Justin Wu of Growth.ly on Determination, Failure and Success

Justin Wu is an Information Architect & Growth Hacker who founded a marketing agency called, Growth.ly based in Los Angeles — He creates content daily about how to hack entrepreneurship learning.

He has been featured with both the Wall Street Journal & CES. In the past, he has founded several companies such as Sidevision (Invested by Warner Bros), and Vytmn.com, a marketing tech company where he lead growth of $1M revenue in the 1st year.

1. Determination

Q: What are some challenges you faced when developing your venture?

I’ve started different types of businesses in different industries and fields. They all had various challenges that inhibited its growth. I can, however, summarize several themes that I believe were recurring. The base factor for any business is the ability to execute, the resources to fuel it, the team to run it, and traction. Can you make money, and sustain? These factors are all challenging to get right & maintain and that’s why most companies fail. Most companies fail due to lack of traction. If you don’t know how to go to market, it doesn’t matter how good your product & service is. Money is the oxygen & lifeline of the business. Most businesses don’t test, validate and find a way to get paying customers and therefore fail after spending months build their next app, service or product. They could have found it out earlier without investing all their time, money and energy going in that direction.

Q: Was there any point when you thought it was over? That you were going to fail?

I’ve been in a situation of failure many times. It didn’t matter what I thought about failing, it was more important in how I react & overcame it. Every time I fail I analyze the reasons why I failed. I then apply those learnings into my next move. The most important thing I’ve learned throughout the whole process is to focus in on the skillsets that I acquire through all my actions. This will build on each other and grow into a stack of skillsets that will make you unique & valuable in the marketplace. Every time I failed, I fell back to my skillsets and because of that, I was able to get quickly hired or paid for consulting. This allowed me to readjust myself and make another entrepreneur/startup run after I got more comfortable again.

It is very hard to be a ‘starving’ entrepreneur and innovate with little resources. You are constantly thinking about ways to survive. Some rely on investors to fund their project and idea, while others bootstrap. I think the bootstrap mentality puts you in the right mindset because you have to actually work for your money or not make it.

2. Flexibility

Q: As an entrepreneur how important has flexibility been in developing your venture?

So the key point about flexibility is knowing when to adapt & change and when not to. If you have industry experience and knowledge, then lean heavy on that drive your decisions. Utilize feedback, data and communication with your customers to inform your decision making. Again, the key point is to inform. There will be times where feedback may pull your venture into a different direction. You will have to use your best judgment & information to assess whether that sample size is true and large enough to warrant a shift.

3. Imagination

Q: What was was your spark, where did it come from?

My entrepreneurship early on actually in elementary school. When I was really young, I wanted a lot of things that my parents could not afford as my family just moved here from Asia. I was taught early on the value of money, and that if I wanted something I had to work for it. Because I wanted things such as toys, cards, games and more I knew the value of those items. I began looking at sites like craigslist and eBay to find those products discounted. I knew though that my peers were still paying retail prices. I easily discovered an arbitrage opportunity and earn profit. This provided me the opportunity to get what I wanted with my own money. I didn’t have to wait for anyone anymore, I could have the power to create & receive. As I grew, I made a decision to forego my short-term wants to reinvest all my money back into growing my business that would yield greater returns. From then on I’ve continued launching different ventures with various levels of success & failures.

4. Friendship

So during my early entrepreneurship days, I excluded myself with a lot of my social circles in school. I was just focused and determined to grow my business or projects. I admit I was a bit anti-social to start, but I’m an introvert naturally anyways. As I grew in my career and ventures I began to start understanding the value of relationships & friendships. I began to carefully select my network with forward thinking individuals who were doing interesting things. I really try to associate myself with those that have a growth mindset vs the fixed mindset. I steer clear away from negativity, and even irresponsibility. My community and my network of friends are those who own up their actions & consequences. I just knew to associate myself with hungry people who aspire more for themselves, and they motivate me daily. As I continue to grow and meet more individuals I still look out for key players & experts in their respective spaces.

I also make an effort to just generally connect with as many people as possible even if they are weak ties. You never know who you might meet. A reason I aim for this is to increase the amount of opportunities in the present and future. The people that you connect with today might not be a fit for you at this moment, but if they continue to grow and change they might be a fit in the future. Even if people aren’t directly related to me, they might perhaps know someone else that might be relevant to me. It is because of this reason, that I still go out and connect with as many faces as possible. Then I utilize my personal brand to maintain communication & contact with this larger audience. I sustain those relationships by pushing out valuable content, and so when the time comes those connections will come back to me with more opportunities when the time fits.

5. Delegation

Very important if you want to scale your business. You have to delegate tasks to others, especially if they are better than you at the task.

You want to find people who are experts in the space and let them take control. This will lead you to do greater things that will generate higher growth for your company. Everything you do should be for high growth. If you are stuck spending time on a remedial task, then it might be best to delegate. Every minute should be spent on multiplying your success. Anything less is an obstacle. The issue that most people have with delegation are a few fold. First, most don’t want to sacrifice their income and pay individuals to delegate. Another issue is that many are scared to let go of the keys to their operations. I’ve fallen into both traps many times. The key is to plan it both out, try it out and adjust immediately. You can always adjust and fire fast when things to pan out. As the quote goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” I’m a big believer in this concept. I’ve been a solopreneur for many years, and find that building a team is necessary for scaling your tasks and operations.

What is your best tip for entrepreneurs?

Focus on building up your skillsets, whatever is required to execute your company & idea. Be the best version of yourself every day, and even if your venture dies - you cannot lose. I’ve had many ventures close down, but I never had them define who I was. It was the confidence in knowing that I am better than I was yesterday, and this keeps me going forward. I always made sure my skillsets were of great value so that even if my ventured died, I could still be paid for my expertise to recuperate and restart my ventures.

For more information on Growth.ly check out their website at: www.growth.ly