tips in your book. I wanted to pull some out of there and get maybe your favorite tips that people can use in their careers, and their ventures that they could maybe put to work ASAP at their next job interview or their next negotiation, what have it.
Kathryn Minshew:
I thought through a lot of different things I could share here, and the one I came up with that I wanted to talk about today is the fact that when you negotiate, it is not just all about cash and I think it can be really empowering to realize that because so many of us have anxiety about negotiating a salary, negotiating a raise. Whether it's at the beginning of a job search, or when you're getting a promotion. But I would encourage people, remember that there are a lot of other things you can negotiate for.
Kathryn Minshew:
So obviously, base salary is the thing that people talk about most. But what about signing bonuses, performance bonuses if you achieve certain things? You can also negotiate for flex time, for vacation time, for a better title that might help you in your career. One of the most creative things that I've heard is people negotiating for a budget for professional development and training.
Bobbi Rebell:
Specific money. In other words, not just saying, "Will you send me," in theory. It's very specific.
Kathryn Minshew:
Oh, very specific. In fact, there was someone at an organization that had mandatory salary bans that the leadership wasn't able to go beyond, and so she said great. Why don't you dedicate ... I think it was five or $10,000 towards training development conference that will include my travel, and that will help level me up to be a better employee for you, to let me do my job better, and it won't invalidate the salary cap. This will just be another way that you're investing in my growth, and they said yes, and I think that is such a great example of creativity when it comes to negotiation.
Bobbi Rebell:
Amazing. That's such great advice. Thank you so much. Tell us quickly before we wrap up, what are you guys up to at The Muse these day, and where can people find you?
Kathryn Minshew:
Absolutely. So people can find me at The Muse or @kmin on Twitter. As a company, we are doing a lot right now, but we have been really focusing on we rolled out a new feature called Discussions on TheMuse.com, where people can ask and answer each other's questions. So if you have a career question or you want to learn more about negotiating a raise, we've got a way now to get advice from our community and hear other people's stories. And then, I'm also just kind of fascinated down the road by continuing to explore this idea of how people make the best career decisions, how they find the right fits, and how we help companies tell their stories in a more genuine and authentic way that isn't about just come work here, we're great, but really shares the information people need to know to decide do I want to be part of that organization, or be part of that company?
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends. Here's my take on what Kathryn had to say.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip, number one. Like she did, do your homework, including learning what went wrong the first time. Even if you think the companies or whomever you were pitching to were wrong to reject your idea, we all have room for improvement. Kathryn went out and asked for advice, for example, about how much money to ask for. She actually went for a smaller number based on the advice as a strategy, and ended up raising more money, so it worked. She was also much more organized and structured in her preparations the second time around. She was specific to each company, and deliberate in her presentation. She planned geographically, so she could be efficient with her time. Kathryn even ranked how excited she was about prospects, so she could prioritize and focus on her resources and the best alow there.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial grownup tip, number two. Stand up for yourself, even if you need them more than they need you. In Kathryn's second round, when prospects said they didn't have the time to meet with her any time soon, she pushed back and was not only able to get them to the table faster when they were interested, but also to level the playing field for a stronger negotiating position.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you for listening to this episode of financial grownup. Please subscribe if you have not already. Reviews are great if you have just a few minutes. You can follow me @bobbirebell on Twitter, @bobbirebell1 on Instagram, and learn more about the show at BobbiRebell.com/FinancialGrownupPodcast. I hope that you all enjoyed this episode of "Financial Grownups" with The Muse's Kathryn Minshew, and that we all got one step closer to being financial grownups.
Bobbi Rebell:
"Financial Grownup" with Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve Stuart, and is a BRK Media production.
When Skillcrush founder and CEO Adda Birnir got laid off from her job at a digital ad agency, she decided to follow the money and discovered a lucrative business she did not even know existed. Her ability to leverage events like South by Southwest and understand how to make tech education appeal to women have driven the phenomenal growth of her startup.
In Adda’s money story you will learn:
-The big “aha” moment she had after being laid off, and seeing that the tech jobs were a lot more secure
-How a side project called Digital Divas, evolved into Skillcrush
-How a chance meeting led to a pivotal business partnership
-How Adda validated the Skillcrush concept
-The key risks and challenges in the early days of Skillcrush
-How they grew the company after a big test at South By Southwest
-The role that an incubator, and those resources played in the success of Skillcrush
-How they raised money from investors
In Adda’s money lesson you will learn:
-The importance of listening to your potential customers and their problem- before trying to sell a solution
-How to find the best way to appeal to potential customers
-The way Skillcrush overcomes stereotypes about women and coding
In Adda’s every day money tip you will learn:
-How Adda and her business partner set up a system to make sure to fund the company, while paying themselves a salary
-The best way that can apply to your personal life (or your business!)
-Strategies for freelancers to streamline unsteady income
In my take you will learn:
-How to get over being intimidated by new things, like coding
-Why everyone should learn basic coding and web skills
-How creating virtual buckets can help your personal finances, and your business
Episode Links:
Learn more about Skillcrush! skillcrush.com
Try SkillCrush’s 10-day bootcamp! https://learn.skillcrush.com/skillcrush-10-day-bootcamp/
Follow Skillcrush and Adda!
Twitter: @skillcrush @addbjork
Instagram @skillcrush @addabjork
Facebook Skillcrush addabjork
To win one of the promo video’s you see- be sure to share them on social media when you see them on my feeds!
Twitter @bobbirebell
Instagram @bobbirebell1
Facebook: Bobbi Rebell
Want to share your money story? Write to us and tell us about it at info@financialgrownup.com
Transcription
Adda Birnir:
What we learned very quickly is that women are not going out and searching, "I want to learn to code." Their motivation is not to learn to code, their motivation is to change their careers, and to make more money, and to have more creativity and flexibility.
Bobbi Rebell:
You're listening to Financial Grownup with me, Certified Financial Planner, Bobbi Rebell, author of How to Be a Financial Grownup. And you know what? Being a grownup, especially when it comes to money, but it's okay. We're going to get there together. I'm going to bring you one money from a financial grownup, one lesson, and then, my take on how you can make it your own. We got this.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, friends, that was Adda Birnir. She is CEO of Skillcrush, which is a big and growing online tech education company. She's talking about a big revelation that they had, when they were trying to figure out, how to better appeal to women, something very few tech companies were even trying to do, and this was way back in 2012.
Bobbi Rebell:
More on that in a sec, but first, just a quick welcome to all of our new listeners, if you're joining us for the first time, welcome. And if you're returning, welcome back. We try to keep the shows short, because we value your time. But you can also, of course, binge and listen to a few of them, if you're commuting. Or, if you have more time, you can listen to more episodes, all in a row.
Bobbi Rebell:
The goal is to deliver a valuable money story that you can learn from, hopefully be entertained by, and a money tip, that you can put into action pretty much right away, and weave into your life. If you enjoy the show, please consider taking a minute, and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, and thank you so much, to all of you that have already done so.
Bobbi Rebell:
Okay, back to Adda, and her story. After being laid off from a digital ad agency, where she was an associate producer, she noticed that the technical people all had jobs. She wanted that security, and of course, who doesn't want the money that goes with that security?
Bobbi Rebell:
So she decided, also, because she talks about the fact that she had a lot of free time, that she would learn to code. And it turned out, it wasn't actually that hard. So fast forward to a side hustle, doing coding projects with a friend, and then, to a business venture that actually didn't work out, but it led to one that did, because of basically a chance meeting. Isn't it always that way? That's just the way it happens sometimes.
Bobbi Rebell:
Get ready for some drama here. This is a good story. Here is Skillcrush CEO Adda Birnir.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, Adda Birnir, you're a financial grownup. Welcome to the podcast.
Adda Birnir:
Thank you for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Congratulations on all of your success. You are the founder and CEO of Skillcrush, which is the country's largest online tech education company. Your mission, of course, to help women and minorities learning digital skills, and you've been touted in the media as, so, for all of these accomplishments, 20 Women To Watch In Media, by Columbia Journalism School. You're one of the 30 Most Important Women In Tech, by Business Insider.
Bobbi Rebell:
We could basically spend the whole podcast going over that stuff, but I'm just happy to have you here, and get a little bit of your time in your busy day, running your growing empire. So thank you for being here.
Adda Birnir:
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
The money story that you're going to share with us has a lot to do with how Skillcrush was born.
Adda Birnir:
Yeah, so, this is 2012 now. This is kind of the heyday of the incubator. I mean, they still exist, but they were really big then, and we were interested in exploring, trying to create some sort of software product ourselves.We had been playing around with a couple different ideas, and like I said, Skillcrush, which was called something totally different at the time, it was called Digital Divas, was totally, just like, a fun side product.
Adda Birnir:
We had this Tablet publishing software, so it was basically, like, our goal was to make it easy for online publishers to publish to iPads. That was kind of the thing we thought was like an actual business.
Bobbi Rebell:
So it was a total business pivot.
Adda Birnir:
It wasn't even like, a pivot. It was like, an isolated example. We just threw one out, and we're like, "Oh, people think we're interested in this one." It was good. I mean, it was one of those examples that the market tells you what they're interested in. And basically, no one gave two bleeps about the Tablet publishing, and everyone was super interested in the Digital Diva thing.
Adda Birnir:
Then, at the same time, fortuitously, I did this program at CUNY, on the Journalism School. And there, I met a woman named Jennifer McFadden, who went on to become my cofounder at Skillcrush, and she had done a lot of research about the online education space.
Adda Birnir:
So it was sort of, one of those, sort of total kismet moments, where I had this education product, that I didn't have any sense for the business proposition, or the business opportunity, and she had all this deep knowledge about the education space. So that was what really started it.
Adda Birnir:
I will say, though, because we'd had this failed attempt at this Tablet publishing software, I was very, very cautious with Skillcrush. I didn't want to invest in it without validating the idea on some product.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what did you do? What are the steps you took to validate it?
Adda Birnir:
Basically, when you go through this process, what you want to do is, you want to figure out, what is your riskiest assumption? For us, because, at the time, there weren't as many online education players. But there was lynda.com. So we felt like, it's that aspect of it, will people pay for education online, was validated.
Adda Birnir:
That, to us, was not the riskiest assumption. The riskiest assumption for Skillcrush was whether women would pay for, or would be interested in, a technology learning platform. So we designed this experiment, which is that we started a newsletter, and basically, what the sort of offer was, that the newsletter offered, was, we would define a technical term, and find an interesting way. And we'd done a day for 30 days.
Adda Birnir:
We went to South By Southwest, and figured, what we'll do is, we'll pitch this to women at South By Southwest, and they will buy it, with their e-mail address. We considered that sort of like, a transaction, and we figured, if we can't convince women at South By Southwest to purchase this, with their e-mail address for free, obviously, then there's no hope for us.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what happens?
Adda Birnir:
So, I think we had set, fill that goal of having 2,000 signups, and we did not get that, because we were doing direct sales. But our hit rate was 90% of them. I mean, everyone we spoke to, we got to sign up for it, so that was kind of our first positive signal. Then we actually, through that process, happened to pitch a woman who happened to work for Mother Jones. So then, she wrote us up, and then, that gave us another 600 signups, or something.
Bobbi Rebell:
Wow!
Adda Birnir:
That basically ended up with about 1,000 people.
Bobbi Rebell:
So then, what happened from there?
Adda Birnir:
So, from there, we started doing the Term a Day newsletter, and it started to build momentum, and I think we probably signed up, like, 3,000 people. Which, again, just to put this in perspective, this is shortly after Code Academy had gone live, and they had gotten 200,000 people to sign up over a 24-hour period. So I was completely bereft and disappointed by the 2,000. We had applied for the start of incubator, and we got in, and that gave us $25,000 of funding.
Adda Birnir:
The thing that I guess I think about it, like, at the time, I really needed that validation. Looking back on it, I think what I got out of it, more than the $25,000 ... because, honestly, the $25,000 just paid for incorporation. I didn't really have a lot of money, but it really was validation from an external source, that this is a cool idea, and you should keep working on it, and I think at that moment, I really needed that. But I don't think, the money itself, do you know what I'm saying?
Bobbi Rebell:
Yes.
Adda Birnir:
I think about this a lot, and looking back on it, I didn't need that validation, and that validation really didn't mean anything. Because they weren't my target audience, right? They didn't know.
Bobbi Rebell:
But at the time ...
Adda Birnir:
But at the time ...
Bobbi Rebell:
At the time, that mattered. Yeah.
Adda Birnir:
Exactly. But I just think about that, when I hear about women saying, "You know, I can't get funded," and I'm like, "Well, just remember, you don't need that validation from something." The only person, the only people that you need to validate your business are your customers, and often, it's easier to get them to validate it, than it is to get a venture capitalist to validate it.
Adda Birnir:
But we did, also from that, we did get another $50,000 as a convertible note from my other investors. That did give us some money, and that sort of about paid us, probably for the next four months, to build out Version 0.2, or whatever, of the product.
Bobbi Rebell:
So what is the lesson for our listeners from this?
Adda Birnir:
A lot of people get very attached to what is their solution, and there's kind of a thing in the startup community, which is that you got a solution in search of a problem. I think the most important thing that I can say to people is, you really have to start from the opposite end, right? You have to start with a problem, and then, come up with a solution for it.
Adda Birnir:
So I would just really encourage everyone, that if you have a business idea, chances are, you're onto something. But, before you kind of go all in on building out what you think is the best solution to this problem that you perceive, is to really talk to the people who are going to be paying for this solution, and really make sure that you understand their problem, and more deeply.
Adda Birnir:
That's sort of the case with Skillcrush. We had a lot of bumps in the road, especially in that first year and a half, and a lot of that was because it wasn't that we hadn't identified a legitimate problem. Because we had.
Adda Birnir:
There were women who could benefit from technical skills, but I will tell you, what we learned very quickly is that women are not going out and searching, "I want to learn to code." Their motivation is not to learn to code, their motivation is to change their careers, and to make more money, and to have more creativity and flexibility.
Adda Birnir:
They have some interest, in the sense that technical skills could be helpful. The big insight for us was like, you can't sell women the jobs report. That's not how they purchase that, right? They are looking at, "What is this gonna do for me? What changes will I be able to see in my life?"
Adda Birnir:
That was a fundamental insight that I really didn't have, until I started talking to my customers, and really understanding what their pain points were, and their problems were, and making sure that the solution I was providing really aligned with what problem they were trying to solve.
Bobbi Rebell:
So let's get to your every day money tip, because it's actually a business lesson that applies equally to our personal financial levels.
Adda Birnir:
Yes. One of the biggest kind of "Aha" moments for me with my first business, which I was running with my friend, and we were both freelancers. I remember, we got this big check. I think it was for $10,000, or something, and her impulse was that we should just split it, 50/50. My thought, "Why don't we just set our salaries? We're each going to get $4,000 a month, or something."
Adda Birnir:
I don't remember what it was, these are hypothetical numbers, but I was like, "How about, instead of just splitting every check that comes in 50/50, why don't we put the money in a bank, and take salary, and create the sort of situation you would have, in a normal situation, where you are getting paid, like, a steady salary, even if your actual income is kind of lumpy?
Adda Birnir:
It was really interesting, because this obviously was really helpful for us, just from a perspective of, when you're a freelancer, it's really hard, because your salary and your income is unpredictable. So we sort of artificially created this predictability for us, but it turned out to be a really, really important shift in perspective, in terms of thinking about the business as a third entity, and not sort of seeing it as something, where we were just like, 50/50, but it was like being ... we were like an entity unto itself, that we wanted to grow, and build up.
Adda Birnir:
I think that, in a lot of ways, this is something that is really applicable to anyone who's running a freelance business, even if they're just a one-person freelance shop ... That, to really to start think about your freelancing career as a business, and you want to grow that business, and make sure that business has a really solid foundation.
Bobbi Rebell:
Let's talk about Skillcrush. So much going on. Tell me the latest for summer of 2018.
Adda Birnir:
We are in the process of launching a couple of new blueprints, so when you come to Skllcrsuh, you have two options, in terms of how you want to learn. You can either take our sort of, shorter, more specific skill focus, Blueprints.
Adda Birnir:
Or you can sign up for what we call a Breaking Detect Blueprint, which is our all-inclusive program. You get access to everything that we have, and a lot of personalization. We work with you to set your career goals, and all those things, but we have a couple of new blueprints coming out, where it's going to be launching: a Web developer blueprint, we have a UX Designer blueprint coming out, which is really exciting.
Bobbi Rebell:
And where people can learn more about you, and Skillcrush, and follow you on social media, and all that good stuff?
Adda Birnir:
You just got to skillcrush.com, and sign up for our 10-day boot camp. It's the best way to get started. It's totally free, and you can follow us on Twitter. Just add skillcrush, and on Instagram, at skillcrush. I'm out of Bork on all the platforms, although I'm not the best at this, that you can get ...
Bobbi Rebell:
Wait. Spell that out, then.
Adda Birnir:
Oh. A-D-D-A, B-J-O-R-K. It's just, like Bjork the singer, but it also happens to be my middle name, so ...
Bobbi Rebell:
Love it, because you're from Iceland. Which is a cool, random fact.
Adda Birnir:
Yes, definitely.
Bobbi Rebell:
How old were you when you came to this country? You were like a baby, right?
Adda Birnir:
I was a tiny little baby, yeah, and I speak Icelandic, and ...
Bobbi Rebell:
Oh, my gosh. Say something.
Adda Birnir:
[foreign language 00:13:01]?
Bobbi Rebell:
What does that mean?
Adda Birnir:
Just, "This really nice letter today."
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, on that note, we'll leave it there, thank you so much.
Adda Birnir:
Thanks for just having me.
Bobbi Rebell:
Hey, everyone. So here's my take. When Adda and I were talking before the interview, she confessed that she had been so intimidated, just by the concept of coding beforehand, that she was resisting it, until, of course, she learned about them money thing, and all that.
Bobbi Rebell:
But then, when she focused, and tried it, she found out, it actually wasn't that hard.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number One: don't be intimidated by coding, or any skill that can benefit your career. It's basically a language. It can be challenging, she says, but it will open opportunities, and is becoming a basic thing that we all need to know a little bit about, at least, the basic level.
Bobbi Rebell:
Even if you're not directly coding, you may be supervising someone who is coding, or have somebody on your team, or at your company, or a peer. Understanding the basics of what they're doing, is going to help you figure out and understand workflow and project management.
Bobbi Rebell:
For example, I learned even just basic HTML years ago, and I built a website, literally typing in the codee that's now generally automatically generated for you, I was actually typing in the different codes.
Bobbi Rebell:
So, pre-Wordpress, pre-Squares-based, the whole thing. Skillcrush does have a free 10-day boot camp. So you can do that. I'm going to leave a link in the notes. It's pretty much risk-free, and worth checking out.
Bobbi Rebell:
Financial Grownup Tip Number Two: the every day money tip that she was talking about was basically about creating buckets for different needs with your money. So that can be really useful in your personal finances, even though she did really for business.
Bobbi Rebell:
Paying yourself the same amount each, especially if you have a variable income, is really useful. And then, you can put everything extra, in a different bucket, for a specific purpose. It's a great way, if you have a big goal, especially a goal that's intimidating, like, saving for a house down payment or something. Put it in a separate bucket. It'll start to add up. You won't even noticing it, and it works.
Bobbi Rebell:
Thank you all for your support of the show. If you like it, please, just tell a friend. Be sure to follow us on social media, and share the promo video, if you like them. You can win one for your business, or even just for yourself. Share them. Whoever the most this month, I'm going to pick someone, and I will make them a promotional video for themselves, or their business.
Bobbi Rebell:
On Twitter, you can follow me @bobbirebell, on Instagram, @obbirebell1. On Facebook, my page is Bobbi Rebell, and to learn more about the show, go to bobbirebell.com/financial grown-up podcasts.
Bobbi Rebell:
All right, [Ada Bernier 00:15:47] learned to move out of a career that left her financially vulnerable. She built a business instead focusing on helping others follow the money. Always a good philosophy when it comes to business and career. So thank you, Adda, for sharing your story, and for getting us one step closer to being financial grownups.
Announcer:
Financial Grownup With Bobbi Rebell is edited and produced by Steve [Stuart 00:16:20], and is a BRK media production.
