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OhHello - Jeremy Bloom
55 Plays1 year ago
It's episode 58 - this was unplanned, never rehearsed, and just felt right!
Guess what?! Launching a new tech venture isn't easy. Who knew?! 🤣
About 49 minutes ago (at 1pm CT), I decided to go off the cuff, talk into my camera, record OhHello.io 🌞☕️'s 1st solo vod/pod (unedited), and had a cathartic "OhHello session" showcasing vulnerability & humility about building a platform from scratch.
things I didn't talk about...
🚀 v2.0 of OhHello.io is going to launch VERY soon - within a week from this post - w/ many more amazing mentors, easier access to booking, charities integrated and showcased in our platform, a more fluid 1:1 video experience
🙏 how grateful I am for the continued support from old colleagues, new friends, and the creative opportunities that are organically popping-up
👕 putting yourself in uncomfortable positions (e.g. acting fast and deciding to record this based on gut) will inevitably make you stronger (despite wearing a wrinkled shirt)
Should I do this again? Kindly let me know if it was helpful in any way. 😅 (at the very least, here's clickbait of my beautiful daughter)
Have a question, burning thought, or idea...mention it in the comments or shoot me a note: hi@ohhello.io
#vulnerability #humility #startup #mentorship #justdoit
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Transcript
Introduction and New Experience
00:00:07
Speaker
Oh, hello. Excuse me while I just minimize my view. Thank you. Hi, everybody. It's Jeremy Bloom. Oh, hello. Founder of oh, hello.io. And I've never done this before. I've never just stared into the camera without an agenda.
Year in Review: Challenges and Achievements
00:00:24
Speaker
But as I sit here, my kids are at school, my wife is at her job, and I have free time. I wanted to walk you through their journey, just what I've been doing for the past year.
00:00:36
Speaker
for good, for bad, making some amazing new relationships, making new friendships, having wonderful guests on the pod, creating content. But it's been tough. It's been hard. It's been a lot different than I expected.
Motivation for Ohhello.io
00:00:55
Speaker
If you asked me about a year ago when I came up with this idea to create
00:01:00
Speaker
an ecosystem, a place where any Joe Schmoe or any man or woman could go and create and find someone to speak with about advertising, marketing, tech, SaaS media. Those sweet spots that I know, and many of you know, oh, so well.
00:01:20
Speaker
And to be able to then go into other realms, other verticals, other categories, to just make it a really safe space for so many people that need help, that want guidance, that want expert advice, but haven't a return to the office.
00:01:38
Speaker
don't necessarily want to talk to someone that they work with about some of these underlying issues. See, don't want to talk to a therapist or they might talk to a therapist about this, but they just have really quick questions and they want to ask professionals for expert advice, expert mentorship. That's why I decided to create ohhello.io.
Struggles of a Non-Technical Founder
00:02:00
Speaker
But it has been a longer process because I'm not technical. Surprise.
00:02:07
Speaker
I am a sales marketing commercial leader where it's natural for me to think about strategy, to think about business, to think about marketing, and to communicate with people and to drive revenue. However, it has been really, really tough working solo, being a solopreneur.
00:02:28
Speaker
looking at my calendar some days and being and thinking to myself, holy shit, a year and a half ago, two years ago, 10 years ago, I used to have 15, 18 different things on my calendar every single day. Where am I gonna go next week? To what conference to what meeting am I gonna have? But I decided to take that leap. I decided to bet on myself because other people have bet on me.
00:02:54
Speaker
But the part that has been so mind-boggling difficult has been creating a product and the technical components that come with that.
Initial Development Hurdles
00:03:05
Speaker
So I decided at first, when I came up with this idea, to do another cheap. And by doing another cheap, I found a team overseas where I thought, huh,
00:03:18
Speaker
For someone who's bootstrapping, who hasn't raised any funds yet, who decided to carve away from saving, carve away out of savings, and to not ask anyone else for much help financially, I decided to do it to build overseas. And by doing that, I realized that there were just communication barriers there at work. Just things were not necessarily working in the same way that I had hoped.
00:03:47
Speaker
Came up with the idea and last fall decided to execute late November, December. So it's been about a year and was hoping that, oh, hello.io would be live in at first April. And then it looked a little bit more like June. And then it looked a little bit more like July. So what was happening was I decided to essentially pull the plug on the overseas team.
00:04:16
Speaker
I gave them a lot of chances, a lot of opportunities, but sometimes you have to take matters into
Validating the Vision
00:04:23
Speaker
your own hands. And when you're a solopreneur, you have to make those hard decisions. And that's what I had to do. Found some amazing software developers, engineers here, state side, not in major markets.
00:04:35
Speaker
really hit it off with a few different developers that have been helping me. So we spent a few months going and fixing everything that we initially that I initially purchased and paid people to build overseas. We had our soft launch in early October, so about two months ago. And then for the past month, month and a half, we're getting just fantastic feedback, great feedback from you from
00:05:02
Speaker
from the mentees, the mentors, people overseas, we had some users in Germany, we had some users in the UK, and a lot of our mentors here in stateside, and a lot of the mentees here stateside, what really, really was so amazing, I didn't know most of you. And so that validates that there is a vision, that there could be a lot more to come. So with the feedback that I got from
00:05:29
Speaker
from amazing people like you that are listening, that are watching. And just words of advice, words of wisdom, continuous encouragement.
00:05:38
Speaker
of a minimum viable product, which I felt was sort of there, and then make the proper steps or take the proper steps to make it a platform that's going to be amazing, to make it a platform where any expert can get onto this platform and charge whatever the hell they want for 15 minutes, for 30 minutes, for 45 minutes, for 60 minutes.
00:06:04
Speaker
and then be able to take a percentage of that, whether it's 1% or 100% of that, and donate it to the charity that is near and dear to their heart. And so what
Personal Growth and Setbacks
00:06:15
Speaker
I feel really excited about is that we are just about there. It has been a lengthy process of teaching myself how to be patient,
00:06:26
Speaker
I've always thought in the business world when I'm working with other colleagues, I'm very patient with my team. I'm very patient with customers, with partners, people above me, people beside me, people below me in any and every capacity. But I'm very, very hard on myself. And I always have been. And where I haven't been patient has been in the back of my head. Just, Jeremy, you've been successful with this, you've been successful with that.
00:06:55
Speaker
fucking get your shit together, move fast. And so by moving fast, I feel like I've been able to create a lot of great content. But I am disappointed thus far, that the platform isn't where I was hoping it would be. That's not to say that it won't be. That's the optimist in me. And it won't be there in a couple weeks, in a week, three weeks.
00:07:19
Speaker
But it has taken a bit longer to really work out the kinks, to be able to create calendars, strike payments, being able to integrate different APIs to make this really fluid environment for both the mentees and the mentors. Some exciting factors, some exciting things that have taken place. Opening up new relationships.
Encouraging Feedback and Future Insights
00:07:44
Speaker
knowing that I can do this. I've created passive income businesses that I might not have on LinkedIn, but I'm not necessarily as proud of them as I am of what I'm building right now with Oh, Hello. So I might start doing this once in a while, just going and talking to Mike and just giving you a little bit more of a behind the scenes of what's taking place from someone who used to be a head of North America, a chief revenue officer,
00:08:11
Speaker
the first in different markets for different SaaS companies and Martech companies. But I also want to be showcased as part of the reason I'm creating this is humility, vulnerability. This shit is not easy. And I want to be able to answer questions that people have. So as I'm building and as I continue to build, I want to hear from you. Ask me questions. Send me an email. What do you want me to talk about? Hi at ohhello.io.
00:08:42
Speaker
Again, Jeremy Bloom, I'm the founder of ohhello.io. I'm going to walk you through the journey. I'm going to do more of these. I don't want to make this too long, but really appreciated you just watching me having this somewhat short-term but cathartic exercise of figuring out and being able to talk to the mic and have this process. So we'll do it again. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you. Now for my fun dance. Thanks.