How to Build a Business With Staying Power: Andrew Hoag of Teampay
08/03/22 • 60 min
Andrew Hoag is the CEO and founder of Teampay, a startup working to simplify businesses’ financial processes. Andrew began his career working for the National Science Foundation Internet, and he later went on to work at NASA. Following his time at NASA, Andrew started numerous ventures. Today, he serves as an angel investor for startups and has raised over $21 Million for Teampay.
Teampay links:
https://www.teampay.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/team-labs-inc./
Episode Notes
How Andrew’s own experience and observations led him to create Teampay [1:16]
Getting energized to create [3:45]
What does Teampay do? [5:01]
Acquiring your first customers, using your network, and finding an ideal market [6:20]
Constantly changing your messaging and harnessing the power of second and third degree connections to find customers [8:50]
“If you aren’t explicit about the culture, the culture will form itself” [12:28]
Navigating remote work and building company culture across teams [17:42]
All employees want autonomy, purpose, and mastery [18:44]
Why Andrew choose to pursue venture capital to fund his company [23:10]
If you are looking to raise funding, show that you have paying customers and can build a successful business [28:52]
Focus on building a sustainable business and the things within your control [30:42]
Integrating with other platforms and the importance of user experience and design [34:41]
Getting over the resistance employees have to change and using new tools [37:52]
When customers express needs make sure they are quickly addressed [39:55]
Andrew’s advice for navigating through an uncertain economy [46:11]
Survival is important for ridding out difficult economic times [48:38]
Committing fulltime to your startup is important, and this process must be verified before going all in [53:44]
Get more exciting entrepreneur content and podcast exclusives on StartupSavant.com.
Watch Startup Savant founder interviews on YouTube and follow us on social media:
Andrew Hoag is the CEO and founder of Teampay, a startup working to simplify businesses’ financial processes. Andrew began his career working for the National Science Foundation Internet, and he later went on to work at NASA. Following his time at NASA, Andrew started numerous ventures. Today, he serves as an angel investor for startups and has raised over $21 Million for Teampay.
Teampay links:
https://www.teampay.co/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/team-labs-inc./
Episode Notes
How Andrew’s own experience and observations led him to create Teampay [1:16]
Getting energized to create [3:45]
What does Teampay do? [5:01]
Acquiring your first customers, using your network, and finding an ideal market [6:20]
Constantly changing your messaging and harnessing the power of second and third degree connections to find customers [8:50]
“If you aren’t explicit about the culture, the culture will form itself” [12:28]
Navigating remote work and building company culture across teams [17:42]
All employees want autonomy, purpose, and mastery [18:44]
Why Andrew choose to pursue venture capital to fund his company [23:10]
If you are looking to raise funding, show that you have paying customers and can build a successful business [28:52]
Focus on building a sustainable business and the things within your control [30:42]
Integrating with other platforms and the importance of user experience and design [34:41]
Getting over the resistance employees have to change and using new tools [37:52]
When customers express needs make sure they are quickly addressed [39:55]
Andrew’s advice for navigating through an uncertain economy [46:11]
Survival is important for ridding out difficult economic times [48:38]
Committing fulltime to your startup is important, and this process must be verified before going all in [53:44]
Get more exciting entrepreneur content and podcast exclusives on StartupSavant.com.
Watch Startup Savant founder interviews on YouTube and follow us on social media:
Previous Episode
The Entrepreneur Mindset with Troy Bannister of Particle Health
Troy Bannister is the CEO and founder of Particle Health, a startup working to revolutionize data sharing across the healthcare industry. Troy’s experience with patient care began while working as an EMT. He considered pursuing a career in medicine but ultimately went on to work in the healthcare VC space. Troy’s experience within the healthcare industry showed him the difficulties associated with trying to transfer patient data from one healthcare system to another, and he ultimately decided to create Particle Health in order to innovate the digital healthcare space.
Episode Notes
From working as an EMT to finding a niche within the virtual health industry [1:10]
The problem: Why can’t we easily get medical records from one doctor to another? [3:34]
Developing an API that connects hospital systems and allows data to be easily shared [6:06]
How Troy quit his job without a plan [7:18]
Learning how to jump into the unknown [9:28]
Working to understand industry laws and researching how to address this problem [10:17]
Zooming into a target market and niching down to focus on one target audience [12:36]
Taking a year to fill up your calendar and validate your product [15:27]
Building credibility and crafting a winning pitch to receive funding [18:13]
Troy’s advice — you need an enormous vision and a realistic plan [21:49]
Transitioning to a remote work environment [23:22]
How to approach your company during periods of burnout [29:02]
Hiring the right people is essential for creating a great company culture [30:33]
The growing pains of scaling and learning to build a working structure [33:02]
Using OKRs and KPIs to create quantifiable goals [36:12]
Many decisions depends on your current mindset, and you need to find out how to achieve the best mindset for making those decisions [39:42]
Starting a company was the only thing that was exciting to Troy and allowed him to take the plunge into entrepreneurship [43:35]
Troy’s prediction for the future of the healthcare industry [46:15]
Scaling to be a healthy business rather than trying to grow at all costs [48:27]
As the economy changes and buying cash becomes more expensive, evaluations decrease and become more dependent on revenue [49:27]
Entrepreneurship is hard and does not have an off switch [51:55]
Troy’s advice for founders — expect things to take at least five times as long as you initially thought [53:32]
Get more exciting entrepreneur content and podcast exclusives on StartupSavant.com.
Watch Startup Savant founder interviews on YouTube and follow us on social media:
Next Episode
Disrupting the Rideshare Industry with Joshua Sear of Empower
Joshua Sear is the CEO and founder of Empower, a software platform that targets drivers as their primary customer, taking on the rideshare giants Uber and Lyft.
In this episode we dive into:
- How Joshua created Empower
- What sets this SaaS startup apart from Uber and Lyft
- Innovating an established business model and disrupting an industry
- Finding unorthodox ways to connect and appeal to your target market
Read the full episode summary and notes on https://startupsavant.com/startup-savants-podcast/episodes/empower
Connect with us on social (@startupsavant) on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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