Happy New Year! The secret of getting ahead in business is to go backwards.

Is that what the 90 percent of startups who fail within 10 years are not doing?

Michelle Cordeiro Grant launched her bra and apparel company with no:

1. brand
2. product
3. company.

She started somewhere else: community.

It allowed her to sell her company just 3 years later for $105 million.

This was certainty an unusual idea for me as an entrepreneur in 2019 when I started VALLARIS. In professional services, e.g. accountant, architect, dentist, doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc, we are often taught that there is no second chance to make a first impression.

I spent six months getting VALLARIS ready for business, e.g. registering the company and website, reviewing and buying cloud software, appointing service providers, drafting proposal and employment letter templates, etc, even before I picked up the phone to reach out to my first prospect.

Michelle discovered why many entrepreneurs fail. They did exactly what I did when I set up VALLARIS 🙂

Many entrepreneurs spend a ton of time finessing the brand, product and company in their ivory towers only to discover that no one is interested in what they sell.

When that happens, you run out of cash flow and the business dies. This is what entrepreneurs call no, not poor, product-market fit.

With that light bulb moment, Michelle started where it mattered: community. She asked her community what product they wanted, built the exact product that would transform her community into customers, and let her community refer-a-friend.

Her community became her sales force. And you can’t get a better sales force than your tribe of loyal fans!

How can you leverage community for your business in 2022?