In 2001, Gabriel Shaoolian set up shop in his New York City apartment with nothing but a laptop computer and a passion for web design. In 2005, he ran a small digital agency consisting of 17 employees.
And since incorporating his business in 2007, Blue Fountain Media has grown to over 200 employees, and generated over $2 billion in revenue by building e-commerce websites for clients like Procter & Gamble, Harper Collins, AOL, AT&T and the NFL.
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Though Shaoolian is exceptionally diligent and multitalented, he maintains no illusions about the freelance life. “There is no shortcut, there is no wizard,” he says. “No one is going to come into your company and do better than you can. Growing a company organically is a lot of sacrifice.”
What were you doing before you made your entrepreneurial leap?
I was a web designer, and I really enjoyed what I did. On my own, I started learning other things like video editing, development and dabbling in everything digital. I went off to become a freelancer and it just grew into a company. I never expected it to become what it is today.
Describe the early days of your freelance life.
Well, let me tell you, and I’ll tell anyone out there. It’s crazy.
You know, doing this without funding, you lose a lot of sleep, and you lose your life, really. The company becomes your life. It’s not easy. It’s not for someone who wants weekends and who wants vacations.
I tell people that you go on vacation and you are still thinking about work every second of every day.
I had no idea what I was in for.
I just wanted to build something small. But I realized that I can’t do everything on my own. If I want to do good work, I need team members that are specialized. As Blue Fountain Media grew, I started working on an infrastructure for the company. Guidelines and rules. I started working on titles for every role.
This might seem un-hip or un-cool, but let me tell you, when you have dozens of people in your organization, you need to have structure.
Which aspects of your early work were your favorite — and what was the most challenging?
I loved designing sites. It was incredible. I was like an adult with crayons. I also loved that you could go talk to a client about an idea and a few months later, it’s a tangible interactive site. How cool is that?
You talk about an idea you have, and a few months later, we’re sitting down and there you are, clicking through it.
One thing that was challenging was the sales aspect: getting clients’ attention. Every company struggles with sales. It felt great to win a new client. But that was challenging.
Getting out there and doing sales is not for everybody. I worked in an electronics shop when I was in college; I also DJ’d, so I had a small amount of sales [experience]. But you really figure it out as you go along.
Did you have a moment when you realized your business was really taking off?
One morning I woke up and I realized that I had 17 people that were full time with me. And I had no salesperson. And I had heart palpitations.
At that point I realized that it was no longer going to be that small vision that I had, but it was growing into something on its own. So, it was exciting.
At the same time it was very nerve-wracking, because any CEO/founder will tell you, you feel responsible for your employees. They’re not just people that you hire and fire. They have families; they count on you [for] their paychecks.
You feel very accountable, and even if the team itself isn’t bringing in the cash, I’ve never had the heart to tell someone, “I’m not paying you; you’ve had a bad month.” I’ve never pulled that.
How does your work differ now from what you did in the very beginning?
[In the beginning] I was more hands-on, more creative. And now I feel that it’s more about logistics. I did wear many hats, and I’ve held every position in the company.
I’ve done sales, I’ve done management, I did some design work, I did some of the coding.
Today, I am more like a problem solver. People say CEOs are meant to be entrepreneurs, but very little of our time goes to being entrepreneurs. Most of our time goes towards problem solving.
Every company has problems. Apple, Facebook, Google — all companies have problems. The job of an executive is to realize those problems and work to fix them.
You say the site you planned and designed for AT&T does about $100,000 per second. And the site you did for the Green Bay Packers did $200 million in four days. When you started your company, having no idea how successful it would become, did you have any doubts?
There was a point when I was starting out when my friend was doing really well in real estate, and I was struggling to meet my month-to-month expenses. I told him, “Maybe I should do what you do.” He goes, “Well, if you want to come over, we could use someone, but, I see you love what you do. Stick with it.”
It was great advice. Do what you love, stick with it. Be patient. I think patience is what’s lacking amongst young people today. Things take time. That’s the best advice that I’ve got. [My company] didn’t happen overnight.
People have to understand, when you’re going into business, you have a budget, and you don’t need to eat, you don’t need to go out, you don’t need to have a life.
If you don’t know how to budget your business, you’re doomed for failure. I get emails from LinkedIn all the time from guys that are trying to start businesses or that have started businesses 10 years ago, and they need to grow. And they’re asking me, how did you do it? What advice do you have for me?
I tell them: I constantly invested. I reinvested back into BFM. I led a very humble life for many, many years. And I tell them, look, just do great work. Do good work for your clients.
Gabriel Shaoolian’s tips for freelancers and entrepreneurs:
1. If you are looking to expand, hire great people and take care of them before you take care of yourself. Pay them before you pay yourself.
2. Do great work. When I worked with my first few clients, I didn’t care how much I charged them; I just did great work. I also communicated and set up proper expectations with my clients.
3. Don’t be afraid to fail. I started a dating site, and it failed. I fail much more than I succeed. So what if you didn’t make the next Facebook. Just don’t make the same stupid mistakes — learn from your failure.
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