Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Maddy Osman, Founder of The Blogsmith, located in Lakewood, CO, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I run The Blogsmith, and we serve mostly web hosts and other enterprise B2B technology tools like HubSpot, GoDaddy, Kinsta, and Klaviyo. We create content that balances the needs of humans and robots (our process: here).
Tell us about yourself
I developed a love for content through trial and error that started with my college web designer job for the University of Iowa's department of student life. The things I learned as a web designer influenced my journey to focus on creating the content instead of designing the display for the content.
I'm motivated daily to obsess over the reader experience because I also want to have a great experience when solving my own problems.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Scaling my freelance marketing business to a specialized content agency model. This gave me the opportunity to focus on what I like and create jobs for other people who share my vision. Part of doing this involved creating a style guide that represented my writing style, giving me the confidence to hire writers and editors to represent my processes. I then turned our style guide into an Amazon bestselling book, which is another big accomplishment of mine.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Separating your identity as a business owner from your identity as a person, in general. Because of this tie-up, creating a healthy work/life balance. I constantly struggle with this and cycle through feeling like I have it handled — or not.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Find a mentor. I've been both a mentor and mentee to many. Both roles are important because if you're taking, it's important to find ways to give back.
- Ditch your ego. You're probably not going to be the smartest person in the room if you're running a successful company. If role specialization is important, you don't want to be the smartest person in the room anyway!
- Start small and scale slowly. Scaling up production also scales up problems. It's better to scale slowly to catch small issues before they become big problems.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.theblogsmith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheBlogsmith/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MaddyOsman
Twitter: https://twitter.com/maddyosman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madelineosman/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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