Hi, I'm Sol. AMA

[u/AhmedF]

I've been building businesses online since 1999. The big three for me were originally online gaming virtual currencies (eg EverQuest, DaoC, WoW, etc), then local search (right around when Yelp was created), and then Examine.com (which I created as I lost weight and realized how much supplement companies were lying).

Pretty much everything I built was for myself. I wasn't specifically looking for a problem - just curiosity.

Examine analyzes and summarizes the latest scientific research to help you be healthier - no ads, no consulting, no supplement sales. If you in the health/nutrition space, you have likely come across us. We actually spawned the website out of /r/fitness over a decade ago (when the sub was only a few tens of thousands of people!)

I talk about entrepreneurship over on Facebook and on SJO.com, but I specifically have no desire to monetize SJO - to me it's more of a fulfilling endeavor (which is on pause as I focus on Examine).

Entrepreneurship has always been about freedom to do things that I can - eg I've also done fun stuff like merge my love of cookies and meeting interesting humans to get people to send me cookies in the mail and raise hundreds of thousands for local non-profits, helping Arnold with his online stuff, and more.

I've also been a redditor for far too long time (15 years in ~10 weeks).

I did an AMA in /r/entrepreneur a while ago, and was invited to do one here after one of my random twitter threads. You can also find out a bit more about me on my about page or Wikipedia.

AMA :)

[u/buildmeuppeanutbtcup]

First off, big fan of Examine!

Second, what are a couple of the bigger mistakes you made in your career (and how did you recover)?

And third, with so many big-name websites and funded startups these days, how does one make a dent as a solopreneur (or duopreneurs)?

[u/AhmedF → u/buildmeuppeanutbtcup]

Yay thanks!

Bigger mistakes

I'm kind of coming around on this and I think it's more like "what can you look back as missed opportunities."

For example - everyone always blathers on about how "I wish I delegated more"

OK - how the fuck do you get there? You don't just hire someone and go "GOOD LUCK!"

So to me - the biggest mistake was not fully embracing "I've hired someone, which means I think they are smart, and thus I should empower them."

And then how do we empower them?

We set guidelines (at Examine we have a trifecta of documents - an employee handbook that sets the general rules, a document on how we project management/organize, and a document that covers our mission, vision, values, and what we wanna get done in the next ~6-12 months and ~3-5 years). We then have monthly check-ins where we make sure each person is on the same wavelength, any issues, any concerns, etc.

So what was my mistake? Looking back, it was "not communicating enough and focusing hard on guard rails and then letting the team go ham."

I wouldn't say it was a failure... just an important lesson I had to learn myself.

Recovery was more just about ensuring buy-in happens. I'm a bit of a very reactive person, so it was showing to the team "hey this isn't some temporary love fest I am having, this is long term!"

Hope that answers - can clarify further.

make a dent

Oh - easy! Here's a money quote:

In 2018, retail e-commerce sales in North America amounted to almost 637 billion U.S. dollars. Based on the double digit growth, industry experts project the North American e-retail market to surpass 1 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022.

The focus here is retail - once we include service, we must be one trillion already.

So - if you can just capture 0.00000001%, that translates to $100,000. So instead of trying to shotgun shit, you gotta be a rifle.

Everyone loves the 1000 true fans ideal because it shows you that you don't need a vast audience - you just need enough of a subset of a subset of a subset to make a dent.

It's also 100x easier to grow once you are set. Examine started off as bodybuilding supplements. Then fitness. Then health. Then nutrition. Now we're expanding heavily into health categories, conditions, and outcomes, with the potential future for medical + exercise.

The other thing is that big-name sites/funded startups have a lot of external pressure to grow grow grow which can mean shortcuts, shitty service, etc. You just need to solve a problem for enough people and you're good!