Success Comes Slow, But It's Worth the Wait: Interview with John Troy of Workmonger.com
February 16, 2021
By Matt Miner, MBA, CFP®
Success, even when it happens, usually doesn’t happen as quickly as you wish. That’s the key message as I interview John Troy, founder and CEO of Workmonger.com, a business that matches employers and job seekers in the education industry. John speaks from the heart about creating the business you want, and what you may need to give up to launch a successful new venture.
Key takeaways
1. Even when it works out, entrepreneurship takes longer than you wish or expect. Have a big pile of money to tide you over ‘til the revenue shows up - or be ready to live really, really cheap
2. Know your niche – clarity on who you serve is key for every business
3. Entrepreneurship will require an investment of your time, your money, and your emotional energy. No one else can do it for you.
4. Pivot fast, both at the margins and at the core of your business. If it’s not working, try something else.
5. Leverage mentors, both those who know you well and can speak to you as an individual, and those who have a deeper experience in the industry you serve and can speak to you as a businessperson.
Resources from today’s show:
Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Gallup
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries
Learn more about John and his work at https://workmonger.com/
You can also check out available jobs at https://trulyhired.com/
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:02] Matt Miner: Success, even when it happens, doesn't usually happen as quickly as you wish. That's the key message as I interview John Troy, founder of workmonger.com, a business that matches employers and job seekers in the education industry. The conversation points up another important fact. Doing work that matters, matters. 1,600 years ago, Augustine said of his God, "Our heart is restless until it finds its rest in the." My guest today was restless in his vocation until he created the business doing work he knows is very important in the education sector.
Hey, and welcome to the very first interview on the new Work Pants Finance podcast. I am so glad you're here. I'm Matt Miner, your money guide, and Work Pants Finance is the show for MBAs entrepreneurs and other professionals who want their financial plan to work as hard as they do. My guest today is John Troy, founder, and CEO of workmonger.com.
John does not hold back as he tells us about his sense of calling in his work and the challenge of building the business he wanted to build. He's a perfect first guess for my new show since John found his calling helping clients find the right people to do the work they needed done and helping job seekers transition to work that's better suited for them. Be sure to stick around to the end for John's thoughts on what you may need to give up in order to launch a successful new venture.
Now here's your money guide quick tip. If you've got a great idea you want to turn into a business, first find a way to develop employment around that idea where someone else pays you a salary to learn the ropes. This is what John did at Education Pioneers. A little bit of experience goes long way as you launch your new business.
Today's episode is Success Comes Slow, but it's Worth the Wait: Interview with John Troy of workmonger.com. Also, if you're going through your own employment transition and have a question about retirement accounts or just want to take the opportunity of a fresh start to make a good plan for your money, please get in touch at www.workpantsfinance.com/contact. You can read more about today's show at workpantsfinance.com/1.
John, I've admired your work from a distance and had occasional updates from our mutual friend, Nathan, over the last 11 years. I'm just excited for the chance to be here and catch up with you in greater detail today. As an aside, one of the benefits of launching this podcast is having a great reason to be in touch with some of the folks I know. I wonder if you could just take a minute and share your story with my audience.
[00:02:37] John Troy: Yes. Thanks, Matt. I'm excited to be chatting with you today. I grew up in Texas, moved to New York City to be an investment banker, did that on Wall Street for a while. I'm a big believer in doing what you love and being passionate about your work. I realized after a little over a year banking it was not that for me and so I did a big shift. I actually was attending a non-denominational Christian Church at the time in New York City and so I spoke with the pastor because I had an interest in community service, had done that throughout my life, asked him if he knew of any nonprofits that were hiring. He ended up hiring me to work directly for the church as the director of community service and finance. That was my first time working for a small organization that was very entrepreneurial and I loved it.
It was also my first time I'm doing mission-driven work as my full-time job. I love that as well. Got really interested in education while I was there because I saw it as a way to break the cycle of poverty, unlock the potential in every child. That was my passion when we met at business school. Going into Fuqua, I knew I wanted to go into education, didn't know what I was going to do. Then I ended up going to join a nonprofit called Education Pioneers, worked there for almost six years in a couple of different roles and it was why I was there that I had the idea for WorkMonger. I know we'll talk more about that, but that led me to found WorkMonger, my current role running that organization as in the executive search firm in the education space, and have been doing that for about five and a half years and married with three kids here in Austin.
[00:04:06] Matt: A couple of things I love about your story. First of all, I have to say, I think it's terrific that you scheduled an informational interview and got a job from it. I have a whole episode on informational interviewing and here's a case study of how and why that can sometimes even be a direct path, so that's great. Then the other thing, I just have so much passion around the idea of doing what you enjoy for your work. I really admire how you have pursued that really out of the gate. I remember being at business school with you and understanding your desire to put your B school skills to work in the education industry. I think it's neat where that has led you at this time.
[00:04:48] John: It's been a journey, no doubt, but a good one.
[00:04:51] Matt: Good deal. Well, will you tell us what WorkMonger does for job seekers?
[00:04:55] John: Sure. WorkMonger is a job-seeking and hiring platform. If you're a job seeker and you want a work in the education sector, you want to make an impact with your career, you can fill out a profile and get matched with jobs that are the right fit for you. You tell us about the way you're wired, the environments you thrive in, the causes within education that you care about, where you want to live, how much you want to make, et cetera, all the things that go into a good match. Then we have an algorithm that will help match you with jobs. Then we also will manually deep dive in to add a personal touch as well, all designed to match you with a job where you're going to thrive and be able to stay for a while because you love it and it's a good fit and make an impact in the education space.
[00:05:38] Matt: I guess I feel like I have to ask, even though this wasn't on the sheet I sent over, how has COVID affected recruiting generally in your sandbox?
[00:05:48] John: That's a great question. The pace of hiring has definitely slowed. Also, executive search firms, which is what we've evolved into over the years, are viewed in a time of crisis and when it gets fiscally tough, they're viewed as a nice to have, a little bit more of a luxury than a must-have. That has slowed the pace of growth for the organization. It's a good thing we were established and had a good client base and were rocking it when this hit because if this had happened a few years ago, it probably would've killed the business just to be honest. We had gotten to a point where we have great clients who keep coming back. They know our value and that has done well and we get a lot of good referrals which helps. But brand new companies that we have no relationship with whatsoever, who have never worked with us, there's not as many of those folks using us because those are the people who have pulled back. It's more of our tried and true relationships that keep coming back. Fortunately, it's enough to sustain us. Not a lot of hiring right now as you would expect, but I think 2021, it's going to bounce back is my hunch. I think folks can only slow down for so long.
[00:06:59] Matt: Have you seen, commensurate with your clients, the folks who pay your fees, pulling back a little bit, have you seen increased demand from job seekers as people maybe are experiencing change in their workplace? How has that part worked?
[00:07:13] John: I think there's two sides. There's a certain group of folks who have been laid off. They're hungry. They're getting back out there. They're trying to find the right job. In my space, the education industry, that tends to be nonprofits that are philanthropically supported. It also tends to be fee-for-service organizations that make their revenue from serving schools. For example, a school pays them for a service. That has caused some of those organizations to lay people off and as a result, they're out on the job market. On the flip side, the public sector, there haven't been as many layoffs so public school districts, public charter schools, I think the fund tightening is coming as legislatures meet and pull back, but it hasn't hit quite yet. The layoffs haven't been there. They've just slowed additional hiring, but they haven't laid as many people off.
In those regards, if those folks still have jobs and they have said, "Hey, I'm not leaving. I got something. I don't want to go jump to something that might not be as stable." They're staying put saying, "Even though I might have thought I was going to leave in 2020, I'm going to push that off until 2021 because I don't need any more chaos in my life right now." It's kind of a mixed bag, but overall the rate of job-seeking in my industry is lower than it's been in the past because layoffs have not been massive and as a result, a lot of folks are preferring to stay put.
[00:08:32] Matt: No, I think that makes a ton of sense. It's also going to be really interesting. I don't know how it is in other states. Here in North Carolina, property taxes are due on January 1st or that's when they're really due. It's going to be interesting to see how that cash flow may unfold in different places in the country.
[00:08:48] John: Here in Texas, we don't have a state income tax. Property tax drives everything and the same thing as you. Due at the beginning of the year and we're going to see that impact coming forward for sure.
[00:08:58] Matt: Then probably see more legislative response as follow up to that when they see what the whole is or isn't. That'll be interesting. I wonder if you can tell us, John, whatever you share publicly about the business itself. how many employees you've got, who you guys work well with, and anything else that you like to talk about when you talk about the business?
[00:09:17] John: We're still what I like to call small and scrappy. We've been around now five and a half years. I started it as a one-man show and we're now-- There's five other employees besides me. Then some part-time folks on top of that as well. Our core has always been public charter schools and education nonprofits. We're also working more with school districts and some EdTech companies, a little bit with state education agencies, like the Texas Education Agency. It really is the broader K12 marketplace and so organizations that directly serve kids, either schools or nonprofits, and then organizations that serve those. Then as far as job seekers, our sweet spot is what I would call middle management, so to speak. We will take from entry level to C level, and a lot of firms will only take the C level that provide our level of service. One of our differentiators is we do the whole gamut, but I would say most of the roles that we get tend to be in that mid-management level because they want the extra service.
One of the things that's unique about our approach is we charge less than some of the full-service firms, and so they'll come to us for the mid-management level roles because we won't charge the C level prices. It's a little niche we found where we can add value, still make a profit, and still make an impact at the same time.
[00:10:38] Matt: That's cool. I wonder if you could talk about your experience launching and growing WorkMonger, and how that was going from having been an employee to being a founder and entrepreneur.
[00:10:50] John: Yes, and we can probably do an entire podcast on this one question. I've always wanted to my own business. I always knew that was going to happen. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. My dad was an entrepreneur. It was in the blood, so to speak, and so I knew I wanted to and I was just waiting to see when I had the right idea, when was the right time.
I had this idea while I was at Education Pioneers, which was in a somewhat related space, and so I actually pitched them. I said, "Hey, why don't we incubate this within, and try this idea out. It can be an additional service offering within the nonprofit, and I could grow it and scale it." We actually explored it for a few months.
We both reached a conclusion that-- For me, it was the overall driving force is what I was most passionate about. It's what I wanted to do. For them, and I really don't mean this in a negative way, they were already an established organization, so for them this was priority 10 or 20 on the list. They had a lot going on at the time, and we just realized that we weren't going to be aligned.
I was going to be full force let's go. For them, it was going to be one of many things, and so I left and decided to start it after a lot of prayer, a lot of conversations with my wife, try to talk it through to see if it was the right time.
I read a book called The Lean Startup, and it really spoke to me because one of the big things in there was don't just sit in an office and write this perfect business plan and spend months and months writing it out and get it perfect and then go shop it around to see who wants to fund it when it's just an idea, or an idea and a business plan.
Their big push was, come up with something you can test and get out there and go, and get actual real customers and real feedback and give it a shot and try it. I did that, and I'm so thankful because I had the idea, and I was testing it very quickly. I spoke with Nathan Ma. Actually, he helped me build a little dinky prototype to get out there and try it, and it worked great. Then I pivoted about a thousand times along the way before I finally found the thing that worked. That's a little bit about how I got started with it.
[00:12:48] Matt: At this point, you touched on a couple of things here, but I have a couple of follow-ups for you. Are you entirely bootstrapped from a funding perspective at this point, or have you taken money from somebody?
[00:13:00] John: That's a great question. So bootstrapped is the answer. The goal was always to start bootstrapped, and then build some progress that I could point to, and then try to raise funds. I tried for a few times to raise some funds. It didn't really go anywhere. I kept hearing back that there was a real preference to fund products, not services. You wanted something where there was a sustainable replicable revenue model.
The challenge with mine is, let's say you are a company in the Ed space and you develop a curriculum. That school might use that curriculum every year, and so they're going to pay for it every year, every year going forward. For me, you come to me when you have job openings. If you don't have a job opening, you may not come back.
While I have existing relationships, they may not use me every year. I have folks who use me a lot and then they pause, and they might come back a year later. Folks didn't really like that, and they didn't like how service-based it was. I realized quickly folks don't really want to invest. The number of times I heard lifestyle business I was like, "Okay, I'm going to have to bootstrap this."
We took that approach. I say we because it's been a family effort, my wife and I, but bootstrapped it the whole way. To be honest, it took personal savings, and cost-cutting, and just scraping by to make it work.
[00:14:22] Matt: That stuff that you layout is so key from a planning standpoint with my planner hat on is you guys had the commitment to do this. I love that you still own the whole company, and then you were willing and able to make those lifestyle trade-offs in order to get this thing off the ground.
I can relate to the challenges of scaling a service business. It's basically some tech and some human resources. We're serving different industries, but our work touches, I think, in that regard, and I love hearing how you guys got through it. How did you know with that scary revenue picture that you paint? When were you ready to make your first hire? You've obviously done that four more times at least since.
[00:15:01] John: I had a good network when I got started, and that helped. It helped me get going, not only in building my base of job seekers, but when I was ready to make my first hire I just wanted to try it out. I brought on a 1099 contractor. It was a friend of mine who had worked for me in the past, who was in the spring of her second year at HBS.
Pretty light schedule. She already knew where she was going, and I was like, "This is great. I can bring her on as a contractor. I can set out specific projects for her. I've already worked with her in the past, and so I know it's a high-quality product, and so I can let her loose and do her thing."
I knew it was six months, and so it was low risk, and it was part-time project-based. That was the first person I brought on because it was low-risk. I was taking so many risks in other areas. I didn't want to take a risk here, and so it was a good way to try it out and it worked out great. She did a terrific job. I learned a lot.
Then I brought on my first person as a full-fledged member of the team probably that fall, afterwards. Then we've grown a little bit since then, and I've basically kept with me the part that I felt I was best at, which is the sales. Then brought on others to do some of the other stuff. In the beginning, I was recruiting job seekers. I was recruiting employers. I was doing the finances. I was doing the matching. I was emailing job seekers to say, "Hey, here's a job. Are you interested?" I was doing all of it, and so I basically over time started giving away pieces and keeping what I thought I was best at, and giving away what I thought I was just okay at.
[00:16:40] Matt: Sounds like a great management approach. They must have taught you that at Fuqua.
[00:16:44] John: [laughs]
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I guess I'd like to ask you where you see WorkMonger going in the future? In the near term, maybe you've even talked to this already out through '21 or something like that, but 5 years and 10 years, what would you like for it to be?
[00:17:42] John: We've talked a lot about the search forum side, but we have two pieces of it. We run a job board called TrulyHired in the same niche. Then also do the search forum side. I'd like to add on a third leg of the stool that truly is a product, not a service, around hiring contractors. We were just talking about the role that a contractor can play.
Especially in this economy, people are looking for side gigs that they can do. The education sector is generally slow to adopt new things, and so right now the education sector for the most part hasn't fully embraced the power of freelancers, and gig economy workers, and folks who can do extra projects, but I think this pandemic is shifting us towards that.
I'd like to build a marketplace to help connect folks with those 1099 contractor freelance gigs in the education space. We're looking at that. I think that could be the third leg of the stool, so to speak. Then, I skipped over it earlier, but when I launched WorkMonger, we were originally for the whole social sector, not just education.
I have a big passion like I said, for making an impact with your work. I saw pain points in the education space that were also outside of that, and so I thought why not launch for the whole social sector. I realized over the first six months that I was getting lots of job seekers who are interested in homelessness, health care, feeding the hungry, the environment, education, you name it.
I didn't personally have any credibility outside the Ed space, so all my paying clients were education orgs, and my job seekers were a mix, and so there was a mismatch there. I pulled back to where I have credibility because in the beginning, when you launch a business, you're going off your personal brand.
Even though it was WorkMonger, folks were really hiring John until I could build a brand around the company itself. I pulled back to that, so to answer your question, I do hope to go back. I think we may hopefully go back to serve other causes. Maybe add on a cause or two at a time. Maybe bring on somebody to join the team who has a lot of credibility in that space.
We may hopefully, when we're ready, expand beyond just education because I think there's an ethos that cuts across more than one cause, where you want to make an impact with your career. You really want to serve others. Some folks are not pure, has to be education. They're like, "Yes, that's one of the many causes I care about, but there are others I care about too." and I think we can still meet some of the market inefficiencies in there. That's one thing I'd like to tackle as well.
[00:20:08] Matt: Awesome. I appreciate you sharing that. John, this is a show about life, work, and money. I want to ask you what do you love about where you are today with your life, work, and money?
[00:20:17] John: Now that we've pivoted enough that the business is actually working, which is a good thing, we're in a good place. I'm not literally working 100 hours every week anymore. I have some balance. I'm able to invest in my kids, spend time with my wife. In those early days, there were times where I'm like, "How am I going to make payroll at the end of the month?" Those days are thankfully gone and have been gone for a while and I'm glad they're gone. I don't need them back. I don't need more gray hair than I already have. It is good to have some of that stress out of it and have some of the work-life balance and I'm doing what I love and it makes it not feel like work because I get up and I do what I love and I'm excited about it and I find it very rewarding.
Then also as an entrepreneur, I have some flexibility when I need it. Just to be frank, we just had our third child back at the end of March. This was the hardest pregnancy that my wife and I have ever had. She was in and out of the hospital. Things like that and I was able to step away and be there for that in a way that would have been harder if I had a boss and less flexibility. That was one of the times I just appreciated basically being in charge of my own schedule and being able to set things the way an entrepreneur or a business owner can. Those are a few things I like.
[00:21:35] Matt: I think that's great. Is there anything that you would still like to change about those categories of life, work, and money today?
[00:21:42] John: I don't know if I'd change it, but getting this business to work took way longer than I thought it would and so it ate through pretty much all of our savings. I'm thankful that at the end of that, I actually had a business that worked and now we're replenishing and growing but just being honest, our savings are not where I expected to be at 40. I think we've got a very bright future, but it took many more pivots, and to be honest, back to the I could do a whole podcast on starting a business, I was stubborn.
I probably was a little slow to pivot at times and should have pivoted a little faster and the result of that is you burn through more of your savings. The spending of the savings teaches you a lesson which is one of the benefits of bootstrapping is there's the extra pressure there because it's your own money on the line. All things equal, I'm glad we did it, but it took longer to work so we burned through more cash. If I could snap my fingers and not have depleted so much, I gladly would. I think that's just the tale of entrepreneurship. Sometimes it works and it works right off the bat.
Sometimes it works and it takes a while and sometimes it doesn't work and you know what? That's okay. You just got to plan for it. You have to be prepared to withstand it and not go beyond what you planned for and that's the other thing is you got to have discipline. If you set a timeline and a budget amount and you're like my family can handle this. Then if that comes and goes, you don't go past it because I don't know. It can be very tempting in the moment. Let me just say that.
[00:23:09] Matt: I really appreciate you sharing that and I think that that is such good advice. There's a couple of really key nuggets there which are especially that these entrepreneurial things often take longer than you wish that they would. Then the other thing like your guard rails like you're saying that you say we're going to go into it for this much money, for this much time and if it hasn't worked by then, we're going to go back and get a job or alternately I love talking to clients who have side hustles along the lines of where would you need to get this revenue as a side hustler to feel comfortable making the jump. That's another way to do the same thing, but it's great you guys were able to handle it the way you did.
[00:23:51] John: I'm a big believer in the side hustle. It didn't work for me in my business, but if it can work, go that path. If it works for you personally and it works for the business idea itself, that's a great way to get started.
[00:24:04] Matt: John, I wanted to ask you if someone wanted to be like you launching and growing a niche services business, serving people who are going through a transition, what should they do and what should they avoid.
[00:24:15] John: Build up some savings as we were just talking about. Be on board with your partner if you have one about how you're going to approach it, what those guide rails are. Be quick to pivot. I think that's the other thing is like don't think your idea is the be all end all and it has to be that or nothing. That's the whole purpose of getting out there and trying something quick, is so you get feedback and you can change. For me, I found it easy to change on the things at the margins. I was slower to change things that I thought went to the core of my idea.
I think ultimately you got to be willing to change those things too. Then the other thing I would say just some advice to learn from my mistakes is have a mentor. Have somebody who's been there. Honestly, you can have a couple, like folks who maybe know you really well personally. They know your ins and outs and who can speak into your life and speak some truth. Then also some business folks who have done something similar, who when you're being slow to pivot, for example, can point it out to you and say, "Hey, John, look. You're being a little stubborn now. You have more than enough data to know that what you're doing is not working. You need to change and make a pivot." I think having some folks who can speak some truth into your life, making sure you're learning from others are a few things to keep in mind.
[00:25:33] Matt: John, what's a piece of advice that you have benefited from in your life or that you'd like to share today?
[00:25:40] John: I mentioned earlier that I worked for a church. Faith is important to me. It's a part of everything for me and one of those is your self-worth doesn't come from your work. It doesn't come from your work. That's something, just to be honest, that I've struggled with. As an entrepreneur, I got wrapped up in that like, "Oh, man, what's it going to be like if I fail, if this business doesn't work?" I think there's some healthy drive there. It can push you further, but you don't want to cross that line into thinking your value comes from this job because it doesn't. I think that's something I've struggled with sometimes more than others and really learned along the way is that that's not what I'm going to define success by in my life is whether or not I successfully launched a business and I can attach entrepreneur to my resume.
That's not what it's all about. There were times where, to be honest, if you had asked me was I all about that, my instinct would have been to say no, but if I had reflected, I would have been like, "Oh, wait. I don't like the sound of that, but I'm living like my value does come from my work." and so work is important. Don't get me wrong. I love my job. Work matters. It's a vital part of life, but it's not what life is exclusively about. There are times where I lost my way a little bit with that.
[00:26:56] Matt: I really appreciate you sharing that. John, the theme of this show is learning from the experience of others. I like to ask all my guests about books that they're reading now or have read in the past that have been important to them in their lives. Do you have any titles like that for us? You've already mentioned The Lean Startup which we have on our shelf here at our house. My daughter Lucy's read it. I haven't read it yet.
[00:27:15] John: Oh, you got to check it out. It's a great book.
[00:27:17] Matt: All right. It's available to me, so no excuses.
[00:27:21] John: It's a great book. It was recommended to me early. Glad I read it. You know some of the other classics I'm sure you're familiar with Jim Collins, Good to Great. The Hedgehog Concept. What can you be the best in the world at? That's been a driving force within our organization as well. I think those companies that can find that hedgehog concept and really focus on it have long-term success. That's been a key one. One I've read many times that I'm reading again right now with my team is StrengthsFinder 2.0. I do feel like in general society, this is slight pitch for the book, but we tend to focus more on our weaknesses than our strengths. As you heard me talk earlier, I gave away what I wasn't good at and kept what I was good at.
I think that general premise applies a lot and we should be focused on honing our strengths rather than if you're on a scale of one to 10, you're a 2 at something, you could work really hard and become a 3 at it. If you're an 8, maybe you could become a 9.5, and the benefit from being a 9.5 is far better than going from a 2 to a 3. I think that's what I'm reading with my team now because we've had a couple of new members join and so we like to see what the team's strengths are and how we can basically work in accordance with those.
[00:28:33] Matt: You joined some excellent company with that second recommendation. That was one of Mary Beck White-Sutton's recommendations on this very show.
[00:28:42] John: Oh, she's one of my favorite people. She's great.
[00:28:44] Matt: Good deal. John, is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd like to leave with my audience today?
[00:28:50] John: Everybody's looking for something different in work and you got to know what that is for you and not everybody has the privilege to do what they love but for me, I did and I wanted to find what I loved. Others, they work and they find fulfillment outside of work. For me, I knew I had to be really passionate about what I did and I had to find what I loved and find a way to make a living doing it. It was the right thing for me and I would encourage others to take that chance. I think back to when I was a 23-year-old investment banker and I saw my vice-presidents and managing directors. Many of them looked very unhappy and they were there because the money was good and they couldn't figure out what else they'd do to make the same amount of money.
For me, that's not worth it. I'd much rather make less money but love what I do. I would just encourage folks to reflect on their own choices and to realize it doesn't have to be just about money. Find something you love that pays you enough that you have a comfortable life and for me, I'm going to be happier that way.
[00:29:51] Matt: I think that's great advice. I think it was in Liar's Poker but it was definitely Michael Lewis where the bankers used to play a game where they try to come up with a job that they would less rather do than investment banking, and they were really struggling to come up with what that answer would be. I'm sure that there are bankers out there who love it, but I really, I like what you have to say about finding work that resonates with you. Joshua Sheats, one of my mentors in podcasting and in personal finance, talks in one place about finding the work you would do if you could never retire. That's really what led me into the work that I'm doing now, for example, and sounds like you've experienced similar levels of enjoyment from your current deal.
[00:30:36] John: I have, and I'm glad you have as well. It makes all the difference.
[00:30:40] Matt: Absolutely. My children notice it. That's a funny thing. My kids are older than yours. They knew me before and they know me now and they're like, we're glad you're doing what you're doing now. [laugh]
[00:30:50] John: What better report card could you have, right?
[00:30:52] Matt: Yes. Well, John, it's been so good to have you on the show. I really appreciate you taking time to be with us today, and just wonder if you have any place that you would like to direct my listeners to follow up with you.
[00:31:02] John: Yes. Thanks, Matt. I've really enjoyed the conversation today. I would say, if you are interested in job seeking in the education sector, trying to find a job with impact in education, you can go to workmonger.com, which is our site where we will match you with jobs, and then we also have a job board where you can scan and look at all the jobs called trulyhired.com. Check both of those out. Then I'm always happy to chat with folks. If you have any questions you want to talk further, you can reach out to me personally at john@workmonger.com. Thanks a lot.
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[00:31:34] Matt: John shared a world of wisdom. I'm focused on a few key takeaways. First, even when it works out, entrepreneurship takes longer than you wish or expect. Have a big pile of money to tide you over until the revenue shows up and know what your budget guard rails are, when you'll do something very different, including going out and getting a job to earn some more money.
Two, know your niche. Having clarity on who you serve is key for every business. Three, entrepreneurship will require an investment of your time, your money, and your emotional energy. No one else can do it for you. Four, pivot fast, both at the margins and if necessary, at the core of your business. If it's not working try something else. Five, leverage mentors, both those who know you well and can speak to you as an individual and those who have a deeper experience than you in the industry you serve and can speak to you as a business person.
That's it for today. Please don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review Work Pants Finance, wherever you listen to the show. Thank you for joining me at the start of the Work Pants Finance show. Until next week, this is Matt Miner, encouraging you to make a financial plan that works as hard as you do.
[00:32:58] Matt's daughter: Matt Miner is a fee-only fiduciary financial advisor and founder and CEO of Miner Wealth Management, a North Carolina registered investment advisor, where Matt provides personalized, unconflicted advice to clients for a fee. He's also my dad, so please be nice when you talk to him. Matt is a certified financial planner professional and holds a series 65 securities license.
He earned his bachelor's degree in finance from Arizona State University and his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua school of business. Work Pants Finance is Matt's financial media business, where he talks about work, entrepreneurship, kids and money, taxes, investing and other personal finance topics. workpantsfinance.com exists to share wisdom and provide general financial information. It is not financial tax or legal advice. You are an individual and probably need personal advice for your specific situation. You should consider building relationships with helpful, caring, and competent professionals who understand your unique context and can provide advice that is tailored to your needs.
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