Can you generate it?

It’s your typical Friday afternoon, well in Seattle that is. Fall leaves across the ground, traffic on every city street and a library full of vivacious people waiting to head into the weekend with a good book and a movie.

I was sitting next to my co-founder and business partner Zyad. I was waiting to meet my future business soul friend, Khalid.

This was the initial encounter that would end up leading to a 17 month journey to building a company that would shatter the teen entrepreneurship discourse, and more importantly offer an innovative solution to companies around the world.

After the initial meeting, we claimed a library for our follow-up weekly meetings and began working on everything content related.

Takeaway 1: Find a work spot that balances both social scene and productivity. This was a vital part of why Khalid and I were able to execute so well during our initial work phases. Coffee shops are often too busy and loud which are distracting to the work environment. A library allows you to balance both and try to schedule a meeting room for some quiet work as well.

Every week became an adventure, we were like detectives trying to seek out the next best strategy for a marketing campaign.

I would call Khalid — Benedict Cumberbatch.

Each week, we were seeking new strategies and answers to our social media needs. Similar to Sherlock, each month was a case and we set out to solve it through a pragmatic, creative content solution.

Takeaway 2: Generate a monthly theme for your company. This was the first step Khalid taught me when we began working on media and it led to a simplified marketing plan. In addition, it allowed us to be more efficient as a tandem and gain clarity around our content strategy. Having a plan helps with everything else, it’s about developing something that is going to provide tangible business results and allow users to engage and interact with content in a different light.

October 3, 2019 came around and it came time to meet with potential clients. This was the initial step for the marketing team. Social media was the initial aspect of the job, but just like every good Sherlock episode, there is always another sector/thought that gets lost. In our case, it was the consulting part.

We had to understand consumer behavior, why customers decided to make certain decisions, and on the flip side it was about business behavior.

Some questions we asked were:

• What are your thoughts on the UI/UX design?
• How does our current layout play a role in your overall perception of the mobile application?
• Would your customers want to invest time into this resources? If so, how can we incentive them to come onto the app and use this as their primary method of communication.

Takeaway 3: Ask tough questions. Anyone in the world can ask easy questions. In order to get the most out of your audience and overall consumer/buyer base you have to orient yourself as a business to serve them and their needs as a brand. The first step in doing so is by embodying curiosity and turning into a question machine. Another underrated strategy is to put YOURSELF in the CUSTOMER’S shoes. If you were a consumer, would you purchase this product, would you use it? If the answer is no, then rethink the product and turn into Sherlock again. Seek to discover and uncover the unknown.