🌟 Note to all you gremlins that are taking the liberty to read this
If you’re the same kind of psychopath that I am, the first thing you Google when you hear about something horrific is who did it? Who are they? What’s their story? That’s because people care less about things and ideas, and more about the people behind them.
Welcome to the first edition of Founders You’ve Never Heard Of - where we take a dive into learning about Founders that you probably have never heard of. We talk about what these individuals are building of course, but really, the goal is to get to know the human behind the magic. So stay tuned for the magic.
The human
Lauren Goodell - Highlights
She’s one of those people you meet and you think “sh*t this person just has another gear”. Really fricking sharp and witty, but the thing that stood out to me was she seems to be really comfortable eating glass - and when I say eating glass, I mean being comfortable in the uncomfortable life of being an entrepreneur.
The entrepreneur: Building Zinnia - the AI copilot for Account Executives
Location: Charlotte, NC (moving soon to be the best city in America aka NYC)
Best Startup Story: Started a wedding floral business that absolutely crushed after someone told her they liked how she arranged the flowers at a wedding she attended
Fun Fact: She made tissues out of schoolwork and pitched the idea to her kindergarden teacher
Fav Celebrity: Swears she’s not a Swifty, but respects the T-Swift empire
🚀 Lauren’s Story - The High-Level
Every founder I get to talk to is so different. I’ve met with sales tech ppl, plumbing companies doing $10M a year in revenue, and agency owners selling SEO to private jet companies. One thing I noticed with each of these founders was their energy. Energy is sooooo contagious and you can just tell from meeting with Lauren that she’s got energy out the wazzoo. It’s really addicting and something I hope I can steal as a trait.
This convo was really fun to have, so here’s my 5 takeaways from my convo with Lauren Goodell.
🏆 The Golden Nugs
1 - Ditch your job
It’s gonna absolutely suck. When you leave your job, either cause you got fired or the Entrepreneurial bug bites you one too many times, leaving your job is gonna blow. It’s really hard to do, going from making a 7-figure+ salary to making less than a college town bartender.
Lauren left her job at Salesforce to build Zinnia, which by all tangible metrics, was a stupid idea. Going from making 7 figs as an AE at a big tech company, to broke startup founder is completely irrational.
It’s insanely hard to do, but necessary if you wanna do something great
2 - Content = King
if you don’t follow her on LinkedIn already, it might be time to. Her content is golden for a few reasons: it sounds like her, it’s authentic asf, and it’s consistent with who she’s targeting.
I always say that the best content isn’t the stuff you put out that gets 100,000+ impressions, but the one that might get 800 impressions, but targets 800 of the people that could be your customers.
She does an incredible job of speaking to her ICP in a way they can relate to.
3 - Literally nobody has any idea what they’re doing
This was super comforting to me that someone as incredibly talented and successful as Lauren also built a company without having any idea what she was doing. The analogy i always hear is that building companies is like jumping out of a plane and assembling the parachute on the way down.
This was my experience, Lauren’s experience, and honestly every single other founder I’ve ever gotten the chance to talk to. Just keep trying shit and staying in the game long enough, and you’ll figure it out as you go.
4 - “PIVOT!!! PIVOT!!
Zinnia started as an event planning company. Lauren had the idea that she wanted to build a company that was scalable and venture-backed, so they pivoted Zinnia to a data-product - selling personalized dossiers for $10 a pop.
Lesson here is taht sometimes you have to cannabilize whats working in order to build something you truly want.
Hormozi has a good line that goes: “figure out what you want, ignore the opinions of others, then do so much volume that it would make it unreasonable for you not to succeed”
Figuring out what you want is absolutely key, and if you never answer that question, you might end up building something you hate.
5 - Trust you gut
Every single mistake that Lauren made in her business early on, came from listening to other people rather than her gut. It might come off like I'm saying you should be a know it all, which is absolutely not what I’m saying, so don’t twist my damn words.
But 99% of the time, the advice you’d give to a friend is the advice you should take. In business and in life. So trust your gut
Lauren is really cool. I’m a big big fan of hers and I think you will be too when you check out her content.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. Hope to see ya next week
Cheers
Jordan Winston
Co-Founder @ Not Your Dad’s Media
Founder of this newsletter you’re reading
🌉 Background: was an AE for a while, hated that, built Pink’s which is an all encompassing home service company, built that, hired a CEO, now building Not Your Dad’s Media
👑 What’s Not Your Dad’s Media and why is the name so awesome? Ah I’m so glad you asked. Not Your Dad’s Media is a content and brand building machine. We build brands for founders that aren’t cringey and act as the arbiters of good views for your company, your voice, and your brand.
🙈 What you didn’t know about me:
I peel my bananas upside down, I apparently love to climb on tables, I love to put my thoughts in as many places on the internet as possible, and choosing a name for companies is my favorite thing ever
Did You Know? We’re launching a founder led content agency in a month? Check out our website here
Till next time,