SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
At 24 He Quit His $115k Oil and Gas Job to Lanch $2MM Agency with 30% Net Margins, EP 297: Shawn Freeman
18 Jun 2016
Chapter 1: What inspired Shawn Freeman to leave his $115k job?
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Good morning, Top Tribe. You are listening to episode 297 coming up tomorrow morning. On episode 298, you're going to hear from Anshi Bhatia.
Chapter 2: How did Shawn grow his business from $75k to $2 million?
He did 150K at 26 years old, and now he charges 50 to 300K per year to do e-commerce projects.
top tribe good morning to everybody our guest today is sean freeman and he's the founder of twt group in canada he's worked in it for several big companies before he founded twt group with the goal of making it easy instead of infuriating sean are you ready to take us to the top hey nathan for sure let's go awesome so first things first tell us uh how twt group what do you do and how do you make money
We sell managed IT solutions for small, medium businesses across Western Canada.
Awesome. And so what do people pay? Again, who's paying you typically?
Usually businesses between 10 and 100 employees. So we take care of all their IT or their IT department. Yeah, it's a pretty necessary thing for most companies.
And what is this, like set up a mailbox, like everything?
Yeah, we do everything from servers to networking to cloud solutions, setting up email online, hosting websites for them. Any technical questions for their advisor.
Interesting. Now, this sounds like something where you've got to have a lot of patience and be super focused. What turns you on about this stuff?
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Chapter 3: What strategies drive referrals for Shawn's IT agency?
You do. It's really, you've got to solve problems every day. And a lot of those are people. So you just have to educate them, show them what they need, why they need it, and how to use it properly and effectively. I think once you build that relationship and trust with the people, they start to really trust you. And it can be really effective for both sides because...
you know, we can get them to use their technology, uh, better to make their business better. And then they win. And also we win because they're growing. And so do we.
So what year did you start the business in? I was starting in 2011. And what was first year's revenue?
Uh, 75 K. I love that.
I always love that question.
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Chapter 4: What is Shawn's approach to managing business profits?
You got to start somewhere, right? So before you were doing that, Sean, what, what did you give up? I always love that too. What'd you give up?
Uh, I was working in oil and gas and it, um, so I was in a, a company that had it department of 50 people. So it was pretty big company. Um, yeah. And just, uh, I, I really felt the need that I wanted to go and start my own thing.
How old were you at when you, in 2010, 2010, I would have been 24. Okay. 24. And I always, you know, people, there's 24 year olds listening right now that are sitting in very cushy, maybe a hundred thousand, $150,000 salaries and oil and gas going, uh, I really just want to break out and do my own thing, but they don't have the confidence. You could give them the confidence. Uh,
Chapter 5: How does Shawn plan to achieve $10 million in revenue?
help us share if you're comfortable with it. What was your salary that you gave up to start your own thing?
So my salary I gave up was one 15, 115 K. Yeah. And, um, you know, I did it in kind of a unique way. Uh, basically I started my company before I quit.
Um, afternoons, nights and evenings, right?
Exactly. You know, lunch break was actually working. You didn't, you weren't even eating some days.
So, so 2011, you did 75 grand. What was 2015 revenue? Uh, 250. Okay. And how many team members do you have?
Uh, currently we have, or sorry, 2015 revenue.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Shawn face in his entrepreneurial journey?
Yeah. 2015. Sorry. Uh, 2015 revenue was, uh, 2 million actually. Oh, got it. What was the 250 number you just gave me? The 250 was the second year in business.
Oh God. That's pretty good. That's really good growth. Yeah. Um, okay, cool.
And right now we've got, right now we've got 10 employees.
Um, and where's home Vancouver? Is it a, what'd you say?
Chapter 7: What tools and resources does Shawn recommend for entrepreneurs?
Vancouver?
It's Calgary.
Oh, Calgary. Okay, cool.
Yeah, we do. Uh, we do operate in Vancouver as well though.
Okay, very cool. And so how do you, what's driving this growth? I mean, is it, this sound, this is sounds like it's very, it's a very human thing. You're not, you don't have a piece of technology that just sets all this up automatically for customers. Do you?
No, no, it's definitely not automatic. It's, uh, just building relationships with people. Um, our growth has come, I'd say 90% from referrals from our current clients. Um, you know, in four years we've grown our monthly revenue to over 200 K and we've got about 150 clients right now.
So you did 200 K in February, 2016 about correct. And how many total customers are you serving?
About 150.
Wow. Okay. Okay, great.
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Chapter 8: What advice does Shawn have for young entrepreneurs today?
So the interesting question I have for you, I always love asking entrepreneurs this. What do you, are you the only one on the cap table for the business? You own a hundred percent? Correct. Yeah. What does a guy like you do with the cash, right? Do you pull out 300 grand and go put it in a real estate investment or the stock?
What is an entrepreneur like you taking me, taking my brain outside of your business in terms of how you're managing all of your wealth? What do you do with it?
I think it's, it's kind of a diversified approach. I mean, you need money in the business to keep it running. You gotta have good cashflow. So that's my number one focus is keep enough money in the business to grow and grow how we are growing. You know, it's pretty exponential still.
What's your goal in 2016 revenue wise?
We're probably going to do two and a half million. Wow. Okay. So, They're 500K on top of last year. But I think, you know, you do need to look at other investments. One we're looking at now is purchasing an office space. So the business will run out of there. Pretty critical as we grow.
Do Canadian taxes allow you to take advantage of depreciation there as well?
They do. Yeah. We can, you know, if I don't take the money out personally, I don't have to pay a personal tax on it. So just being, just being smarter about that, you know, setting up holding companies, chatting with my accountants and lawyers to make sure we're doing it right.
And then, you know, obviously with the long-term goal in place, cause you really have to look, you know, five, 10 years out to actually be able to plan properly today.
Totally. And you're now just for context. Now you're 29 years old, right?
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