Young Entrepreneur Interview: Kelsey Meyer, Co-Founder of Digital Talent Agents
Written by Christopher Demas Wednesday, September 19 2012
Young Entrepreneur Kelsey Meyer shares how she skipped the job market and worked for herself right out of college
Kelsey Meyer has been involved in four different successful startups and is very involved in the Missouri entrepreneurship scene. We asked Kelsey about her experiences as an entrepreneur so far, and what insights she has to share with other young entrepreneurs.
Q. What is Digital Talent Agents?
Digital Talent Agents is a company that specializes in creating opportunities for its clients by highlighting their expertise. The specific niche that DTA focuses on is getting high quality articles from the entrepreneur into reputable publications that meet their target market. DTA works with clients ranging from entrepreneurs of small companies, to executives of Fortune 500 companies, to large state Universities and other agencies.
Q. What was the deciding factor to start your life as an entrepreneur? How did your friends and family react?
A. My decision to be an entrepreneur came early. I started a small marketing company in college really as an experiment and it actually made money. I then was fortunate to meet a local serial entrepreneur who allowed me to get involved with a few ideas he had and DTA sprung from that. I come from a family of entrepreneurs who have seen the upside and downside of entrepreneurship so they definitely cautioned me, but encouraged me to work hard and create something wonderful.
Q. How did you get the inspiration for your company?
A. We saw a need that was not being met. I had spoken with dozens of entrepreneurs who were discouraged with their PR companies. They felt that they weren’t being provided real value by being on a retainer, and they didn’t like how they had no control over the message. We actually tested out the model for 10 clients for free for two months to validate that it was possible and valuable to get clients published in publications that reach their target market, and once we validated the need and the possibility, we brought on paying clients.
Q. How did you get the necessary capital to start growing your business?
A. We are funded through a private equity investment. We are fortunate to be part of a larger holding company that allows us the freedom to operate as an independent agency, but also the luxury of having the funds to hire when we need to, which is very often.
Q. What were some of the challenges you faced in the first 6 months to 1 year?
A. The biggest challenge was (and I assume always will be) signing on clients. We know that our model works and we know that our clients love it because we very rarely lose clients, but as a small startup with little track record it’s difficult to convince people to hire your service company. We didn’t actually hire a sales person until about 10 months in and myself and our co-founder John Hall did all of the business development along with our other responsibilities. This was difficult but rewarding and allowed us to grow at a very fast and healthy rate.
Q. How did you get others to take you seriously as a young entrepreneur?
A. Great question! The answer is it’s very difficult. I am a young female entrepreneur who looks even younger than I am. I simply had to prove myself to clients by getting stuff done. In a service industry clients always want to see your previous success, when you’re a young entrepreneur you don’t always have that so you have to make the barrier to becoming a client as low as possible. This is how we came up with the pay-for-performance model and it’s why when we started we allowed clients to start on a month-to-month contract. We wanted to show them that they were not risking anything by trying us out, and once they agreed to give us a shot we could prove that we deserved their business.
Q. How did you overcome the initial fears of starting your own business?
A. As scary as it seems for some people, giving away our services for free for a couple months really made me feel more comfortable that this was something that would work. We gathered so much valuable feedback and experience in the first two months that when we signed on our first paying clients I knew we’d be able to deliver. I had also been selling rocks, pillows, neighborhood newsletters and doggy bandanas since I was 5 years old, so entrepreneurship was kind of in my blood.
Q. How did you develop the strategy to grow your business?
We have a great network of mentors, investors and advisors around us. Scaling a company is NOT an easy thing to do. The only way we were able to effectively scale the company was by hiring the right people at the right time. I had read that the first 5 people you hire dramatically affect the future of a company and after going through it and now employing more than 30 people, I could not agree more. We figured out how many clients a talent agent can handle and what other processes and people needed to be in place and then we made hiring decisions based on this. It’s worked out well and we’ve been able to scale really quickly and really effectively.
Q. What aspect of your background or education has been the most helpful in your experience as an entrepreneur?
A. I was involved in two organizations during college that absolutely shaped the way I view entrepreneurship. The first was the Cornell Leadership Program and the second was the Entrepreneurship Alliance both at The University of Missouri. These two programs taught me the leadership and entrepreneurial skills that I needed to start a company. They both taught me risk tolerance, time management, networking and sales skills. These were things that were not covered in my other classes so it was extremely beneficial to be involved in specific programs that aided in this development.
Q. What is something that you know now that you wish you had known at the beginning of launching the company?
A. I wish I would have known to constantly be looking at the bigger picture. For a while I was so bogged down in day-to-day activities that I couldn’t for the life of me think of actually growing the company. It wasn’t until we made some really important hires that I was able to take a step back and focus on growth. I wish that I would have outlined some processes for scaling and growth even earlier on to make sure that we were doing all that we could to satisfy current customers and bring on new ones.
Q. What advice would you give other young entrepreneurs?
A. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas. I am always shocked when young entrepreneurs don’t get involved in pitch competitions or incubators or accelerators because they are scared that someone is going to steal your idea for a product or service. Ideas are only a small part of the equation, implementation is everything. I always encourage young entrepreneurs to tell everyone your idea and get feedback. Also look at who is giving the feedback and look at what they’ve done. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by some ridiculously successful entrepreneurs and I know that I value their feedback because I have seen them succeed.