#051: '3 things I’ve learned from starting a business' with Seb Francis

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3.5X Podcast: | Start-ups | Entrepreneurs | Scale-ups

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In June, podcast host Seb Francis featured on the Venturi Podcast speaking about the '3 things I’ve learned from starting a business'. 
 
Venturi are an incredibly innovative company that help with tech recruitment. You can find out more about Venturi here
 
Here is what they wrote about the episode - 
 
 
Sebastian is the co-founder and director of Titus Learning.

 

As the co-founder of Titus Learning Sebastian has always championed e-learning and alternate educational routes. After a brief stint at university, he found he worked best when engaging in ‘non-traditional’ educational avenues. This realisation saw him set up Titus Learning to bring the advantages of e-learning courses to as many people as possible.        

 

Key points covered in this show include:

 

  • How e-learning is disrupting the ‘traditional’ education sectors
  • How can we create a tech curriculum that can adapt to the pace of change of technology  

 

Seb's three lessons 

 

These are the three key lessons Seb learned when running his own company:

 

Hire Quicker / hire more

 

‘I would have hired quicker and hired more people if I could have done. There were times where I was probably too cautious. I had cash sat there and I thought I could get people in but said ‘lets hold off until we’ve got to X point’. That point may never come, so hire people when you believe it is right too. The real turning point for my business was when I started hiring and getting more people onboard.’      

 

Make sure what you're doing is affecting your companies bottom line

 

‘You need to make sure everything you’re doing is positively affecting your businesses bottom line. You might go through a good few months of sales and be tempted to shift your focus on to an untested idea at the expense of your sales. Be careful about that. Always ask yourself is this action increasing my profits and if it isn’t doing that straight away make sure you have a vision for how the project can make you money in the future.’  

 

Have fun with it

 

‘This one’s a bit cheesy but seriously have fun running your business. It can be really tough at times and there are times where you lose motivation. I find it’s expected of people running companies that they never lose any motivation. But ultimately anyone running a company is only human so don’t be too hard on your self and enjoy your work because you’ll find if you do that your staff will too.’