This week marks the end of week 3 of the 8 week programme as part of the accelerator Dorm.
A lot has happened over this past week:
- Monday: Briefing session on this week’s mission: Decide on which growth experiment to run.
- Wednesday: Interview with an entrepreneur on the channels he uses to grow his businesses.
- Saturday: No Mindset Masterclass this week as Saturday corresponds with Christmas Day.
It’s unlikely that we’ll have a Mindset Masterclass next week also as it will be New Years Day.
Therefore this week’s blog won’t be as long, and because I am writing this on Christmas Day!
Outside of the sessions, I’ve been putting in time to complete my mission/tasks for the week.
I’ve tried to put in around 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, so about 10 hours in total this week.
I was sceptical but I have to say, each week as part of Dorm seems to get better and better.
I gained a lot of value this week: I learnt more about Google marketing and understood what I was doing, and got to hear from an experienced entrepreneur how he grows his businesses.
There is so much to share on what I have learnt this week, however I will try and summarise my takeaways, thoughts, and progress that I think you will enjoy and benefit from the most!
Traction Sprint 2
This week’s mission was another ‘traction sprint’ which builds upon on that of last week.
You may remember in week 1 I built Reflex and in week 2 I started to drive traffic to it.
Well in week 3, the mission was to evaluate my initial growth experiment from last week, analyse its performance, and then decide which growth experiment(s) to run this week.
You may remember last week I decided to using Search Engine Marketing i.e. Google Ads.
This was my first time using Google Ads so I didn’t really understand what I was doing.
So this week I decided to spend a lot more time understanding Google Ads and how it works.
Dorm suggested I watch an hour long Google Ads 2021 tutorial by Metrics Media on YouTube.
Honestly, it was exactly what I needed: by the end of the video, I understood how Google Ads work and what I needed to do. I recommend this video to anyone trying to learn Google Ads.
So I stopped my old ads that were running and it was time to put my new learnings into action.
I created a new ad campaign, testing different sets of keywords: ‘Pull Up Bar’ vs ‘Chin Up Bar’.
The purpose of these new ads was to see which keywords appeal more to my customers.
After just a few days of running this campaign, I can see that ‘Pull Up Bar’ is way in the lead.
Therefore next week I will be optimising my ads and hopefully start generating some sales!
Unicorns Do Exist
Our Ask Me Anything/Fireside Chat this week was with Hungarian entrepreneur Balint Dencz.
Dencz is the cofounder of PropTech start-up LetMeInn, and Head of Partnerships at SaltPay.
We dove into his entrepreneurial story and the channels used to grow 2 different companies.
I really love these sessions; they are probably my favourite part because they are so inspiring.
Dencz was telling us how SaltPay, a private company, has just reached $1 billion in valuation.
This, as I just learnt, is what is referred to in the start-up world as ‘Unicorn Status’!
What’s even more impressive is that, if I’m not mistaken, this was achieved in only 3 years!
During the session, he then talked to us about the different strategies he used to grow not just SaltPay but LetMeInn such as cold emailing and the amount of emails he would send out.
There is always two things I get out of these sessions.
Firstly, specific and practical tactics that I can use and apply to my own business.
Secondly, inspiration. After seeing how someone like Dencz who is probably of a similar age to me and has a similar educational background could achieve such success, it reassures me that success may not be as far away as it seems.
I am very impressed with the quality of speakers that Dorm have had so far for these AMAs!
Final Thoughts
Another week down, 5 more to go for this first phase of the Dorm programme.
I have missed not having a Mindset Masterclass this week; feels like something was missing! I feel these sessions are as important to the practical stuff in terms of preparing us mentally.
I really enjoyed the mission/tasks for the week, especially learning more about Google Ads.
By putting in the time in actually learning about it, it made my ads so much more effective.
Never skip the ‘learning’ part of anything; it will take time at the start, but it will be worth it.
I also really enjoyed the AMA session this week with Balint Dencz and hearing about his story.
I would consider these sessions as the ‘mentorship’ portion of the program.
By hearing from people who have done what I’m trying to do, it makes things more believable.
I am also really enjoying the community aspect of the programme.
These are the people I see every week, from inside the Slack group to the virtual sessions.
I think having this cohort of people on the same journey as me is a crucial part to the program.
More importantly, above anything else, I have to play my part and keep doing the work.
At the end of the day, my goal is to come out of this programme with a profitable business.
However, this will take time, which is why I must ‘enjoy the journey, not just the destination’.
