Idea Guru
Your Names: Jason Dhami, Kevin Dhami & Neha Varshneya
UBC Majors:
Jason – Accounting
Kevin – Computer Science
Neha – Marketing
Year in e101:
Jason – 2013
Kevin and Neha – 2014
Name of Current Business:
Idea Guru
What we do in our business:
Too often powerful ideas are lost because they aren’t shared with the right people. At Idea Guru our mission is to find, build, and engage an audience who cares about what you do. We are not here to simply advertise your company through social media—we’re here to help you build it.
https://www.facebook.com/IdeaGuruCanada
Why this particular business?
We believe that social media is the best way to connect businesses with the customers who want to be their customers. Why? Because social media facilitates a conversation with those who want to have a conversation. It lets true fans engage with a brand that has a real voice.
Biggest day-to-day challenges as an entrepreneur:
For one, getting customers early on is always a difficult process. For us the problem comes in clarifying our unique value proposition. A lot of small businesses have had poor experiences with marketing agencies, and so working past that adds an additional layer of complexity to our business.
The other major challenge is leveraging our cognitive diversity. We have an accountant, a marketer, and a computer scientist. While this diverse background leads to a lot of breakthroughs we wouldn’t be able to achieve on our own, there is also the natural consequence of destructive arguments.
Greatest delights in being an entrepreneur:
Making money for the first time is definitely fun, but the best part is seeing the impact you’ve had on a client. Not only is it a business you helped grow, but also a friend, and that far and away is the most satisfying part of being an entrepreneur.
(It’s also fun to throw stuff at your co-founders and not get in trouble for it.)
Four Key pieces of advice you would give to future entrepreneurs
1.
Focus on adding value instead of making money. Even more importantly, follow the “The Law of Value” laid out by Bob Burg and John Mann in The Go-Giver: “Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”
2.
Find mentors, but focus on being a perfect protégé rather than finding the perfect mentor. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg writes “mentors select protégés based on performance and potential,” and in light of this, says “Excel and you will get a mentor.”
This mentorship needn’t be formal—the relationship is what matters. Whether you call them a mentor or not, you want to have people in your life who have been where you are. Marcus Aurelius suggested that we “go directly to the seat of knowledge”—a principle that has long held true when studying the relationship between apprenticeships and mastery. Mentors will help you progress your business and personal life, and whether official or not, you should seek to have them in your life.
3.
Everything will go wrong all the time, but that’s okay. Don’t run away from problems—embrace your obstacles as opportunities to grow. To quote Bhante Gunaratana: “In vipassana meditation we train ourselves to ignore the constant impulses to be more comfortable, and we dive into reality instead. The irony of it is that real peace comes only when you stop chasing it.”
4.
In Good to Great Jim Collins says that the question of “who” comes before the “what” decisions. This applies to finding co-founders and employees—make sure you find the right people before worrying about anything else. It’s easy to change your idea 83 times in the first month but not so easy to change your team.
Where do you see yourself going as an entrepreneur in the future?
Like all entrepreneurs, we have no idea what the future will look like! Idea Guru isn’t the last thing you’ll see from us though, so in that regard we see ourselves becoming serial entrepreneurs.