Stephanie Feltus is an Omaha based entrepreneur helping working moms find work/life balance success while achieving startup success of her own!

Tell us about the biggest mistake you made with your business. What did you learn from it?

More than a specific incident, the biggest mistake I made was not looking outside of myself to others to assist in helping solve a problem. Not admitting that I needed help. Many times there are people who are knowledgeable and experienced in helping you achieve your goal. Leaning on experts and being transparent with your issues gets you where you need to be faster. 

 

In the beginning, I spent hours researching a specific topic. For example: pricing. I researched what my competitors were doing, what was the national average, and how much profit would we make in the long run. I ended up learning the most from asking our current customers if they thought they were getting a good value. Also asking the potential target market what they would pay for our services. 

Besides learning from mistakes, we can learn from successful moments as well. Have you ever learned something from a great success?

My Robyn has been fortunate to have celebrated many successes. For every success, there is a lot of hard work and dedication that has been behind it. The lesson I learned is to always celebrate hitting milestones, no matter how small you believe it is. However, I wouldn’t recommend celebrating a success too long. The next milestone is usually bigger, so you better be having fun along the way. 

 

“The lesson I learned is to always celebrate hitting milestones, no matter how small you believe it is.”

 

One example, was when we hit our month recurring revenue goal.  We were so proud to hit the goal, we strutted into a venture capital company. They were very proud of us as well, however, they asked us to double the number but in half of the time. With dedication and passion, we achieved it. 

What is one thing you’ve learned that you wish you knew when you got started?

There are very few companies which have achieved overnight success. All successful companies have an amazing amount of passion and hard work behind the “idea”. After hearing many successful founders speak, I realize each one of these companies went through a time they wanted to give up due to what seemed like an insurmountable hurdle. You have to have a solid support system to be able to pick you up when you are in pieces. 

 

I remember receiving a call on a Friday night from a good customer who was also a great referral source. She was furious. The Robyn had made a mistake with the water line, flooded the family’s home, and the family was scheduled to have their child’s birthday party at the home the next day. I thought we were done for. Fortunately, we were able to correct the issue and the customer is still with us (and referring others) to date. 

In your opinion, what are 3 key elements for starting and running a successful business?

Persistence, Passion, and Follow through.

What do you wish you would have done differently? And what did you nail from the start?

As I mentioned earlier, advice is good, but there are TONS of people offering advice. I listened and took everyone’s advice in the beginning, but being selective about the advice given is imperative. 

 

I have always lived by the motto, “under promise and over deliver.” It appears as if I go above and beyond, but I just don’t promise things I know I can’t deliver. Or deliver ahead of schedule. 

Let’s talk about advice. What is the best advice you’ve ever received? The worst? What advice would you give to a young woman thinking about starting her own business?

I’m starting with the worst. I like to end on a positive note. The worst advice I ever received was to convert all of my customers to a new business model with the “appearance” of having greater traction to appeal to investors. You should never do something to give the “appearance of.” 

 

The best advice would be to be selective about who you take funding from. You have to remember you will be working with investors for the life of your business. They should be on board with your vision and ready to let you lead.

We know all about St. Louis, and not much about Omaha! Tell us about the startup scene there. What resources are there for women entrepreneurs? Is there easy access to capital? How have you been involved in the startup community and how has the startup community helped you with My Robyn?

Honestly, I feel as if the startup scene in Omaha is very fragmented. It is definitely improving, but could use some collaboration work. The Omaha Startup Collaborative sees the need in partnerships and is strengthening the community. 

 

In Omaha, there are very few, I actually can’t think of any, resources strictly dedicated to helping female entrepreneurs. I fell into the startup community by attending 1 Million Cups in Omaha which was recommended to me by a mom in a Working Mother’s Group that I host. 

Hiring help or an assistant is generally a tech free process. Many people probably just use word of mouth referrals. How are you using technology to change the way women, especially mothers, find (and be matched with!) reliable help?

85% of our new business is from word of mouth referrals. And working mothers are BUSY! They are rarely found “hanging out”. However, we do know they like to decompress on social media sites before going to bed. We also know they are interested in learning more about work life balance. Company sponsored emails or articles have been extremely valuable for My Robyn to educate working women on how to breathe by having help at home.

What are you plans for growing My Robyn? Are other markets in your future? We read in an article about My Robyn that in the beginning your team was personally matching assistants with families. How do you make sure you have a scaleable business model?

We are currently developing an app to help busy parents find and schedule their Robyn quicker and easier. We are launching the website in the north suburbs of Atlanta shortly, so we have a lot to be excited about. And a lot of work ahead of us. 

 

We have now automated quite a bit of our matching process, but understand follow up customer service to continually review our automation is vital. For both the families seeking help and those Robyns looking for work. 

 

Follow Stephanie and My Robyn on Twitter and Facebook @MyRobynAtHome and check out their website www.myrobyn.com.

 

Founder and CEO, Stephanie Feltus, wanted to achieve a better work life balance after having her first child. Each provider had specific skills (child care, housekeeper, launderer), but none of them overlapped. Stephanie developed a successful service based business in 2012, Mommy Assistant. After wanting to help more families at an affordable price, Stephanie developed My Robyn to launch at a national level. 

 

My Robyn’s mission is to help families find affordable, trusted, reliable help around the house. Phone interviews as well as detailed background checks are conducted on every Robyn. Robyns are designed to come in-home weekly, to help lessen the stress of ongoing to-do lists and the unique needs of each family. Robyn helps finds the best person who not only can do the job, but fits well each family.

As she turns the music publishing industry upside down, Jennifer Rosenblatt talks to Brazen about changing buyer behavior, growth in accelerators, and overthrowing the establishment.

 

What inspired you to start your business? What pain were you solving? How did you get motivated to take the first step?

My husband and cofounder, Kurt Knecht, is a composer. He has music published with traditional publishers and has had to give up his copyrights in order to do so. Traditional publishers only pay 4-10% royalties to composers. I started by solving the problem of self-published e-commerce for my husband. Then we realized we could solve the same problem for the thousands of composers out there. There is strength in numbers and only by joining together can the artists overthrow the establishment. We were accepted into the NMotion Accelerator program in June 2014 where we learned lean startup methodology. We were able to validate quickly and launched our marketplace 54 days into the accelerator.

What sacrifices have you had to make to become a successful entrepreneur?

Everything depends on your definition of “successful.” For some it is a 2 million dollar capital raise or a company retreat in Aspen. For me, success is building a profitable, sustainable business that does good things for all of its stakeholders. That means sometimes I have to sacrifice personal desires for the well-being of the company. Every decision I make I try to see through the lens of “what gets me to my next customer and next sale.” That could be a capital raise or building out more technology, but I’m not going to do either of those things just for the sake of doing them.

What motivates you and how do you stay motivated?

Solving problems for my customers keeps me motivated. Motivation is always difficult as an entrepreneur because you don’t have a supervisor to tell you, “good job.” Some days you think that nothing you do will ever matter. Other days you are elated by the difference you are making in other people’s lives. Most of your time is spent in between the two poles. For all of that time spent in the middle, you have to believe that the work you are doing is good and right. You have to have interesting problems to solve to keep yourself engaged. You don’t have to be passionate about the problem you are solving, but you have to be passionate about solving it or else you will burn out quickly. Always remember that everything takes longer and costs more than you think.

If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?

I would have started in entrepreneurship sooner. Sure I had the lawn mowing business in high school but I went into Corporate America out of college. I had 5 different careers in different industries before starting my own businesses. There wasn’t a ton of entrepreneurial education available at that time unless you went to Harvard Business School. Now entrepreneurial education is readily available to everyone in books, online, through an incubator, or an accelerator. I am fortunate to have peers and mentors that helped me get to where I am now. That is why I am passionate about mentoring others and continuing the ecosystem of sharing entrepreneurial knowledge and experience.

How has your business changed your life? How has it changed the lives of others?

Most people go into business for themselves in search of the freedom versus the money. I am no exception. I would rather be the one to make the rules than to follow them. I can work when I want, from wherever I want, and I don’t have to put up with bad bosses anymore. MusicSpoke has changed the lives of our composers tremendously by giving them greater freedom and income. For example, one composer wrote a multi-movement work for chorus, organ, and orchestra. No traditional publisher would touch it because they would never make back their money from a large print run. We put it up on MusicSpoke and it sold. One score in one sale on one day made him more money than all his traditionally published scores made him all of last year combined. And then it sold 3 more times.

Have you ever been treated differently because you’re a female? How did you deal with that discrimination?

That’s a tough question. I have never had someone say to my face, “You are a women so you can’t…” I have had people (men and women) say things to me that you just can’t imagine someone saying to a man. “You have your own business? Was it a hobby first?” “If you just had triplets yesterday it probably would not be a good time for you to join this program.” “I will invest in you but you have to hire someone else to be CEO.” That being said, I can believe there is a lot more discrimination going on behind the scenes coupled with a lack of opportunity. So I choose to treat it like any other business problem. Is it right or fair? No. But like all other business problems, I have to work to overcome it and make strategic partnerships with like minded individuals for the benefit of all. I also have to be careful not to read into something that is not actually there.

“But like all other business problems, I have to work to overcome it and make strategic partnerships with like minded individuals for the benefit of all.”

MusicSpoke is disrupting traditional music publishing channels. How do you convince potential users and customers to try your new technology based product? Has it been easy to convince them to try a new way of doing things? Is your model the “new normal” for this industry?

We are a dual sided marketplace so we are getting two sets of customers to adopt new behaviors. Kids, don’t try this at home. We built up the supply side of the marketplace first, with composers and scores. After word got around, we didn’t have to go after composers anymore. We receive several requests a week from composers wanting to come on board. Changing buyer behavior is more difficult. When people are used to going to the same place to find their sheet music, be it online or to a brick and mortar, it is hard to break that habit. We focus the majority of our marketing on the buyer side of the marketplace. We want musicians and music educators to know they have options when looking for new music. Our model is becoming the new normal for our industry. We are seeing similar models on smaller scales popping up in regional areas. To date, no one else is focused on this problem full time and internationally.

You have participated in a couple of accelerators. Do you recommend an accelerator to others? What is the biggest benefit you received from your participation?

I do recommend accelerators but not all of them all the time. Some people hop from accelerator to accelerator for the funding and never really advance their business or add value to their cohort. There are different types of accelerators and they should be used at different times. The NMotion Accelerator was more of a seed stage program when we attended. We didn’t have a product or a business. We learned lean startup, validated, and built. The Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Accelerator was for later stage companies. Everything I learned at PWE would not have been helpful to me 2 years prior. I wasn’t far enough along yet. There are also accelerators that apply to specific verticals like FinTech, AgTech, SportsTech, and even MusicTech. So do your homework before you apply to an accelerator. Make sure it is offering the right education you need for the stage of your business. Being able to make connections for you in your industry is a bonus.

Your husband is also an entrepreneur. Tell us a little about that experience! What is the biggest piece of advice you would have for husband/wife entrepreneurs?

Musicians are the originators of the gig economy. Though he did not know it, my husband has been an entrepreneur all his life. However, this is his first foray into the startup world. We were great at being married and parenting together, but we had to learn how to be great business partners. It requires a different kind of communication. It can be tough to make business decisions together when you have a robust history that comes with everything you do. Remember that time you forgot to take out the trash? Remember that time you said you would come to my concert but worked late instead? Yep. All of that. It’s party of the beauty, too. Marriage is an analogy often used to describe cofounders. Cofounders counseling is even a thing now. Why not spend the next 5-7 (10?) years building a business with someone you’ve spent the last 27 years building a life with? Besides, companies including VMware, Eventbrite, and Cisco Systems all have married cofounders. If our parents couldn’t break us up, and our kids couldn’t break us up, this is no sweat.

 

Follow Jennifer and MusicSpoke on Twitter @HearMusicSpoke, Instagram and Facebook @MusicSpoke, and check out their website at www.musicspoke.com

 

Jennifer Rosenblatt – whether in her native Florida, or her current home in the Midwest – has an uncanny ability to become a gravitational point for community, customers, investors, and partners. Her unique ability to make connections and find mutual gains is at the root of her business, MusicSpoke, a marketplace connecting composers and performers. 

 

Now on her second business, Rosenblatt is taking lessons from her first exited company and leveraging those insights to propel MusicSpoke to become the world’s largest marketplace for artist owned sheet music. Rosenblatt is an NMotion Accelerator alumnus, a graduate of the Prosper Women Entrepreneurs Startup Accelerator, and a 2017 Pipeline Entrepreneurs Fellow. She has over 25 years experience in sales, marketing, and management. Jennifer graciously gives her time and lessons learned with other entrepreneurs, students, and learners of all ages.

MusicSpoke is like Etsy for composers. Schools and other institutions spend 1 billion dollars a year on sheet music for concerts. MusicSpoke provides a digital marketplace where music professionals can purchase the sheet music they need directly from the composers they love.