
Want To Be An Entrepreneur? Here Are 7 Tips From A Woman Who Didn’t Give Up
Great genetics may make Sheila Marmon appear like she's new to the game, but with over 15 plus years of experience in the media, digital and financial industries, this Harvard Business School grad strategically positioned herself for success. Unlike some of her peers, the 40-something CEO didn't strike gold while sitting in a cushy corporate office, backed by a six-figure salary, paid vacation days and a 401K. She quietly and diligently created her own digital empire, smack-dab in the middle of her kitchen. In 2012, the L.A. native launched an ad tech company with a simple yet unrivaled service. "Mirror Digital connects leading brands to the growing U.S. multicultural market, through our network of social media influencers, boutique digital publishers and bloggers nationwide," Sheila explains. By providing access to impactful multicultural content creators, top companies can advertise to audiences they've had limited access to. Today her firm has executed over 300 interactive ad campaigns for clients like Sony Pictures, Marriott and Verizon. PowerToFly spoke with Sheila about what it takes to launch a successful business, along with the tips and tricks she's learned along the way.
Tip 1: Use your work experience to create a business that speaks to a larger mission.
In her experience working with media, digital and financial brands, Sheila developed a passion for launching new projects, which naturally grew into launching new businesses. From roles at Morgan Stanley, Essence and Time Inc., she's had her hand in shaping the growth, development and look, of many print and digital properties. But her big aha moment surfaced after working in the multicultural media space. "I helped launch Sports Illustrated Latino, worked on People en Espanol (and) launched a multicultural fashion magazine. I saw that there wasn't a lot of investment or even attention being paid to what was going on with multicultural consumers from a digital perspective. That's where I came up with the idea to launch Mirror Digital, because it explicitly looks to build and fund an ecosystem of digital content creators of color through an ad network model," she says.
Tip 2: Make a financial plan, and even still, be prepared for lean days.
Today Sheila employs a staff of 14. Her team has executed over 350 interactive campaigns, for clients like Macy's and General Motors; but that wasn't the case when Mirror Digital first launched, in 2012. She initially nurtured her fruitful idea in the kitchen of her Inglewood, California condo. "It was a bootstrap startup, so those were lean days," she laughs. After living off of her savings and working alone for a year, she hired her cousin. "She was so tremendously helpful in helping me get things off the ground … We were working 18 hours a day, with no resources. Two of my sorority sisters loaned me money, to get over that first hump, until we got a client … it was amazing that I had friends and family step up for me … You really have to be financially prepared to launch a business."
Sheila speaking on Council of Urban Professionals panel
Tip 3: Ask for help.
It was almost by accident that Sheila got help from her cousin, who was new to L.A. and job hunting. Looking back, she admits that she should have asked for help sooner. "A lot of female entrepreneurs in particular end up launching a sole proprietorship and they're doing everything from making the coffee, to taking out the trash, to closing the clients … You've got to get leverage to move yourself forward, so that you're not driving yourself crazy … Men are so much better at asking for what they need. I'll meet a man and within five minutes he's telling me what I can do to help him with his business. Women don't do that as aggressively. We need to think about how we can use the resources around us, whether they're colleagues, old bosses, friends or people we've networked with." She says that the key is identifying, "What's your ask that's going to help you get your business to the next level?" While running the show can be incredibly liberating, it's also demanding. Sheila warns budding entrepreneurs to know their limitations and hire people who can offset their own weaknesses.
Tip 4: Know your market.
In the process of solidifying funding and establishing a staff, it's important to research the market that you plan to impact. Sheila's previous work experience, including a failed business venture in the multicultural media space, helped her learn the ins and outs of the market and create a solid business model for Mirror Digital. "Multicultural consumers control 25 cents of every dollar spent in this country, so that is really significant. And in aggregate, you're looking at over 3.6 trillion dollars in economic investment and development … I hear people say, 'Oh, you focus on a really interesting niche.' And I just think to myself, 'Oh my God, do you realize that this is not a niche? This is the driving force of our economy right now,'" she affirms.
Sheila alongside Jonah Peretti, CEO of BuzzFeed, during Council of Urban Professionals panel
Tip 5: "Crystalize your value."
While you may understand how the market could benefit from your product, it's essential to convey why a client should work with you. In addition to distinguishing your business from competition, it's important to provide a unique value to clients. For Mirror Digital, it's giving Fortune 500 brands, and other large advertising agencies, access to bloggers, influencers and other digital content publishers with large multicultural audiences, that they're not be plugged into. They also create custom social media marketing campaigns to fit their client's needs —"whether they want to advertise on websites, mobile, social platforms," Sheila explains. Once you identify your value, it's time to sell — with the right marketing materials. "Your media kit, your website, your capabilities presentation —you have to have those things in concert to present the same look and feel, and also resonate with your value proposition. So does this look like material from a company that's bringing me curated media or does it look like a construction company? You have to be really mindful of that branding element," Sheila adds.
Tip 6: Prepare yourself for "hand to hand combat."
In order to link Fortune 500 companies with multicultural content creators, first, she had to meet them. Sheila refers to her intense networking process as "hand to hand combat," explaining, "I would go to the blogger conferences. I would get referrals from different people that I knew … City by city we built the network up. Starting with New York, and L.A., Atlanta and Chicago … we have a mix of websites, bloggers, email newsletters, all digital content creators. We tend to work with close to 200 to 500 on a regular basis, depending on what the content is, what ethnic group they represent, because we can create campaigns specifically for African-American, Asian or Hispanic consumers, whatever our advertising client is looking for."
Sheila and Mirror Digital Team members
Tip 7: Build a diverse team that's not afraid to experiment.
"Tech colors everything that we do." Sheila says. "We are in the ad-tech industry. So, I joke that we really find ourselves in a new business every six months, because there's always an innovation and everything is constantly changing." To embrace change, the CEO fosters a culture of experimentation, so that both staffers and clients aren't afraid to think and work differently. "My team looks like the new America," Sheila explains. "(There are) a lot of young people who may not have understood that there was opportunity like this or felt welcomed in this industry to learn, grow and ultimately take a leadership role … Everyone is represented and contributes together; that's what makes me excited about what we do."
A Successful Job Search Requires Strategy. Learn How To Approach It In The Best Possible Way!
💎For a successful job search you need to be very strategic, focused, and intentional about your career. Watch the video to the end to get advice on how to achieve it!
📼Be successful in your job search by identifying the career goals you’d like to achieve over the next 12 to 18 months. LaMont Price, Senior Recruiter, and Meg Fronckowiak, Senior Talent Acquisition Recruiter at Tenable, share with you the benefits of having a short-term career development plan and understanding your unique value proposition.
📼A successful job search requires you to take a deep dive into the job description. Look at your resume and try to match the skills and the qualifications and highlight that on your resume, so it stands out. Secondly, do your research. You want to make sure that you've taken a look at the company website. You've looked at the leadership of the company, the size of the company, and the culture of the company. And to go one step further, look at the interviewer. Look them up on LinkedIn, and take a look at their background. Recruiters always look for people who have great insightful questions that show the level of research the person did.
📼You’ll be successful in a job search if you know how to face the interview process. Every interview includes some don’ts. Don't be late. There's nothing worse than showing up late for an interview. Dress Professionally. Try to be in a quiet place so that you're not distracted. Get through the interview process, show that you're engaged, and have good body language. At the end of the interview, you always want to ask if there's any question that maybe you weren't able to answer. And always ask about the interview process to get a good understanding of the timeline.
A Successful Job Search Requires Research - Learn About A Company’s Values!
Recruiters need to know if you are aligned with the company’s culture. If you want to apply to Tenable, you should know that its core values are diversity, equity, and inclusion. They work together and they win together, and this is an idea that resonates throughout the entire organization. Tenable celebrates all of its employees. This allows them to focus on the equal representation of women and minorities in technical roles, sales roles, and leadership roles. The company provides training for all of its employees in diversity, equity, and inclusion. This helps employees to understand how their behaviors can impact others. Make sure to show that you are aligned with these values during your interview!
🧑💼 Are you interested in joining Tenable? They have open positions! To learn more, click here.
Get to Know LaMont Price and Meg Fronckowiak
Over the last 25+ years, LaMont Price has researched, analyzed, and optimized services and products by exploiting the latest tools and tactics aligned with the strategic goal via Attention, Differentiation, Trust, and Memorability. Meg Fronckowiak has been working in the recruiting and talent attraction since 2003 and she spent the majority of her career working across all disciplines including, Building out GTM Teams, Accounting & Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Sales Leadership. If interested in a career at Tenable, you can connect with LaMont and Meg on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to mention this video!
More About Tenable
Tenable empowers all organizations to understand and reduce their cybersecurity risk. Over 30,000 organizations, more than 50% being fortune 500 companies worldwide, rely on Tenable to help them understand and reduce cybersecurity risk. The company has some of the greatest minds. That’s because they bring people who come from diverse backgrounds and give them the resources and support to partner together to bring new ideas to life.
Careers in Web Development: Which One's For You?
We all have our favorite websites– the ones we frequent, bookmark, and recommend to others. You might even enjoy some website features so much that you’ve found yourself wondering why they aren’t more popular. Or maybe you’ve experienced times where you were frustrated with a website and wished you could add features or even design your own!
If you’ve ever found yourself intrigued at the prospect of designing and developing your own websites, then a career as a web developer might be just for you!
As a web developer you would be responsible for coding, designing, optimizing, and maintaining websites. Today, there are over 1.7 billion websites in the world and, in turn, the demand for web developers is on the rise. In order to figure out what kind of web development work best suits you let’s start with an introduction to the three main roles in web development that you can choose from.
The Three Types of Web Development Jobs
Front-End Web Development: The Creative Side
Think of front-end development as the décor of a house. The color scheme, furniture, manicured lawns, and overall aesthetic. In terms of a website, front-end development is laser-focused on the appearance of a website and its presentation on different devices. If you’re considering a role in front-end development, it’s important to learn programming languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These three languages go hand-in-hand. HTML allows you to create user interface elements, CSS helps you with stylistic elements, and JavaScript allows you to incorporate online tools and connect your website to back-end functions.
In addition to programming skills, front-end developers need to be detail oriented, creative, willing to keep up with the latest trends in web development, cyber security conscious, and geared toward user-friendly designs. The median salary for a front-end developer can reach well into the $90,000 to $100,000 range.
Back-End Web Development: The Logical Counterpart
While a house can be beautifully decorated, it’s incomplete without a solid foundation and efficient infrastructure. Similarly, a well-designed website depends on logical and functional code to power the features of that website. Back-end web development is code-heavy and focused on the specifics of how a website works. If you enjoy the analytical challenge of creating the behind-the-scenes code that powers a website, then back-end development is for you.
Since this role is more code-heavy, it’s important that you learn numerous programming languages and understand algorithms and data structures. Some languages that are essential to back-end development are Ruby, Python, SQL, and JavaScript. Back-end developers also ensure that users can successfully retrieve and access data. This requires creating and using APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) which act as messengers that relay data related requests. Additionally, developing the code for the inner workings of a website also requires back-end developers to be conscious of the user interface features designed by front-end developers and to internally mitigate potential security risks. Due to the increased technical aspect of this position, back-end developers normally earn higher salaries than front-end developers. The average median salary for this role is around $118,000 per year.
Full-Stack Web Development: A Little Bit of Everything
A full-stack developer is essentially the Jack (or Jill)-of-all-trades in web development. Full-stack developers need to be knowledgeable about both front-end and back-end roles. This does not necessarily imply that you would need to be an expert in both roles, but you should fully understand the different applications and synergies they each imply. In order to work in this position, you will need to know the programming languages used by front-end and back-end developers. In addition to these languages, full-stack developers also specialize in databases, storage, HTTP, REST, and web architecture.
Full-stack developers are often required to act as liaisons between front-end and back-end developers. Full-stack developers need to be both problem solvers and great communicators. The end goal for a full-stack developer is to ensure that the user’s experience is seamless, both on the front-end and on the back-end. In return, you can expect to earn a median salary of $100,000 – $115,000 a year for this role.
Taking the Next Step
Web development is both in-demand and lucrative! All three roles described above contribute to specific aspects of web development and the scope of each one can be customized to the industries and positions you feel best suit you. Regardless of which role you choose, all of them need a foundation in programming.
To gain the programming skills needed in each role, you can enroll in courses or learn independently. Coding bootcamps are a great way to boost your skillset quickly and efficiently.
Click here for some of our highly rated programming bootcamp options! Make sure to check out the discounts available to PowerToFly members.
Monica Arias of Chainalysis on How Underrepresented Talent Can Break into the Tech Industry
Monica Arias has long been interested in the new and the next. That interest is what drove her to work in national security after 9/11, and in the cryptocurrency space after learning about modern-day crimes committed on the blockchain.
One thing she has noticed every time she’s been somewhere new: the importance of having a diverse early team to shape it.
“We need minorities to be willing to take a chance and apply to firms like ours and other tech firms,” says Monica, who is currently a Federal Business Development Lead at Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform. “As these companies grow rapidly, we need diverse candidates who can offer diverse thoughts and approaches to problems.”
Monica currently works closely with the Chainalysis federal government team to pursue opportunities to support customers that are in need of Chainalysis data to track blockchain criminals and bring them to justice. She was well-prepared for some parts of the job after holding various roles but had to come up the curve on technical skills — which is why she’s sure that other candidates like her, from non-technical, underrepresented backgrounds, will be able to do so, too.
We sat down with Monica to hear more about how marginalized people can break into crypto and best position themselves for success in the field.
Connecting to a Bigger Mission
Growing up around DC, Monica got early exposure to federal service. From a young age, she knew she wanted to help represent and advocate for people.
She went to law school, thinking that would be the best path to fulfilling her goals. But living through 9/11 inspired her to support national security missions more actively. That’s how she got her first exposure to her now-employer — she brought in Chainalysis for a demo to learn how to on leverage their blockchain analysis tools.
“I’ve always wanted to be a part of something that had a bigger mission,” says Monica. “And the crypto space had that.”
It wasn’t just any crypto company that interested Monica, though. She particularly liked the company’s innovative culture and fast growth.
“Chainalysis is a very open and encouraging place,” says Monica, who came in to interview at the startup having studied up on crypto, but never having worked in the field or with blockchain technology.
“The culture is very much about learning, and they’ve created an environment where they enable you to do so. The underlying foundation is ongoing learning, and soliciting ideas on how to evolve and expand.”
Leveraging a Non-Technical Background
Monica gets what it’s like to not want to apply to an opportunity because you feel underqualified — that’s what happened to her.
“In some conversations, the feedback I received was that I didn’t have enough of a technical background and that therefore it would be challenging to go and join a tech firm,” she says. “It’s a big deterrent for so many people. And it also compounds things. Because if you’re a minority or from an underrepresented group, you’re already less likely to apply. And if you have no technical background, you’re even less likely to do so.”
How did Monica break through that? She got creative.
“I had to take a step back and say, ‘You know, I have skills. How can I transfer those into a non-technical role supporting a tech firm?” she says.
We asked her to share more about what that process was like, and here’s what she said:
5 Tips as You Gear Up to Be Competitive in the Tech Industry
- Find firms that are in fields you find interesting. Since you’re going to have to do a lot of learning, find a tech firm that is involved in a field you are excited about. Monica found her interest - crypto! She’s excited to continuously be learning about the rapidly changing crypto landscape. She added, “the tech industry can be demanding so you need to stay motivated about the work you’re doing and believe in the company you’re with.”
- Find firms that are open-minded, too. Interviewing at Chainalysis even without technical skills on her resume didn’t pose a problem for Monica. That’s because they were willing to look at her in her entirety. “It’s not just, ‘Do you fit A, B, and C,’ but ‘Do you have the overall skills and ability to learn and grow in this type of field?’”
- Recognize your transferable skills. Monica coaches other people with non-technical backgrounds like hers to start by acknowledging their accomplishments in their own fields. “What have you done? Is it people managing? Because these firms manage people in one way or another. Those and other skills can be leveraged and transferred,” says Monica. “Literally, make a list and identify those skills, then highlight those skills throughout your resume.”
- Remember that most people are in the same boat. “You won’t come across too many candidates who have 10 years of crypto experience, because this field is new,” says Monica. “The perfect candidate who meets every single qualification listed in a job ad may not exist so instead recruiters — especially those who are good at their jobs - spend time getting to know candidates. But they can't get to know you if you are deterred from applying by thinking you don't meet all the qualifications.”
- Study up. Monica follows crypto influencers, keeps up with crypto companies on LinkedIn, follows government statements on crypto, and reads reports put out by her firm and others. “If this is your focus, you need to read, talk, and network — just be curious,” she says.
Does a job at Chainalysis sound right for you? Check out their open roles!
5 Networking Tips to Score a Remote Job
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers have turned to remote work. Before the pandemic in 2019, 22% of employers offered at least some remote work. Now in 2022, that percentage nearly doubled to 40%. The shift to remote work has become beneficial for me and many of my friends who are recent college grads starting their careers. It’s allowed us to dictate our own time and save money from commuting, spend more time with loved ones at home, and have the flexibility to travel and build connections from anywhere. Remote working has also changed how people network for jobs. We have more options now.
Since remote networking is so new, it can be challenging to understand how to do it effectively. Read on to learn my top tips for networking for a remote job.
1. Connect with your high school or college.
The schools you went to want to see you succeed! Connect with old professors, classmates, or alumni on social platforms like PowerToFly or LinkedIn. You can find connections through sports teams, clubs, or topics of interest that will help you build stronger relationships. Don’t be afraid to ask them for advice, mentorship, or even introductions.
2. Join a class!
Have you ever had a hobby that you never had the chance to pursue? Coding? Running? Painting? It’s never too late to learn something new. Plus, spending time doing what you love will introduce you to other people who love the same thing. Not only will this help expand your social circle, it can also help your career! Once you feel comfortable, talk to your classmates about your work, and ask them about theirs. The perk of classes like these is that you will build relationships with people from all different career backgrounds which will help you determine your career path, especially if you are looking for a mid-career pivot.
3. Register for the Early Career Summit.
My friends and I are very excited to join PowerToFly’s Early Career Summit this fall to meet the inspiring founders and CEOs of incredibly impactful companies. This is a great opportunity to get useful tips and learn about different perspectives, professions, and topics that you may be interested in.
4. Attend a virtual job fair and connect with leaders who inspire you.
Job fairs are great for meeting people who can be helpful because everyone attending is there to network! Job fairs at PowerToFly are a great place to meet hiring managers and recruiters from our sponsoring companies. If you come prepared with a resume it is an opportunity to make a great first impression with a company. After the virtual job fair, remember to connect with the people who stuck out to you and introduce yourself on PowerToFly or LinkedIn. Make sure to tell the recruiter who you are, and highlight what stood out to you about their talk.
5. Offer to help.
People really value your help (when it‘s needed). If you know someone in your network looking to hire a web designer and you know a great place to find one, don’t be afraid to make the connection! If you see a job opening that would be great for someone in your network, let them know! Helping people in this way will help build your trust and credibility.
Remote networking has its differences from in-person networking, but it has never been easier to have access to social platforms that can help create connections. It will take some creativity and hard work, but once you have the appropriate mindset the options are endless.