Do you have dreams of launching your own online business or jumping into the world of entrepreneurship?..,.

Me Too! and by blogging about my research during the last two years of my PhD I was able to make that dream a reality!

On April 9, 2018, I successfully defended my thesis, earning the title Dr. Cloney. On April 10, the paperwork went through for my incorporation, DustEx Research, to be created in the province of Nova Scotia. This company was created based on my experience blogging in my field since 2016.

… and on April 16, I was on my way to Chicago to attend and present at the largest North America trade show in my industry. At the event, I launched my business, presented my research plan to the community, and solicited companies for financial backing to secure the needed revenue for my company to run for its first six months.

This post gives a review of five lessons I learned from launching my online research company at the industry conference. These lessons are important to understand while setting up your blog, communicating to the broader community, and converting your blog to a business. They are also important to consider when figuring out how to position and ask for the sale from companies you want to work with.

Lesson #1 – The Power of Superfans

Through blogging about my research, I have had interactions through blog comments, emails, phone calls, and presentations with literately hundreds of people in my field around the world.

However, there are only a handful of people who really, really support what I do and go out of their way to spread my message. From concepts put out by others in the online entrepreneurship space (e.g., Pat Flynn), I call these people “superfans” . They get the mission, understand the potential, and look to help any way they can.

These superfans helped my research company launch in several ways and I want to highlight some that occurred at the industry conference specifically:

1. One fought to have me present at the conference when it was full. I met with his boss after who loved my presentation, but said that they definitely would not of had me present if the younger guy had not pushed so hard that my message needed to be heard.
2. Two of my superfans are director/owner level at the companies they work for and they were the first of the 10 companies I needed to sponsor the work in order for my company to generate revenue. This gave me the social proof I needed to fill the rest of the spots (see more below).
3. I was constantly running into people at the conference that said so-and-so told me to check you out. These connections were driven by the superfans, continuously helping to spread my message

Needless to say, without these superfans I do not think I would of been able to launch my company successfully over a three-day conference period. There are a lot of techniques and strategies you can use to gain these fans, which we will cover in future posts.

Lesson #2 – The Power of Social Proof

I have always been a proponent of including social proof elements on your blog. I did this by including company logos free on my website, giving unsolicited shout-outs in email newsletters, and always looking for connecting different groups in my industry that could help each other.

While launching my research company at the conference I used social proof in a number of ways:

1. Once I had two sponsors, I did a big LinkedIn post thanking them publicly for being early adopters. I also made sure to tell everyone I could who was already involved. My third sponsor was harder to get than the first two as they were just a “normal” fan, and had to convince his boss. When meeting with him and his boss, he literally said “look at the companies he has involved, we definitely need to be in there” – this is the power of social proof.
2. In my “pitch” email to other companies, I made sure to include the current sponsors and also told the prospects that I would (and did) include them on a thank you slide in my presentation. This gave them bonus exposure and added that social proof.
3. I have a “Social Proof” section on my research blog: http://www.mydustexplosionresearch.com/#join-the-community which has been a big way to generate discussions with new companies. During the conference, many people referred to this section with comments like “look who’s involved” and “how do I get my logo there?”. 
4. I also made sure to include the early adopters on my website to reward them and to show other people what being involved looked like. This is a powerful way to instil social proof and encourage other companies to join.
   

Lesson #3 – Scarcity Works

I made a point to only take on 10 sponsors in the Combustible Dust Incident Database for the first six months of running the platform. 

At the conference, I was then able to say “we only have 6 spots, or 3 spots, or 1 spot” left when companies were deciding if they wanted to be involved.

This was low pressure for me as I explained that I was only taking on 10 companies to make sure that I could support them fully in magazine articles, newsletters and reports about the database and to give them the most advertising space possible. Although it allowed me to “sell” under less pressure, it added pressure to their decision making process and brought on the last few companies involved when the selling got tough (see next lesson)

Lesson #4 – The “Chasm” is Real

There is a book called Crossing The Chasm that talks about how innovation and disruptive technology spreads through populations. This same concept can be applied to gaining by-in from companies to advertise, support, or adopt your business projects.

The main concept of the book is that people can be divided into the early adopters, middle adopters, and late adopters. I was not thinking about this when I went to the conference, but I saw it play out in a very real way:

1. My first supporters were easy because they were superfans. These are the early adopters who do not mind supporting your new initiative even though it is in its early stages. They took very little “convincing”.
2. The middle group took much more work (I had to do sit down meetings, explain the benefits, let them have time to think about it, talk to team members, ext). After not closing any of the middle (the Chasm) after the first day, I was a little worried, but then on the second day, I brought on 4 companies in about two hours through social proof, scarcity, and continuously explaining the vision of the database.
   
3. The late adopters came in after my presentation on the last day of the conference. At that time, I had 7/10 companies on board and the last ones, came in not necessary because they believe in what I am doing, but due to “fear-of-missing-out”.

Watching the adoption of support play out for the Combustible Dust Incident Database was an interesting lesson in human psychology that I had not anticipated receiving while launching my business!

Lesson #5 – Pick a Remarkable Message

Before going to the conference, I read the book “Tribes” by Seth Godin twice. I was very nervous about pitching such an audacious message as trying to achieve zero fatalities world-wide related to combustible dust fires and explosions, and I almost toned the message down.

In the end, rereading tribes kept me on track so I didn’t pull any punches and I am happy I did not. People loved the idea, presentation, and message – and I got the support I needed to launch my company. Flipping through the book now, I wanted to share some quotes/words I had underlined and used as my “playbook”:

1. Power of Vision/Passion/”I believe”
2. Leadership is about creating change you believe in
3. Focus on partisans, not middle of the road people
4. Be remarkable, not boring
5. What do you do for a living? What do you make? Leaders make a ruckus!
6. He had no status, no rank – he was just a researcher with a big idea!
7. Use passion and ideas to lead people
8. A movement needs a narrative, connection, and something to do

These concepts give a road-map on how to select a big goal, communicate it out to the world, and make it happen. This is what I tried to do with launching my research company and creating the incident database, and from staying “remarkable” and not toning down the message, I was able to bring on the companies needed to support the work.

Do you have any lessons from the launch of your online business or questions about the process? If so, leave them in the comments below – I would love to help!