Author: Peter Cauton

Entrepreneur, startup advocate, writer, speaker, and HR guy. Husband, father to 6, worship leader, unabashed follow of Christ
Juan Great Leap Calls on 5 More Student Leaders!

Juan Great Leap Calls on 5 More Student Leaders!

Peter Cauton

I’ll be meeting around 5 student leaders next Wednesday, 4pm, at the STORM conference room, at Unit 602, Centerpoint Building, along Julia Vargas. The main agenda will be: 1) How to push entrepreneurship and the startup movement in universities 2) How to help student entrepreneurs   (Map here) Our conference room seats around 10 people, so there are 5 seats still free. I wanted to open it up to interested parties.

Do you want to join this conversation?

If you are an incoming undergraduate student, interested in entrepreneurship, and you’re the type of person who gets things done, then you might want to join us.

This is the actual room to be used 🙂

If you are interested, please do send me an email at peter@juangreatleap.com, along with an explanation on why you’d be a good choice.

(know anyone who might be interested in this? forward and share!)

May Open Coffee Is Now Brewing! Sign up now!

May Open Coffee Is Now Brewing! Sign up now!

Peter Cauton

JGL OPEN COFFEE2

WHAT: MAY OPEN COFFEE

WHEN: 930am-12:00 noon, Saturday, May 18, 2013

WHERE: 47 East Co-working Compound (47 Esteban Abada, Loyola Heights, QC)

Inviting ALL entrepreneurial-minded people: young or old, newbie or veteran to join this month’s edition of OPEN COFFEE.

This event has been outdoing itself every month we have it, so I’m pretty excited to see what this month’s version will  offer.

Don’t you miss it! Sign up here now!

Here’s how the last one went…

Just Start.

Just Start.

Peter Cauton

just start

I think sometimes we overestimate what it takes to “start” – especially for those of us who are first-time entreps and don’t exactly know what were doing.

(welcome thought: I suspect most first-time startup founders fall into this category – everyone starts out feeling stupid)

Perhaps we’re thinking:

“Oh gosh, I need to raise a million bucks.”

or

“I need a technical co-founder who has a 3.8 GPA in computer science.”

or

“To do this I need to resign from my job and risk everything! Need to prepare.”

or

“I need to win one of those startup contests!”

You know, if we always think this way, we might never come to the point when we think we’re ready to start. It will end up as just some lofty dream we scarcely scratch. Soon, we may begin to tell ourselves it’s exactly that – just some crazy dream.

I remember when I first realized I wanted to share my experiences as a startup founder and entrepreneur, I wanted to write a book. It was my lofty dream, and it was so hard to start – I felt I had to have the whole book concept crystalized in my mind before starting. The sobering moment came when, after 3 months, I realized there was no progress with what I was trying to do.

So I decided to just start. 

I got a free wordpress account, read a bit about blogging, and just wrote my first post. Then the name just came to me – Juan Giant Leap. But then I realized precisely what I am writing about now – the leap doesn’t need to be GIANT to be GREAT.

I thought that precise nuance was important. So, even if I thought Juan GIANT Leap had the better recall, I went with GREAT.

And so Juan Great Leap was born.

Instead of worrying about starting, just start. 

No need to put distracting pressure on ourselves.

Some practical ways to start simple:

  • Talk about your idea with someone whose opinion you respect, or an industry leader in the idea you are thinking of. 
  • Get some real customer feedback – hold chats with potential customers of the idea you’re thinking of.
  • Attend Open Coffee and pitch your idea (for free, without pressure, with people who want to help)
  • Have dinner with potential co-founders. No need to hard-sell (“Would you want to be my partner?!”), instead coyly just ask for advice. (“I value your opinion, what do you think of this idea?”) If the person is truly interested – and would be a fit – the person would actually volunteer and ask if you need help.
  • Think of a name, and invest a bit in buying a URL. You’ll be amazed at how empowering this is – because in some way, your startup is truly “alive.”
  • Get off your butt. Your startup will never happen if it never leaves the realms of your imagination. Get out and talk about it. Create it. Slowly is surely.
What is PITCHCRAFT and why you NEED to attend it

What is PITCHCRAFT and why you NEED to attend it

Peter Cauton

pitchingIn my 10 years of HR work prior to becoming a full-fledged entrepreneur, I did an awful lot of presentations and gave a ton of job offers. I thought I was pretty good doing these things, so when I made my leap into entrepreneurship, I thought to myself:

“Hey whatever ‘selling’ I would need to do for my startup I can probably do preeetty well!”

Well, I was in for a rude awakening.

Pitching is Everything in Entrepreneurship

It turns out, selling (or pitching in startup parlance) is absolutely critical in startup development. ALL the major activities in doing a startup involved pitching:

Finding Co-founders:

Yep, you have to present something  very convincing to get them to say yes. I had to go through dozens of rejections before I was able to perfect my pitch and talk my first partner into investing their time and money in me. 

Recruiting Employees:

As a veteran recruiter coming into startup life, I thought this would be chicken feed.

Then I realized just how much help a brand name like “Chikka” helped me in recruiting when I was in corporate. Or how an actual office helped (and how a pseudo-office-home arrangement doesn’t help).  Or how a recruitment budget helped.

I had to learn to use other strategies to help me.

Raising Money:

If my 2013 self saw my 2006 self doing the investment pitches I did before, this is how my 2013 self would react:

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Sales:

The lifeblood of any business. When my co-founder and I decided to split responsibilities for STORM during its first year, I took on the responsibility of being the “pitchman.”

After 7 years of selling for my startup, its really been only in the last few years (and I’m a pretty confident guy) that I can say to myself “I CAN DO SALES WELL.”

Prior to that, I was grasping at straws. I didn’t know what worked and what didn’t. I really learned about selling through trial and error. (I am hopeful you won’t need 7 years to get a knack for this.)

The Pitching Gap is Real and Needs to be Addressed

I’ve now heard literally hundreds of startup pitches, if you combine the pitches I’ve heard facilitating Open Coffee, hearing individuals out during Startup Saturdays, observing in Startup Weekend, and attending other startup-related events.

Here’s an observation:

Often, the best idea doesn’t get the best opportunities.

If you go to the next Startup Weekend for example, this is something you can quickly observe if you listen to the pitches: if you just rely on the idea’s merit and block out the pitch (you can do this by writing down all the ideas as they are pitched, try not to judge, and then when the pitching stops, you can go back to your list and then judge), you’d see a discrepancy between the ideas you find interesting and the ideas that actually get chosen by the participants.

So much depends on the pitchman and how he pitches.

And you know what? Collectively, I think we need a lot of work on our pitches.

(I just remembered someone I was talking to about this who was saying: “it gets worse when they think they’re awesome…and they’re really not.” This is partly why I keep saying self-awareness and humility are two very important traits to develop as a founder)

Post Startups Unplugged

After conversing in Startups Unplugged, Maoi Arroyo (no relation to the former president) and I agreed that our interests dovetailed and we needed to work together on…something.

During a recent meeting at the Hybridgm office in AIM, Maoi mentioned, “Maybe we could do an event on how to do the right pitch, targeting entrep…”

Ittookmeabouttwomilliseconds to say yes, realizing how critical addressing this gap was.

PitchCraft: How To Develop a Killer Pitch for Raising Capital and Recruiting

pitchcraft logo

On May 25, 2013, we’re doing a seminar designed to teach participants what exactly the formula is on executing the right pitch, specifically for raising money and finding partners/recruitment.

It shall be held at the Fuller Hall of the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, from 1pm to 5pm.

This will be a paid event. Early bird rates (valid only up to May 15) are at P1000 for professionals and P500 for students (with valid ID).

Regular rates are at P1500 for professionals and P1000 for students (with a valid ID).

Here’s how the event will go:

1. Introductions

2. Keynote

3. Panel Discussion

4. Q&A

5. Post-Event: Real Pitching to Real Investors (Around a week after the Pitchcraft event, all interested participants shall be invited to do their pitches in front of real investors. This is the real thing!)

The keynote speaker for the event shall be Maoi herself. We’ll be announcing who the panelists will be soon enough. 

I think Maoi’s the perfect choice for giving this seminar (I actually can’t wait to attend this myself). Her firm, Hybridigm, is a startup incubator specializing in biotech. She’s been helping startup founders hone their pitches for more than a decade now. (And if you’ve ever met her, you’d know it’s going to be FUN).

I find that one of the VERY interesting inclusions here is the Post-Event. We figured, the best learning happens during ACTUAL pitches right? So what did we arrange? A real pitching event with real investors.  You can get to apply everything you will learn form the Pitchcraft proper onto an ACTUAL pitching process. (If you think about it…this is AWESOME)

How to Register

1. Send payment to:

BPI Account No: 0321-0230-61
Account Name: Hybridigm Consulting Inc.

2. Send a photo/scanned copy of the deposit slip to Angeli at angeli@juangreatleap.com

3. Angeli will send you an email confirmation (and an ultra-quick survey) to confirm your slot

OR

You could pay online:

1. Purchase the tickets online by clicking one of the buttons below:

RATE FOR PROFESSIONALS – P1500
buy now button

RATE FOR STUDENTS (Students) – P1000
buy now button

2. Send a copy of the Paypal receipt to Angeli at angeli@juangreatleap.com

3. Angeli will send you an email confirmation (and an ultra-quick survey) to confirm your slot

Register NOW!

If you are an aspiring/current entrepreneur from ANY field, I suggest you register as fast as possible to reserve your slot (150 slots only).

Let’s make our pitches count, eh? 

Pitchcraft: How To Develop a Killer Pitch for Raising Capital and Recruiting is being brought to you by

JGL with textand

hybridigm

with the help of our sponsors:

ayala

go negosyo

binalot

Open Coffee Postscript

Peter Cauton

open coffee april

I had another awesome time last Saturday morning at the April Edition of Open Coffee. Here are some of my thoughts and observations on now holding four of these formatted mixers.

1)  The Sharing Continues to Amaze Me

My colleague AR told me that she plans to write a thesis about how the growing Filipino entrepreneurial community is debunking the notion of Filipino crab mentality. You can see this is in action in Open Coffee. In the pitches, you will see people will share business plans, ideas, and plans to people they do not know. (and unlike in “formal” pitching venues, there is no “prize” save for the learning. What’s magical is that the audience reciprocates – sharing their own insight, personal experience, and contacts to the one pitching. (You gotta see it if you haven’t yet.)

2) Get Ready for Sheer Variety

pitch

I think this is what makes the Juan Great Leap audience a bit different from other startup communities. Just on this version of Open Coffee alone, we had pitches for: a customer service consulting firm for front-liners, an essential oil which increases productivity, a crowdfunding site for volunteers, a published book targeting young entrepreneurs, a lactation consulting play on social media, a do-it-yourself online explainer video maker, a bazaar a unique social interaction app, and a consulting firm for boutique hotels.  For someone with my need for different stimulus, this is like a kid in a Toys R’ Us.

Long story short, it’s also tremendous learning.

3) For the Most Part, the Pitching Needs Work

The 2-minute limit presents a nice quandary for presenters:

How do I get my point across effectively in two minutes?

Theoretically, pitchers are then forced to be ultra-EFFICIENT, cutting less-important details for the MOST important details.

I’m not so sure this is what happens though, as most people prematurely wrap up their pitch when the two minutes are up.

I think there can be VAST improvement over how most of us present their pitches. Pitching is a crucial part of the startup life. Entrepreneurs need to be effective pitchmen for so many different, crucial things – recruitment, raising money, sales, marketing, partnerships,etc…

This is something we need to improve. (more on this soon)

4) The Platform Needs To Be a “Safe Place”

In the March 47 East Open Coffee, student Christian Go hitched with me going home. He told me he almost didn’t pitch, because he thought the first pitcher was sort of attacked. (basically people said the idea wasn’t too good)

Remembering what Christian shared, I started this Open Coffee by underlining two things. I told people that: a) they have to be extra-conscious of HOW they give their comments, and b) that ALL comments have to have some semblance of being CONSTRUCTIVE.

The resulting pitch rounds and feedback-giving were super. I think people took the two things to heart.

I do realize that there are some people who prefer the Western-style “tell it as it is in my face” method. But this is the Philippines after all, a reminder makes all the difference.

5) Bigger and Bigger

open coffee full house

I commented on the JGL FB page that OPEN COFFEE getting too big for the venue. The March Open Coffee had 40+ participants. This April version had 50+.

From an idea I wasn’t sure would pan out,

(would people share? what if no one wants to be the first to pitch? would people give useful feedback)

I think it’s safe to call Open Coffee a success after 4 iterations.

Onwards to bigger and better versions. Thank you so much to everyone who keep on making it so!

matt lapid profile pic
Naks! Matt Lapid profile pic!

More pics here! 

(For those who are new to Open Coffee, it happens MONTHLY, with the next one coming out mid-to-late May. Stay tuned!)

How to Use Consulting as a Bridge Between Corporate and Startup

Peter Cauton

stepping

I had a great lunch meeting today with a very talented friend who’s been working in corporate for nearly two decades already. During that span, he’s built impressive credentials and has worked on different projects in his chosen corporate function.

“I’m at that point Peter where I’m at a crossroads in my corporate career. If I leave my company now, I can apply for department head in another firm, but then what? I’ll be looking at a future of just jumping as department head from one company to the other?”

(I was at that same crossroads before, so I could really relate to what he was saying.)

A common friend of ours who was managing her own lucrative consulting practice was asking him if he wanted to pursue the same. It was something my talented friend could establish easily. He then thought of talking to me to get more feedback on making the leap.

I said:

 “Ah. I think one point to consider is the decision to go into consulting or pursue a startup. They are different things.”

Consulting vs Startups

Having been involved in both consulting and startups, I know first-hand how different they are.

A consulting practice centers around the skills and reputation of the Consultant. The ensuing organization is built to extend the reach of the consultant.

For example, from time to time, I still agree to HR Consulting engagements with some firms. They pay me for my HR expertise. If I were to build an organization around this “service,” it would involve creating a support structure around me so I can maximize my contribution – admin people to ensure I don’t get bogged down, a junior consultant to help on the ground with projects, etc…

This is of course, a GREAT thing. I know numerous people who have created either solo consulting practices or consulting firms who have employed 2-3 people, even more. These people are immensely satisfied and do not worry about money anymore.

If you wish to scale though, and make a splashy startup, it probably would not be through a consulting practice, as a consulting practice does not scale. The consulting practice organization is built around the consultant’s particular skill. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, there is only so much that you can do to extend your reach.

While a consulting practice is built around the consultant, a startup’s goal, on the other hand,  is usually create a repeatable, sustainable business – or in other words, to make itself operationally independent of the founder.

If you take me out of the equation in STORM, for example, STORM would still exist. It would still make operate. Of course, a lengthy separation would have ramifications on long-term strategy and growth (I hope), but unlike in a consulting practice, taking the founder from a working startup doesn’t mean it tumbles like a house of cards. (independence is the goal, obviously – taking a founder out of an early-stage startup is a wholly different matter).

In a startup, the product or service offered is SEPARATE from the founder, the founder BUILD the product. In a consulting practice, the product IS the consultant.

So, for those who are interested in doing a startup, and have garnered a signifiant amount of skills and experience in a particular corporate field – here’s one strategy you can do:

Do the Karen Yao

Use the financial stream and flexible hours of your consulting practice to build your scaleable startup idea on the side. Then, as your startup makes revenue, you can spend less and less time on your practice and more and more time on your startup.

Screen Shot 2013-04-18 at 10.57.41 AMTake my good friend Karen Yao, who was one of the entrepreneurs in Startups Unplugged. Like me, she built for herself a corporate career in HR. Then she jumped into a consulting career. During this time, she built Congruent Partnerships – first as a vehicle to extend her consulting practice, but then recently pivoting towards a more scaleable startup idea: HR outsourcing services for SME’s.

The thing is, the jump from corporate to consulting isn’t such a HUGE leap as jumping headlong into a startup. For one thing, you will be using the same expertise you were using in corporate – so work-wise, it will be a very comfortable shift.  The only difference is that the payment just isn’t through salary anymore, it shall be though project-based contracts. Moreover, it’s a good transition – you are already getting exposed to some of the elements of managing a startup: client work, accountability, finances, managing your own time, etc.

Since you manage your own time, you CAN NOW allot some time during the week to work on your startup without giving the startup the whole burden of paying for your expenses. This is crucial. One of the big challenges of doing a startup is running out of money. Running out of money basically means you run out of time to work on your startup.

Leaning on your consulting practice is a way fund your startup product development. You can extend your startup runway significantly.

Have your cake and eat it, too

If you choose to work on a startup which is RELATED to your consulting practice, then that’s a HUGE win-win scenario. Your consulting meetings are not only monetary opportunities, but now also double as pertinent data-gathering and validation activities for your would-be startup.

If your consulting clients are your target customers for your eventual startup? That will be super! You can ask them crucial questions like, “What do you think of this product?” or “Would you buy this product?”

Execute the consulting leap within the same entity

If you make a quick visit to Karen’s site, you’d find that congruent has three product lines: consulting, outsourcing, and solutions. I remember when Karen first started Congruent – most, if not all of her clients were in the consulting business. Gradually though, as the consulting line paid the bills, she began building her outsourcing and solutions lines. Nowadays, she is less dependent on her consulting line. Pretty soon, I’m wagering she will have to make a decision: do I let go of the consulting line? 

We started STORM  pretty the same way. When we started back in 2005, we had no actual product and an undeveloped market. We only had a product idea – flexible benefits.

For us to buy time to both develop the product and educate the market, we made money by going into consulting – we started offering organizational diagnosis to corporate clients. This actually became a profitable business line, which kept us afloat for a few years while we were developing our scaleable product. After some time, our flexible benefits line started making money. Soon, it made more money than our consulting line. Recently, we changed our name from STORM Consulting to STORM Rewards, fully making the transition by dropping our consulting business and offering a pure product.

This is one strategy you can do – you can create a consulting company immediately and course your consulting revenues through this entity. Then when you’ve developed your product, you can easily do a quick pivot.

Your financial books will look better, too.

Do Prepare For Your Consulting Leap as Well

If you are planning this sort of stepping-stone strategy, one mistake is to focus too much on the startup leap, forgetting that the consulting leap needs to be taken very seriously.

It is far from automatic that you can transition from corporate to consulting. You have to have led a great career in your function. You have to be REALLY GOOD at what you do. If not, then no one will pay you. You have to have distinguishable expertise in your craft and you have to have the knack of selling yourself well. You have to consciously develop yourself as a consultant.

Also, plan it out. 

If you already know, for example, that it will be your last year in corporate before you take the consulting leap, THEN BY ALL MEANS USE THE YEAR TO TRY TO FIND A MARKET ALREADY. Send feelers to other consultants in the same field if they have extra work you can do. Do free projects on the side to build a credible portfolio. Network and announce your plans to possible clients. Hustle.

So, if you find the startup leap daunting, perhaps you can do an easier leap onto consulting first, before taking on your ultimate startup leap. It’s a very very viable stepping-stone option. I’ve seen HR practitioners build HR firms, brand managers create marketing consulting startups, finance guys doing finance firms, and so on.

Might as well as be you.

30 SLOTS LEFT FOR OPEN COFFEE. GRAB EM NOW!

Peter Cauton

Typically, most of the slots for open coffee get scooped up 2-3 days prior to the event. This time, half of the slots are already filled, with a full 10 days before the event. So if you want to attend, don’t walk, RUN to fill this form up. Remember, the April OPEN COFFEE event will happen at Bo’s Coffee at Bonifacio High Street at 9:30 am on the 27th. See you there!

JGL OPEN COFFEE2

APRIL OPEN COFFEE NOW BREWING – TO BE SERVED ON THE 27th!

Peter Cauton

WHAT: APRIL OPEN COFFEE

WHEN: Saturday, April 27, 930 AM

WHERE: Bo’s Coffee, Bonifacio High Street

HOW MUCH: Just buy a cup of coffee as a form of thanks to Bo’s for hosting us

For those who missed the last Open Coffee (which included this part), you just HAVE to join us for the next one! As usual, the level of generosity, idea-sharing, energy, learning and overall do-goodery are expected to be at awesome levels.

For the reservations for this one, I’m going back to Googledocs, as it seems to have a lower flaker rate and we can ask for more information from you (to help us improve JGL content).

Do reserve a seat NOW by clicking HERE. Limited seats.

How to take your consulting/freelancing gig to the next level

Peter Cauton

levelup

I know quite a number of freelancers and consultants, engaged in a variety of services: design, HR Consulting, programming, writing, training, fitness, and so on.

These guys are cool – they are able to live the dream of being their own boss and at the same live comfortably.

Some of them are perfectly content with their lifestyle and current circle of clients. I remember one of them telling me recently:

“Why should I complicate my life getting more clients?”

(For me, this is awesome.)

Some of them though, want to expand and are constantly seeking ways to do so. Some have opted to hire an employee or two to help them grow. Maybe more.

If you are among the latter category, this article is for you.

Most of the freelancers, consultants, and consulting firms I know offer a whole list of services.

For a web design consultant, a typical menu of services would look like this:

Hey guys! I can do all these things for you! One-stop-shop-I-am!

– Website design

– SEO

– Website Management

– UX-UI

– Logo design

– WordPress design

– Marketing paraphernalia

– Print design

– Flash animation

– business card design

Moving onto another field, an HR Consultant’s list of services may look like this:

– Training and Organizational Development Consulting

– Performance Management Consulting

– Recruitment Consulting

– Talent Management Consulting

– Onboarding

– Workforce Planning

– Job Analysis and Design

– Job evaluation

– Salary Scale Development

This is all well and good. The intention and logic of offering many things are clear: more services, more chances of getting clients, right?

Here’s the problem.

Go to Linkedin. Search for “web design freelancer” or “HR consultant.”

(go ahead, I’ll be right here)

See the problem?

EVERYONE’S profile will look like mirror images of what I just typed above.

This strategy will NOT make you stand out and attract a market beyond your friends’ friends.

Here’s one branding strategy you can do.

one thingPick ONE thing in your list.

One thing you know you can do very, very, very well.

Then drop everything else. Build your brand about this ONE singular service. Make it the only thing to appear on your website.

OMG, Who did THAT Video? 

In a time when one-stop-shop wedding services were the rage, Jason Magbanua changed the game by delivering JUST wedding videos. Oh, and during that time, I think he even ultra-focused on just doing videographies of the Church wedding (to be shown a few hours after during the reception – I was just stunned the first time I saw this).

Armed with this intense focus, he managed to create his art – magnificent, awe-inspiring videos with a hip soundtrack.

Now, he’s a household name, and arguably created his own local industry.

I’m sure Jason could have offered the typical menu (photography, the album, stills, video editing, videos of the reception, maybe even the floral arrangements and coordination). But choosing but ONE service made him stand out.

The numerous advantages of ONE THING:

1) You stand out

What’s more memorable, saying:

I do consulting in performance management, recruitment, training, organizational development, job analysis, job evaluation, onboarding, HR policies, and Workforce planning,

or saying:

I am THE onboarding coach?

(onboarding – the process of making sure an employee is oriented properly and completely when he first starts in a job)

You can now name your consulting firm something like ALL ABOARD! and get a memorable url like http://www.allaboard.ph. Your website can contain interesting facts  and tips about onboarding. You can position yourself as THE onboarding expert.

Now, everytime someone thinks, “I’m having trouble with onboarding,” she will now think of YOU, and not think about about the kajillion other generic HR freelancers around.

Even if a couple of people in the kajillion might actually be better than you in onboarding expertise, guess who takes the credit for being the best?

If you were the client and you need onboarding consulting, would you go to a one-stop-shop or an onboarding expert?

If you are a startup and you need a lawyer, woud you go to a typical law firm offering generic “corporate legal consulting?” or a focused “startup lawyer?”

If you wanted to do a video on your website to explain your product, would you go to an all- around production house, or Stream Engine Studios, whose website very prominently states:

Hi. We’re STREAM ENGINE STUDIOS, and we make kickass animated explainer videos.

One thing makes you stand out.

2) You are forced to become great in that one thing

Since you are now focused on a single service, you can rally all your resources around making that one thing great. Yup, there is pressure in doing absolutely GREAT work in doing your one thing – this is how you have chosen to brand yourself.

But you know what? That is good pressure. Doing one thing great gives you a larger chance of recognition and success versus doing 10 “good enough” things.

Instead of keeping up with trends and continuously improving on TEN different things, you can just focus on getting better on one thing – which surely will cause radically faster progress.

3) Better scaling

Generally, consulting doesn’t scale very well – if you plan to grow you would need more and more people. Still, “one-thing-consulting” can still scale so much better than a one-stop-shop, where you need to think about multiple services and processes.

Let’s say you offer 5 different services and you manage to get 50 clients. What will happen is you will have, say, 12 clients you are doing one service for, another service for 8 clients, and so on. Can you imagine growing your company that way? It’s like growing 5 startups.

One service across the same 50 clients? Much easier to digest and build efficient processes for.

One last tip 

Building a brand takes time (and is so much worth it). Once you have an established brand which focuses on one thing? Expect a ton of passive referrals.

But what do you when you are just starting?

You can still offer the long list of services, but offer these privately to your immediate network (friends and friends of friends).

For example, if you were a design consultant, you could still offer the service buffet table to your current clients. Logo design for this client. SEO for this other client. And so on.

Your plan, however, is to be the business card design king.

So what do you do? While doing all your other projects, you have to simultaneously be working on building your brand around your one thing – build the focused website, learn a ton on business card design, survey the business card market, think of the amount of innovation you can do in the business card industry.

Then one day, when your business card profits are enough, you can drop everything else. You can truly focus on being the Jason Magbanua of Business Cards.

Gotta have that one thing.

(apologies – any spontaneous One Direction LSS is unintended)

 

Forget Your Career And Pursue Your Vocation

Peter Cauton

discernment

My So-called Career Development

For the most part of my adult life, I thought I knew what I had wanted to do.

I wanted to pursue a career in HR. I wanted to make money. I wanted to make my resume as impressive as I could possible make it.

And so I tried my very best to achieve these. I knew they would make me happy.

At particular points, I would find myself dissatisfied with certain facets. So, I just decided on changing some things along the way.

Not enough money? Join a better-paying firm.

Resume not impressive enough? Get an advanced degree.

Still not happy? Party and go out with friends.

In my fourth company, Chikka, I became extremely confused.

I was doing well.

It was a dynamic firm. I had a great boss. I made key decisions in my function. I was paid well. It was fun.

I SHOULD be happy, I thought. So I pretended a bit, trying to ignore my restlessness.

But I just wasn’t happy.

Almost instinctively, I thought of leaving for another firm. But I knew one thing which bothered me to the core: after 3-4 months, the novelty would fade away in my theoretical new firm, and I would be left with the same dissatisfaction I had wanted to escape from.

Was this how life is? Just trudging from one place to another like a plodding headless chicken? 

Could I start anew in another field?! No! How can I just waste a decade of my life and start from scratch?

This was how effective my “career management” endeavors ended up being. My own decisions brought me to the brink of desperation.

Direction

Finding My Vocation

In How God Founded Our Startup, I talk about how God intervened at this particular point in my life.

It wasn’t an instant thing.

I think I really only found Him around two years before that fateful leap.

Prior to that, I had no prayer life whatsoever (except maybe when I needed something, then I’d say a short prayer), I did what I wanted when I wanted. I would usually skip Mass. In retrospect, I never let Him be a part of my life nor of my decisions.

When I decided to really follow and love God – and get to know Him and talk to Him more consistently in prayer, things slowly started to change. I learned I needed to let go of the wheel and surrender. Very tough for someone as independent as me.

Little did I know that 2 years after, God would ask of me all that I found important in the world – money, titles, security, clarity, control – in making my great leap.

I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be an entrepreneur, much, much, less a helper of entrepreneurs. It was never, ever a career option.

Up until I wrote the first Juan Great Leap post, blogging was something very very foreign for me. I never in my wildest dreams thought: “I want to start an entrepreneurial blog and a build a community of entreps who help one another.”

Yet, this is precisely where God has led me.

Only He could have designed something that fits me perfectly in so many profound ways, I cannot even begin to describe. I have found my vocation, and my soul cannot stop celebrating.

Career versus Vocation

When we speak of “vocation,” it is usually reserved for just describing someone entering the priesthood or the convent.

No way.

All of us are missioned. God has a purpose for EACH one of us, and until we find that purpose, our souls become restless. We may try to numb this restlessness with money, power, control, or even relationships, but until we find that purpose, I believe getting rid of this restlessness will be elusive.

Vocation hails from the latin word vocātiō, meaning a call or a summons. Quite literally, vocation means being were we are called by God.

path

Heeding our vocation  –  which connotes seeking and following what His will is for us – is quite a different process from developing our careers – which frequently involve mental decision making.

The goals of a career are quite different from what the goals of a vocation are as well. The goal of a developing a career will likely revolve around some of the things I mentioned earlier: money, power, security, control.

The goal of a vocation, meanwhile, is to find our place and God’s purpose for us.

Careers are typically goal-based. We try to find jobs that pay us x amount per month let’s say, or will allow us to travel to countries, or will give us a certain title, or a certain type of car. There’s an endgame.

Vocations, on the other hand, to quote Fr. Ramon Bautista, SJ, in a retreat I had earlier today, “are never ‘mission-accomplished'”

Putting it most bluntly: careers don’t usually involve God. It seeks satisfaction in the external, specifically, that which we do not have.

“My dream job is out there. I need to keep looking.”

Vocation, on the other hand, makes you look at your interior self.

How has God moved in my life? What are my deepest desires? What are the gifts God gave me? How and where can I use them best for Him?

These internal questions, which I now so often use when I discern, are so different from the questions I used to ask, when I decided: 

What field will I be happy in? How much will my minimum salary be? Are the benefits comparable? Is my boss cool? What is the salary increase rate here? How fast will I get promoted? 

For lasting happiness and fulfillment, I think it’s pretty easy to see here what to pursue. You’d be glad to know following God has a practical angle as well: God’s plan will surely involve developing the best you that you can possibly be, maximizing your gifts and talents. When this happens, opportunity abounds. (In the end though, the bottom-line is this, if you surrender to God, don’t you think He will be faithful and take care of you?)

My social media spat

I got a note from someone around a year ago who said something like:

“Religious faith has no place business decisions. I would understand things like ‘having faith in the company,’ but religious faith? I fail to see how that can help any business.”

After everything that happened to me, I felt like going nuclear on the guy.

But then I realized that I felt the same way just a couple of years ago. Come to think of it, I NEVER involved God before in my career decisions. In fact, it was a little weird to mix “careers” and “God” in the same sentence for me.

I’m sure a lot of us still feel the same way.

So perhaps its best to start with something most of us can agree with: God loves us so very much.

Incredibly. Uniquely. Infinitely.

If you believe He loves us this much, then surely, You have to believe He must have a unique plan for each of us. A purpose.

If we believe He does have a plan then doesn’t it make sense to begin the process of trying to find out what it is?