1070: Your Startup’s Future: Building and Scaling High-Impact Businesses with Feras Alhlou

Robert Plank 0:00 Welcome back. This is the marketer of the day. Podcast, Feras Alhou is here, and Feras has founded, he's grown. He has sold businesses in Silicon Valley and abroad, scaling them from zero revenue to seven and eight figures. And in 2019 Feras sold e nor, which is a digital marketing consultancy, and he served as an advisor to 150 plus other new businesses. His current venture is called Startup with Ferris, and Ferris is on a mission to help entrepreneurs in the consulting and services space start and grow their businesses smarter and stronger. So we're going to find out all sorts of things, such as, what struggling entrepreneurs need to know entrepreneurship, creative way to to fund your business. So much more so Ferris, glad to be speaking with you.

Feras Alhlou 0:45 Hey, Robert. Thank you so much for having me looking forward to it. Same. And so

Robert Plank 0:49 we introduced you a little bit. But what are you all about? What's the elevator pitch for Mr. Ferris? And what makes you stand out? What makes you unique?

Feras Alhlou 0:57 Sure, Hey, move to the valley. Here, Silicon Valley, back in 2019 98 worked through the startup scene in 2003 I was a VP in a tech company cutting edge at the time, and then I had the dreaded notice of being, of getting laid off. That was hard. It was difficult. So I empathize with those are getting laid off these days in across all industries, not just tech. So I got into this entrepreneurship right after that layoff, about a couple months after, after I got the notice, and I wasn't really thinking of starting my own business, but the job market was really dry, so try to look for another job. I had a young family at the time, sort of, you know, going from the highs of high to the lows of low. What do I do? What do? What do people think of me? What Why me? What happened? Did I mess up all those emotions, all those feelings were going around. But ran across a friend of mine who who was about to start a business. So we partnered, and we said, let's go and do this entrepreneurial thing. And it turned out to be a good thing for us. We struggled a lot, happy to share some stories, but, but it turned out to be a very good thing for us over the years. Well, wonderful.

Robert Plank 2:13 And life is about struggle, right? And there's always that fear of, should I take the risk? Should I quit my Silicon Valley job and start my own business. But even that's not guaranteed, right? You never know if you will be laid off or a company will go under, or if you'll have to switch companies or change careers anyway, life is about change. And so if someone wants to take that entrepreneurial journey, and if they have that itch, then they should go for it. And so how does someone know if there's someone that should make this transition? Say someone is where you were in early 2000s in Silicon Valley, and they say, you know, I've done all these things, but should I start my own company? Like, what's involved? How hard is it? How does someone know if they should take that leap?

Feras Alhlou 3:01 A lot, a lot to unfold there.

Unknown Speaker 3:03 So

Feras Alhlou 3:06 if you have an idea, and you've been thinking about this idea, on the weekends, after hours, when, when you're driving, if you're just walking around the block, if you're you know, you work remote these days, if you have this idea, do some vetting. See who else is offering. The solution that you have in mind, understand the pain points of this, this thing that you've been thinking about, go out and talk to competitors, understand what's going on, talk to potential customers. So do a good amount of vetting, and then start preparing to launch that new business. And I would say the best time to prepare and to launch a new business is when you are employed, when you have the benefits, when you have the salary, you have the benefits, you have the four, 1k you have the vacation time. Yes, it will take you a bit more time in the evenings, on the weekend, to plan and and put your business plan together, but you'd be in a better position to to to have all the foundational elements to start a business if you're doing it at your own time, as opposed if you're forced to do it because of a layoff or maybe a major life event. Again, I've seen people who have done it both ways, whether it was a major life event or you've done it on your own. But my advice to entrepreneurs, or want to be entrepreneurs, is, plan ahead to the extent possible, do a lot of this legwork ahead of time and then, and then make that decision to to take that leap, and it's going to require a lot of hard work, but that's that's just part of it. You know, high, high, high reward requires, you know, a lot, a lot of risk, and requires

Unknown Speaker 4:43 a lot, a lot of hard work,

Robert Plank 4:45 wonderful, and it's work, but it's also fun, right? It's also an adventure. And so that's great advice that it and I think a lot of us have been there, right? We've been there in the nine to five and said, Oh, if only I had this extra time, if only I had all. A week, and I could I could travel, and I could kind of sit in the coffee shop and do all these things, and it's like, well, the grass is always greener. So he's saying that even though it feels like your time is limited when you're kind of trying to juggle both things, use your vacation time if you can, and use the weekends and squeeze in what you can, but it's better to plan ahead and have the steady income from your employee job now, and then you can build this and then kind of transition later, because, I mean, no one wants to be in that position where they wait and wait, and then the dream doesn't happen, or maybe they then get laid off, then they have to scramble, and then the startup then that they don't have time for that and have to get another job. Then it just feels like you're just running in circles. So that's not fun at all. But I like how you're saying, Okay, if you have this idea, you keep thinking about you keep working on it, you vet it, you talk to people, you test it, you beat it up, and then you work on launching it. So what was your idea back then, when it was time to start this entrepreneurship journey, like, what was your solution?

Feras Alhlou 6:02 Yeah, so back into every yes to everything you said. Robert, back in 2003

Unknown Speaker 6:09 the internet was a new thing.

Feras Alhlou 6:11 Web websites were it was a big deal to launch a website. It was a really big deal. Today, you can go on any of these services. You have to GoDaddy and launch a site in probably 510 minutes, right at the time, it was a big deal. Online Marketing, getting listed on top of Google or paid or organic, that was a big thing. So so we got into that area very quickly, and it was hard to convince people. Initially, in my startup, in the tech startup I was in, we were pitching to Fortune 500 the at and T's and the Cox and the Comcast of the world. And then I had to do a sort of a mental a mindset shift here and now, I have to provide for my family. So we started to knock on doors, local businesses, local my dentist, local restaurants, everyone I could talk to and convincing those business owners that, hey, I can get the leads through through the internet. Was, was something crazy. No, no one believed in us. And there, this is part of hard work and learning new skills. I didn't do any sales prior to that startup, that first startup. So, so we got a whole lot of rejections. As a matter of fact, we had five rejections the very first day, we decided to go out and knock on doors. And it was devastating, is, I mean, I laugh about it now, but I almost cried that that night. It was really hard. Like, what did I get myself into? You know, my business partner and then, you know, you gotta, you gotta just get up after, after you fall, and start up in life in general, that resilience is important. And then we, we, when we sold that first project, that first website, small Greek restaurant down the street here in Santa Clara, still around $1,400 it took us three months to deliver this simple website. But when we close that deal, Robert, it is the most amazing feeling like so talking about feeling good about your own business, like it's the fruit of your the direct fruit of your direct labor. So from that sense, entrepreneurship is very rewarding. It's a struggle upfront. Anyone who can tell you you you can be a millionaire over a weekend or in a couple months. It's It's nonsense. You gotta work hard. You don't have to work hard for the rest of your life, but at one phase, at one season in your life, you've gotta put a lot of time and effort. But you see the food of your labor, and it's very rewarding, not just financially, but also the team that you've assembled, the culture that you've created, the clients you've helped. All of those are amazing feelings that at least I'm thankful for. I'm

Unknown Speaker 8:45 grateful for,

Robert Plank 8:48 excuse me, yeah, and that that is wonderful to hear about, just the the fun, the magic, the excitement of of that. And, um, yeah, and, and so it seems like there's, there's some lessons in there that it took me way too many years to learn that, that it seems like you learn to that how important it is to to talk to people, people that need what you want, and and even just like, kind of doing the the hard labor delay work, and you're making me think that like, you know, back in, back in those days, that I was around too, and I was building an email list, and I keep thinking like, you know, If I when I had a list of, like, 1000 5000 if I had individually spoken to those people, just, you know, 10 a day, 20 a day, that could have really accelerated things. And I think what, what held me back early on was like you're saying, where you talk to a handful of people and they all say no, because your numbers have to be like 50 people to even get a slight maybe 100 people that maybe even get like this could be one, and then 300 or maybe even more, just to get like, like one sale in there, and then repeat the process. But it's like, if we know that that's the math equation, if we know that there's this input and that's output, and that you it's a lot of work. Up front, but then you smooth out your process over time, then that can be a lot more fun. And so I sold some of these websites, and then what grew from there. How did the business then expand?

Feras Alhlou 10:10 So the first two years Robert were very, very challenging. It was hard to sell. It was hard, you know, we were learning that stuff as we were selling. We lot of changes in the industry. It took a lot of convincing. I didn't know sales, so I had to go through a lot of courses, listen to CDs, take notes on how to handle objections. So I think for entrepreneurs, it's not just the technical area, the domain, that you know really well. You need to know that, of course, because you are a trusted advisor, especially in the in the services and consulting space. But you also have to learn other skills. So you have to learn soft skills, how to communicate, how to listen, you know, how to read people's reactions, and then and follow up and all that good stuff. And then I think the other part so hard skills, your domain knowledge, soft skills, and then the mindset shift that has to happen when you work in a company, small or large. You don't do all the functions. You don't do sales, you don't do marketing. I mean, if you're technical, you don't do you know, HR, you don't do project you don't do project management. When you're the business owner, when you are the entrepreneur, you have to wear all those hats. So, so that mindset of learning, that mindset of

Unknown Speaker 11:30 taking some risk, that mindset

Feras Alhlou 11:32 of going to a networking event, and you've never, you've never done any networking events, and you don't know what to say, like all that is really in the mind, is that I want to make it happen. I want to be successful. So I have to be out there. I have to take some risk. And you can build all those muscles, whether it's resilience, whether it's taking risk, whether it's be comfortable with the unknown, with unknowns, all of those, you can take small steps toward massing all of this, and then you can start pitching to larger customers and and maybe pivoting, and then maybe, you know, niching down. And that's what we did, is we started to with online marketing, and then we ended up actually building a company abroad to support us where it was more economical for us to hire there. We grew it to about 4045, people there, and then we ended up pivoting into a very highly specialized niche within digital marketing, and that's analytics. And we grew that and became one of the top, actually globally, one of the top Google certified Google partners in that very niche area in digital marketing analytics. And then we sold that business back in 2019, to denser the global media giant. So a lot of pivots, a lot a lot of a lot of, you know, lot of failures. It was never an overnight success, despite what you see on YouTube. It does take a lot of work, but, but you put your head to it, you know, you put your heart into it. You pivot where you need to. You learn from your mistakes. You learn from the mistakes of others, and then you're more likely to succeed. I love it. This

Robert Plank 13:05 pivoting is a nice idea because, because it makes the path doable, right? Like you couldn't have just like that didn't really exist in 2003 2004 right? The whole analytics thing, like AdWords, was brand new, and so you said, Well, we started off with a simple solution, so to speak, which is a website, and you got clients, and you figured it out, and you figured out the sales aspect and the delivery aspect. And then as you amass these clients, then you look for other problems. They had more sort of specialized solutions, and then that grew into this other kind of, I imagine, higher price, higher value, skills, more more complex, harder problem that you solve, and you just, you grew from there. And you say that you built the muscle, and you kind of separated this into there's the hard skills, which is the like a technical what you do. There's a soft skills, like the sales and the marketing. And then there's that inner mindset, the resilience and having a good attitude and self motivation, and that's kind of, I think that's helpful to kind of separate that out and say, like, Okay, well, what is needed? Or what kind of person do I need to become in order to be this, this, like, kind of, this business owner, this better person, this entrepreneur. And it reminds me of, like, you know, when you're in school, and it's easy to get to be like, to get like a C grade, or like a b minus, but then in order to get to like a B plus A, it's like, the amount of extra work is, like, huge, just for that little extra boost. But that's and it's and it's like, well, you can choose to stay at a C and kind of be average, or you can kind of push on and build the muscle and do this extra work, and that's a decision to make, right? Like, is it worth it doing 10 times the work to get like, point five times the increase? Well, it is, if you want to get there. And so you scaled this business, you sold it, and were there any. Sort of like secrets with that, like, was selling it something that was, like a long term goal was, was it a surprise how? Because, like, that's a big kind of bucket list item, right? So, how did you get to this sole business?

Unknown Speaker 15:12 Yeah, and again, yes

Feras Alhlou 15:13 to everything you mentioned there. Robert, really good summary. I mean, I want to, I want to just one more thing that will answer your question in terms of one thing that's really important for entrepreneurs, and I've been talking about this on my live streams the last few weeks, is there's one mistake that I see almost all business owners do, and in a way, they're proud of it, and that is, they don't learn from others like they they think they can do it all on their own. My friends out there, and this is not a pitch to self consulting, there are a lot of free resources, a lot of free advice. You can get a lot of free advice from a lot of people so so do not make the same mistakes that I've made, or maybe Robert made, or others made, right you have, I think in sports this, this unforced errors, like like you, you should not have to do these unforced errors. You can learn from those in your industry, in your niche, maybe those at the same business growth phase that you're in. So be out there like a sponge. Learning a lot from people around you. It will save you a lot of time. It will make your entrepreneurial journey a little bit less difficult. And that's that's back now to your question, you know, I live in Silicon Valley, and everything I'm saying, by the way, applies, it doesn't, you don't have to be in Silicon Valley. I speak with one to two entrepreneurs on a weekly basis, all over the country, sometimes all over the globe, from, you know, from every corner of the of the world. You can do everything I'm saying, wherever you are. So, so we, you know, I live in Silicon Valley. So you hear about people building companies and exiting. So that thing was always in the back of my mind, a big exit. We sold, we sold a couple other businesses before this, but this was, like, the big one. So I wanted to do that. My partner, my business partner, late business partner. Now he rest in peace. We decided around 2016 that, you know, we figured this thing out. We're a top Google partner, where we've got solid revenue, solid recurring revenue, we're profitable. So let's do something out of it, something big out of it. So, so, and we told we, I think we did it in a unique way. We told every one of our employees that we will do that, and we said we committed that we will share with our team, which was is uncommon because we were already established. We were already profitable. So so we, we went through that process. We kept focusing on the business. And for those of you on on your listeners who want to sell your business, don't be too preoccupied with this. You know, I want to sell the business. Make sure it's a solid business. The numbers are there. You're showing year over year growth in revenue. You know, top line, bottom line, make sure you just have a good, solid business that will increase the value. So that's it was really something we wanted to do so we could check it off the bucket list, as you said, Robert, and it was, it was an amazing experience before and after, after the acquisition, and we still have amazing memories from from those team members that we built the company together

Robert Plank 18:16 with amazing and there's some good lessons in here, right? That you're saying that it's important to to have your numbers solid. It's important to always be learning, so that way you can avoid some of these mistakes. And then it's important to do the networking and be talking to people and just doing all these things, probably doing more than you ever thought you had to, but having all the different ingredients, so that way you can get to where you want to go. So you sold the company, and you moved on to greener pastures. And what have you done since then? I know you have the book you mentioned the live stream. So what is present day Ferris all about?

Feras Alhlou 18:50 Sure, yeah, so I stayed a couple, a couple years with the acquirer, and made sure the integration and and the new company is all doing well. And then, and then we were hit with COVID, so that delayed things a little bit. But yeah, in 20 September, 2021 I left and took a little bit of time to to just reflect on the last 25 years or so. One went to the Rockies for for a week in the mountains without without any internet connection. So that was refreshing, something I do actually, on a on an annual basis. But then I, I've always wanted to dedicate some time to nonprofit. So for the most of 2022 and part of 2023 I actually did a lot of pro bono work, and again, I'm fortunate that I was able to do that to help a number of nonprofits with the stuff that I'm I think I'm good at, in terms of management, in terms of building and growing a business in terms of a lot of nonprofits don't have the means. They don't need money. Sometimes they just need some someone to give them maybe a good marketing plan, or maybe just help them with their marketing automation process. So I did that through maybe mid 2023, and then, and then gradually phased out of that, and then we built my business. Bar tonight, Eric, we started this startup with Ferris venture. Ferris spelled F, E, R, A, S, where we have our website, we produce content and a daily newsletter, and then we have the YouTube channel, where we produce content on all things entrepreneurship. So basically, those of you who are starting want to want to start a business, and you want to fit the idea, you want to put together a business plan, we have content for that. And then we also, we also have content on everything about the business, in terms of sales, marketing, you know, dealing with with all sort of issues in the business. So again, all of this is today, open, not gated. It's available. We're not selling any any services as of now, but we're helping build a community and share, again, share everything I learned from my experience, from other founders I speak with, and I want folks to avoid the mistakes I made. That's really sort of what keep me you know, what keep me motivated is help this young or young, not just younger, but the new generation of founders.

Robert Plank 21:01 Well, that seems like a lot of fun. And over these 25 years, you're now on like, lifetime number three or four, right? You went to from the the employee to the entrepreneur, and then you you sold, and then that, then you did the pro bono, and now you're giving back and teaching what you learn. So you've kind of done the whole circuit, and so it seems like you've done all these things, you've had a lot of fun. And is there like a missing question here, out of our conversation, out of the things that I've asked you, the insights, all the things that you've learned and kind of shared, is there anything that you think is, like, really important in business, building entrepreneurship, that you think maybe is not discussed enough that we could mention today?

Unknown Speaker 21:42 Good question.

Feras Alhlou 21:43 I think there's maybe two hard truths about about entrepreneurship. One is, it's not for it's not for everyone. Entrepreneurship, I would say, and I I'm not to give pragmatic, honest, direct feedback. So, so it's not entrepreneurship is not for everyone. I would say entrepreneurship is not for most people. So that's one truth. The other truth is, if you decide to do it, you can be successful at it with a lot of hard work, a lot of learning, a lot of maybe pivoting, and a lot of resilience. Nothing is guaranteed. There's no guarantee

Unknown Speaker 22:16 that you'll be successful,

Feras Alhlou 22:19 no guarantee. But if you decide to do it, I think it's worth that effort. It's worth, you know, leaving the eight to five. Plan ahead. Have a financial runway, you know, make sure you your spouse, your significant other, people around you are aware and they're supportive, and then go at it. I think Sir Richard Branson said, while the brave will never, will not live forever, the cautious will never live so, so try it out. Don't, Don't be reckless. Don't leave a high paying job without any planning. Say, Well, I want to go. I want to be the entrepreneur. And no, do your planning, do your due diligence, do all the vetting I said about, you know, work, read about this stuff, talk to others, and then take that leap and work hard. There's no escape. You got to work hard, and then you will enjoy the fruits of your labor, maybe not into this, not in the too distant future.

Robert Plank 23:16 Wonderful. Take that calculated risk, because it is worth it. But you also need to plan and success is not guaranteed, but it can be a lot of fun, and you can be on a similar journey as as far as did, as we kind of live vicariously through him and found out about all those, those ups and downs and those obstacles and road blocks and those successes. And so start up with Ferris. How do we find it? How do we read it? How do we tune into it? Thank

Feras Alhlou 23:40 you. Yeah, just the website. Startup with Ferris, f e r a s.com, we have a newsletter there, the daily advisor. Sign up for it, and then we also have the the channel, youtube, app startup with Ferris, same thing, F E R A S, yeah, check it out. Leave us a comment. I do have a live stream every Wednesday at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, where we cover a topic around entrepreneurship, and then we ask the we answer the questions that come to us throughout the week. So yeah, if you have any question, free advice, just join us. You can, again, join us live, or just send us the question ahead of time, and we will answer it on on those Wednesday calls.

Unknown Speaker 24:15 Very

Robert Plank 24:16 nice, very generous. Started with Ferris and for some reason the last a year or two, I've become a very much of a YouTube watcher. I like to just go in, like, subscribe to some of these entrepreneurial channels, because when you open your phone, you go on social media, you kind of have two choices, right? You can choose to get distracted by the gossip, the people, the news, or use that productively and see the learning and the YouTubes, and kind of have the the playlist, and just kind of fill your mind with the positivity and the like, all these, all these things that you need to know, that maybe even you don't even know you need to know yet, as far as all these aspects of your business. So start up with Ferris, and especially started with Ferris on YouTube. And as we're winding down our conversation. Affairs. It's really boring to just say bye, but it's more exciting to end with, like, a fun quote or lesson to either recap or just kind of send us on our way. So in all your travels, has there been like, a quote or lesson that really hit home with you, anything like really powerful and helpful?

Feras Alhlou 25:17 A lot of quotes, powerful quotes? Yes. Ralph Waldo Emerson, he said, Life, I'm maybe misquoting, but

Feras Alhlou 25:31 life, sorry, I'm maybe paraphrasing. Life is not about just

Speaker 1 25:36 being happy. It's about being honorable, being useful and being compassionate.

Feras Alhlou 25:44 So my advice to entrepreneurs is, and even if you work, if you're not an entrepreneur, work hard, make money. I'm a capitalist at heart. I want to make as much money as as anyone else at the same time, I think you want to be of service to others. You want to help others along the way. A lot of people help us. You want to be compassionate, you want to be kind, you want to have strong bonds in relationships. That's really what matters at the end of the day. So work hard and make a whole lot of money, but at the same time, share with others. Share Share with share your wealth, share your knowledge. You know, be out there for others. We do need it as as as as as in our families, in our society, as a country, I think we would benefit a lot from from just living with a purpose and living with this life of service and help and help to others.

Robert Plank 26:33 I love it. Live with purpose and service. Well, starting with Ferris wonderful speaking with you,

Feras Alhlou 26:37 Michael, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Robert and great podcast. I listened to a couple of them, especially that recently, that lady on venture capitalist and the stories that she brings to her podcast, I believe it was Grace Kong. So good stuff. Oh yeah, for all of you listening out there, keep listening to Robert and his guest. It's good stuff.

Robert Plank 26:56 And also listen to Ferris as well. And I will be subscribing today myself, alrighty, excellent.

Unknown Speaker 27:03 Thank you so much. Robert, you.