Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Testing your ideas against reality can be challenging. Not everything will go as planned. It’s about keeping an open mind, having a clear hypothesis and running multiple tests to see if you have enough directional evidence to keep going.
This is the How I Tested That Podcast, where David J Bland connects with entrepreneurs and innovators who had the courage to test their ideas with real people, in the market, with sometimes surprising results.
Join us as we explore the ups and downs of experimentation… together.
David J Bland (0:1.569)
Welcome to the podcast, Maura
Maura Mitchell (0:3.148)
Oh, thank you so much, David. It's a pleasure to be here.
David J Bland (0:6.753)
I'm so excited that you joined us for this conversation because I think I first stumbled upon your work at the Women's Business Development Center and how you were helping micro businesses and how to test their assumptions really early on. And so I just love that you're going to come on and share some of those stories with us today.
Maura Mitchell (0:23.468)
Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.
David J Bland (0:26.881)
So maybe you can share a little bit of context for our listeners who aren't familiar with your organization and your background and just kind of give us a high level of how you ended up kind of where you are.
Maura Mitchell (0:37.772)
Okay, well I am a lawyer and I have an MBA and I was practicing law for a little while, decided that I wanted more client interaction and I really did enjoy the business side of things. So the opportunity at the Women's Business Development Center came up and it really was a good fit. I can use my legal experience, strategic experience to help people. So.
I work with micro businesses and help them start up and scale. Yeah, we have, I mean, I've worked with thousands of businesses over the past six years. So it's, it's a lot of fun.
David J Bland (1:17.889)
So that's amazing. So using your background to help them with their kind of early stage micro businesses, I'm wondering what kinds of micro businesses do you see come through there? Is it mostly like retail or technology or give us a little sampling of what you see come through and what you help advise on.
Maura Mitchell (1:35.468)
Yeah, we see it runs the gamut. So we I see there are about 20 advisors at the Women's Business Development Center. I track my clients and a lot of them are coaches or educators that want to learn how to grow their business after they've been in corporate America. I see some retail people that you know selling soaps and pies and cookies.
with some people that are doing apparel companies. So they've designed some clothing and they want to get that out there. It runs the gamut. That's what makes my job so interesting because I learn so much every day because someone's coming in with a new idea. Today, I just spoke with a woman who's a human resource coach. And she is out there, you know, spreading the word about how to strategize and build values into your human resources.
David J Bland (2:36.865)
That's amazing. So maybe talk about your overall process or if you have one about how you help guide them through because it feels so messy early on and there's so many different directions you can go. And so I'd love for you just to share some insights about how you think through this and how you like what's your overall process for helping women sort of test out their early ideas.
Maura Mitchell (2:57.132)
Okay, so when I started at the Women's Business Development Center, it was all about writing your business plan. And I was getting so frustrated because we would, I love planning and I love the business plan, but I was noticing that people were not moving forward with their business plan. They were spending weeks, if not months writing their plans and nothing would ever come of it.
So I saw the Lean Startup Method and I'm a mathematician. I have a math undergrad degree. So I was thinking, ooh, this science -based process of testing assumptions seems to be something interesting to me. So I started investigating. And we have this program called Plan for Profit.
It is an eight week program for those that have an idea and they want to take it to launch or at least do some market research around their original idea. And I saw that Steve blank was, you know, the lean startup method guru. So I actually reached out to him through LinkedIn.
And he agreed to look at my curriculum, look at our schedule for our plan for profit. And he gave us some feedback on how to incorporate the Lean Startup Method into our program. So we have taken plan for profit, the eight week program from a business model writing program into a market research program. So now instead of going through each of the parts of the business plan, we are
We have a two week bootcamp in which we go through the business model canvas and we challenge people to get out and talk to at least three individuals, prospective customers. So kind of doing a problem customer discovery interview. And if they do that, and if they come back with three interviews and the results of their interviews, then they're invited to participate in the next six week program.
Maura Mitchell (5:2.156)
which is really taking the business model canvas and filling that out further, along with doing more interviews and more testing and more market research in hopes that at the end of the eight weeks, and in the eighth week, they pitch their idea to a panel of entrepreneurs just to see, you know, get some feedback on their idea.
But we hope that instead of having a business plan that doesn't work anyways, we have them excited about getting out there and talking to the marketplace about their idea.
David J Bland (5:35.265)
That's so refreshing to hear. I still see, you know, start with a business plan and there's this inside joke. I believe even Steve Blank mentioned this once in a talk that I witnessed. He said, you know, it's a document that people want you to write, but they never read it, you know, especially from an investor point of view. And the model, business model, I definitely pull from Alex Osterwalder, my co -author as well. He says, okay, well, here's the model. Try to figure out your model first before.
You go off and write a plan, right? He's probably a little more spicy on his take on the plan on being completely useless. I don't think it's completely useless, but I do think writing a plan before you understand the model is a waste of time because you need to understand and test the model first. So I love that you're kind of incorporating that. And it sounds like you're pairing that with your testing. So they're going off and testing on different parts of the business model canvas. Is that correct?
Maura Mitchell (6:18.508)
Yes.
Maura Mitchell (6:29.228)
Mm hmm. Yes, they are. So we say each of the boxes on the nine box business model campus is an area for you to test. And a lot of them get through the unique value proposition and who we help and then who's going to help us. They have a little bit more difficulty around the revenue and expense, but we're getting them to think about that because, yeah, really it has to be a viable business idea.
David J Bland (6:56.545)
I agree. Sometimes you could have a really amazing offering if you're coaching or being offering education services or even as a retailer, you know, having an amazing product. But if you have the wrong business model, it still fails because you can't keep it going. So I do like that you're trying to help them with those two areas. So it sounds like you have a very sort of like lean startup themed business model canvas kind of theme process that you're using to help them navigate a lot of that uncertainty early on.
Maura Mitchell (7:21.964)
Yes, yes, I love doing that because I have found I act as an accountability partner. So we take it in my one on one advising sessions, which we also offer people will come back and talk to me about their progress as their advisor. So we have the plan for profit, which is cohort based, then we offer no cost one on one advising.
sessions for those that don't get into the plan for profit program, but I take them along the same path of, you know, the market needs to like your idea, you can't just like it, your mom can't just like it, your friends can't just like it, the market has to like it. So yeah, people are surprised by that too. I think it's interesting because they have people have big dreams and they believe that the market's gonna love their big dream.
David J Bland (8:13.409)
Yeah, I think it's an awakening. You say, well, your market has to be bigger than friends and family at some point to make it sustain. So what kind of examples could you share with our listeners of some really interesting early stage micro businesses that you've helped on and maybe some of the tests that they've ran to try to figure out what their business model is or if they have the business or a hobby?
Maura Mitchell (8:18.924)
Yes. Right.
Maura Mitchell (8:35.340)
Okay. So I'll offer a few here. I have a woman who does leadership coaching. She had been in corporate America and was, I believe she was an HR director and she wanted to get out of corporate America and start her own leadership coaching. So she kind of used the AB testing and would she changed up her product offering and gave free webinars.
I encourage people to charge something but she started with free webinars and get out into the marketplace and determined what she would offer as a fee based approach in the marketplace based on the findings of her webinars. So that was one. We have this interesting collection of vendors that are in a retail incubator. There are 12 vendors in this retail incubator called the Berwyn shops.
and they're located in a small town right outside of Chicago and they closed down a road and test their retail ideas in little shacks. But we've worked with them to get them ready to start selling. So they are doing the co -series testing we say because they actually are
They pay really low rent. They get their products into market. They're working with customers. They're learning how to determine if their ideas are feasible and desirable and viable. And it's been really interesting. I worked with one vendor in particular. She started in the cottage industry selling her pies to the marketplace and found that
People really loved her pies. So now she's in this current version of the Berwyn shops, because this is the third year. She's in the third year. And I've been checking in with her to see how her pies were selling. The first day she ran out of inventory. So all of that planning is so crucial. And all that learning is so crucial before you move into a brick and mortar and start spending thousands of dollars on rent.
Maura Mitchell (10:51.756)
And through this Berwyn shops, we've had a number of people say, okay, this is not for me. I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna, you know, switch to a different business or go back into corporate America. But then another, a few people will go in and start paying a larger amount for rent or a couple of them have paired up together and are now in a larger shop and paying more.
So they do get kicked out after the year and they have to make a decision then based on their success in the Verwin shops whether they can move forward or not.
David J Bland (11:29.633)
That's fascinating. So I love that concept of a retail incubator and giving people a taste of this is what it's going to be like and do you have fit and is it viable and desirable and can you do it? Is it feasible? And then if they find that they do and they really believe in it and they want to scale it, they have a path forward or they can grow out of that. That's such an interesting concept. And it sounds as if, yes, you could do pies there, but it sounds like you could probably do other things through that.
a series of shops as well. I mean, have you seen other things like other retail sort of ideas move through there?
Maura Mitchell (12:7.180)
Yes, I'm trying to think. We have a number of people doing, you know, candles. We have someone testing coffee. So that's a great way to test a cafe, right? Start out really small, paying low rent. Make sure you can then move into a cafe because I've had so many clients start in a cafe and figure that, okay, at $3 a cup of coffee, I have to sell thousands and thousands of dollars of coffee in order to pay my rent.
So this is an easy way to learn, yeah, learn how difficult it is to run a business in a brick and mortar. I'm trying to think who else we have. Yeah, some apparel businesses. Yeah, so it's been really interesting to watch who goes in, who goes forward, and who decides, no, this isn't for me anymore.
David J Bland (13:0.641)
It reminds me a little bit of, I know in Austin they have this kind of craze of food trucks, right? But I've seen people that are really successful with food trucks then move into a restaurant, right? They open a little like a physical space that's beyond the food truck. And they use it or they use pop -up shops to test out a concept. And then if they get traction, they can go into something more, a little more static and a little more permanent.
So it sounds as if you're kind of mentoring people as they go through that process saying, all right, we have something. I have an idea. I'm not totally invested in it yet, but I want to make a proportional investment to see if people will pay enough. And then I can start backing my way into my business model of, okay, is this something that I could scale? And it sounds like some people said, well, no, this isn't, and this isn't for me. And others went on and said, yes, this is something that I want to invest more in. So it feels like you have maybe a little bit of both going through that sort of incubator space.
Maura Mitchell (13:56.172)
Yes, which is really beneficial because people hate to fail, but it is, and I don't know, I don't like the word failure, but isn't it good if you failed when you spent a little bit of money rather than collapsed under the weight of $6 ,000 in rent a month?
David J Bland (14:18.305)
I would say yes, I would say give yourself, you know, we call it proportional investment or metered funding or however you want to frame it. But this idea of you only invest more when you have enough traction to know that this is something you can make work, you know, and you don't know it's just the next phase or stage game, whatever it is you how you frame it. But this idea of investing a little more based on the traction, the evidence you have, I think is a smart approach. It's almost, you know, very similar to like scientific method applied to business in a way.
David J Bland (14:47.265)
So that's very good. So you're working with the retail incubators and you're having retailers get through everything from candles to pies to garments and everything. That's awesome. You also mentioned you had some coaching education type people you're working with. Maybe give us maybe a high level example of sort of like how you're working with them and maybe share some stories there as well.
Maura Mitchell (15:8.812)
Okay. I have one client and she said I could use her name. Her name is Tanya Uyigue She came in through our plan for profit program and knew she wanted to do career coaching, but she wasn't sure what her business model was going to be. And people in the class said, why don't you use TikTok to test your idea? ⁓ So.
She said, I'm really an introvert. I don't like this idea. But she decided, OK, I'm going to do three videos a week, three one minute videos a week. And she has it set up. So it's kind of funny because she's got shoes, her shoe racks behind her while she's doing these videos. And each video, she covers a topic, excuse me, around career coaching.
And she, you know, covers things like how do you write a resume? How do you quit without burning bridges? How do you approach your boss with a topic that's sensitive? And she creates these videos and based upon these videos and the feedback and the data she acquired when she
you know, put out these videos, she has formed her coaching business. And so she said through the, you know, the DMs she's received, the messages she's received, the data she's gathered, she's created her business, and she's still iterating to do today. She has about, I think, 78 ,000 followers on TikTok.
And now she's writing a book, she said, which is really difficult, and she's had some speaking engagements. So she has really grown from someone who wasn't sure about quitting her job to get out there with her coaching idea. But she took it through a very methodical approach and determined that, yes, people are interested and they have some problems that I can address and I have knowledge about. So it's been fun to watch her on TikTok and
Maura Mitchell (17:13.292)
We speak once in a while now. She's too busy for accountability sessions, but we speak once in a while and she's doing really well and really enjoying it.
David J Bland (17:24.065)
That's amazing. So you mentioned something there about accountability, and you've mentioned this a few times, and how you work with these women on their new ideas. Can you give us a little insight into what that looks like as far as a conversation? What kind of things do they bring to you? What are they struggling with? How are you helping unblock them? What are those sessions like?
Maura Mitchell (17:47.884)
So I will start with a, you know, someone with an idea comes in and I'll, we'll talk through their idea and I bring up the business model canvas and I say, okay, this might be daunting to see these nine boxes, but let's work through your assumptions on your unique value proposition and the market that you serve.
And so we talk through their unique value proposition and the target market that they're going to serve. And I say, OK, so these are assumptions. Why your homework for next week or next month, depending on what they believe they need, I want you to get out and talk to 10 people and see if they are, you know, if they.
And they can't be friends or family, but see if they understand your proposition and whether or not they're going to be in your target market. So many people come in and say, I am going to help everyone. So I encourage them to not think that way. We really want to have a niche because it's, you know, it decreases your marketing costs and lets you focus on a particular target area. And, you know, if, if other people come into your.
Target market, good for them, but you've got to focus on one demographic, one population, one customer persona. So I take them through those two boxes on the business mental canvas, and then we move from there into referral partners, so who can help them. I had a therapist come in and she was going to help trauma.
children that had been through trauma. And I said, well, you know, could you talk to pediatricians as referral sources? So we work through ideas like that. It's a lot of brainstorming. I do not always know their industries. In fact, most of the time I do not, but I know how to ask the questions to get them thinking about, okay, what should my next steps be? So then they'll come back and report the progress on their market research.
Maura Mitchell (20:5.932)
And we'll talk through whether they should change their proposition, change their business model, change their target market, and keep working through the business model canvas until they find something that sticks for them and for the marketplace. And then we do introduce financials at the beginning. This is a lot more difficult for our clients to understand.
the viability of the business, but we do, we start then talking about what are your startup costs and what revenue can you bring in? How can you make money doing this and make sure you make enough to cover your expenses? And one question I always ask is what is success for you? Because some people, they're just interested in getting out there and helping others. Some people wanna make a million dollars, $2 million. I had one business.
I was speaking at a women in construction industry and she said, I want to make 25 million next year. Um, but she was already making 20 million. So yeah, it's all different, but success to them really matters because some people don't really want to make, you know, make millions. They just want to serve a population and be able to improve their living.
David J Bland (21:24.993)
I agree. I think asking them what success looks like is important because people are in it for different personal reasons. And I have no problems with, you know, what we call lifestyle businesses. I think sometimes it gets a negative connotation attached to it with investors in Silicon Valley and all that of, oh, this is just a lifestyle business. But they're looking at it from the perspective of that's something I want like this big return from it's not going to scale. And that's why they they look as it's not a good fit. But I think for a lot of people,
Maura Mitchell (21:30.796)
Yeah.
David J Bland (21:53.633)
It's great. I mean, you have work you love doing and you're making enough money to support yourself and your family and you enjoy it. I don't think there's anything scaling at all. Cost is not always the way forward. And a lot of people from a personal point of view is not something they want you to even do. So, so, so you, they come in, you start walking through. It feels like a lot of desirability risk, you know, your value proposition, your target customer, maybe a little bit of viability of what your pricing could be. And.
David J Bland (22:21.217)
It sounds like you're trying to navigate them of, okay, here's what we think. Now let's go out and test and come back and then let's make sort of like a decision based on what we've learned. And do you find that they are often, um, are they hesitant to go out and do that? Or are they successful in doing that? Or they feel as if, okay, I can do this and come back. Like what kind of, what kind of situations do you see when they come in? Do you feel like they're
able to go out there and do the research and come back to you? Or do you feel like they're getting stuck?
Maura Mitchell (22:53.868)
So I do talk to them about this might be reaching outside your comfort zone. I send them talking to humans as reading material by Giff Constable, or I don't know, is Giff Constable? Yeah. Okay, yeah, that is great reading material to get them to understand it a little bit more. I feel that...
David J Bland (23:9.184)
It's GIF. Yeah, I used to work with GIF at NEO, so we and I have worked together in the past. I'm a fan.
Maura Mitchell (23:22.188)
At first, they don't get it. They think, oh, everyone will love my idea. So it is a little bit hard. I do see people falling off and that they won't set up another session with me. And I think that's because they have, they either don't feel comfortable getting out there and talking to people. Some of my clients don't have a network. You know, if they're from an under -resourced community,
They don't have a network to speak to. So we're trying to figure that out now. If someone's in a neighborhood that doesn't have any retail businesses or it's poverty -stricken, who do they speak with about who would be their customer, their prospective customer? So we're trying to figure out how to find communities for people to speak to. But yeah, they either.
don't sign up or they don't show up. Sometimes they'll schedule something and not show up because they haven't done their homework. But it's kind of testing from my point of view of whether someone has the commitment to it and also the resources to do it.
David J Bland (24:35.681)
We had that issue come up previously in a previous podcast where we were talking through just this lack of network and lack of connections. You know, we had Craig Elias and Brandy Old on previously and they were talking through, look, we have a bunch of startup founders that they don't even know how to get to their customers. And so is there a way that we can connect them or help them out and facilitate that conversation in some way? So it's not the first time I've heard this come up. It seems to be a recurring pattern of
Maura Mitchell (24:46.444)
Yes.
David J Bland (25:5.857)
Well, yes, you're asking me about interview, let's say 10 to 15 sometimes, but you're saying something like three even. I can't even find three people to interview. So that is a problem that does come up. So let's say they go through this and they come back to you. How are you helping them kind of move forward? What does that look like from, OK, I did the research. There's a good fit here. I want to move forward. Where do you think the risk moves around to? Or what other boxes may be on that canvas do you feel like?
Maura Mitchell (25:15.660)
Yeah.
David J Bland (25:34.209)
are kind of their next challenge once they come back and they see some initial positive signals of, yeah, the value prop might resonate with this customer.
Maura Mitchell (25:44.044)
Yeah, so then we kind of move into the marketing side of things and getting out there and test, writing their marketing so that it fits their marketplace. I'm always talking about involve your prospective customers, those that you spoke to at the beginning, keep them in, you know, keep in touch with them, send them your emails.
let them know how you're progressing and use them as your you know, maybe your first clients, maybe you know, they have a referral for you. The one client who is doing the leadership coaching, she actually offered a free webinar for our clients on leadership, actually on health and wellness and leadership. And a number of people showed up for that. So she
continued testing and now she's actually out there doing it and she has paid clients that are paying. So yeah, we keep going and then we have other teams in the women's business development center that take them from, you know, revenue, first revenue, we call it scale up, then they go into a program called scale up and that program kind of helps them work through the
the beginning marketing techniques and sales techniques. We start a little of that and plan for profit. But the scale up is really where we kind of funnel people into.
David J Bland (27:20.705)
I like that framing of you're trying to do early stage testing to understand is there anything there? Is there any signal whatsoever? And if so, then we only think about scaling or the possibility of scaling later versus I do see this mistake. Sometimes we get really excited about ideas and we want to scale it right away because we're just convinced everyone's going to love it. And then you're stuck like like you mentioned earlier, you either have a physical lease that you're locked into of a space and and no one's showing up.
Maura Mitchell (27:39.084)
Yes. Yeah.
David J Bland (27:50.433)
or you've invested a lot in something and you don't have enough buyers for it. So I like that really thoughtful sort of approach of let's get them out and testing a bit. And then once we have more evidence, then we start worrying about scaling, which sounds as if it's true that scale up program is when you start to work through probably I'm guessing a little more viability and feasibility to an extent where they can make that repeatable.
Maura Mitchell (28:11.403)
Yes. Yes, uh -huh.
David J Bland (28:15.489)
That's awesome. So what excites you right now? You're doing all this amazing work with all these micro businesses. You've been at this for at least six years at here, but even prior to that, it sounds like you're very passionate about all this stuff. So what's excites you about moving forward and how you want to have this impact? What do you see coming up in, let's say, the next five to 10 years of testing? Where do you see this evolving in your work?
Maura Mitchell (28:24.716)
Yes.
Maura Mitchell (28:40.844)
Oh, that's a good question. I would love to, like you said, see if we could find a way of providing connections to those that don't have them. So maybe some sort of group.
work. I have just started this program for solopreneurs. It's a solopreneur mastermind series. And that's been really interesting in that we have people that are one person businesses. Some of them are content working on their own, but some are, you know, at the point of should I hire someone else? And how do I know when to do that? So that's been fun. We have a subject matter expert come.
every month and speak to them about hiring and contracts and legal issues and marketing and sales. And yeah, some are progressing along the way to scale and others are content where they are. I love doing that. I love seeing successful people. I love it when someone is able to launch and make money and grow.
So I think it's still, we're still trying to figure it out. I would also love to do maybe an incubator in house or figure, you know, like a, maybe a service -based incubator.
David J Bland (30:10.945)
I like that. Like kind of taking what you're doing and maybe at scale a bit more since you've been doing this a while and you have traction with, you know, entrepreneurs, early stage women and working on these ideas. That can be really interesting. I think. What I love to hear is how they help each other, right? I think that's so key in building a community and having that support network because it can feel very lonely at this stage of an idea.
Maura Mitchell (30:29.996)
Yes.
David J Bland (30:38.913)
And you feel very isolated. And I think with your mentorship, but also having a network and starting to build out that network where they can support each other, much like you said, when that retail incubator, right? You said people are partnering with each other now. I think that's amazing. Anything you can do to facilitate that. It's just so interesting. Cause I feel as if things happen there that you can't even predict, you know, of how things can come together. That's amazing.
Maura Mitchell (30:39.340)
Exactly.
Maura Mitchell (30:49.580)
Yes.
Maura Mitchell (30:57.388)
Yes. Yes. In the Solapreneurs Mastermind series, I take testing to heart. And so I inquire after every session, what did you like? What would you like to see the sessions going forward? How did you feel interacting with others? And they crave the breakout sessions. They always say we need more time with one another.
So our mastermind sessions are half an hour of subject matter expertise and an hour and a half of breakout sessions to see, you know, how they can help one another, how the subject matter expert spoke to them and what they're going to take from that. But that has been really interesting to see how people really crave speaking to one another and connecting with one other and helping one another.
David J Bland (31:49.313)
I agree. I see that in my work too, where I'll try to model behavior maybe, and I'll say in a group, here's how I would give feedback to somebody. And then I put them in breakouts and always coming back and going, I just wish I had more time. It's a common theme I've always heard. So I think you're onto something with that about building connections between people. And then they help each other out in such amazing ways. So I just want to thank you so much for sharing this amazing story of what you're doing at the Women's Business Development Center.
Maura Mitchell (32:11.276)
Yeah, they do.
David J Bland (32:19.009)
how you're helping micro businesses kind of get tested out in early stage and be able to do everything from candles to pies to coaching services. It sounds like you're working on some amazing stuff. How would people, they're listening to this today and they say, oh, I want to reach out and learn more. How would they find you? How would they find more about the Women's Business Development Center?
Maura Mitchell (32:41.068)
So our website is a great asset. It's www .wbdc .org. And on that you can see the events that we're offering. It also lists our team and you can see all of the advisors that are on our team and all of our programming because we offer the cohort programming like I spoke about for plan for profit and then scale up. And we also have people that
our experts in government contracting and corporate contracting work to scale your business. And we also have an international trade center. So she's helping people export products. Once they've gotten to a stage, you know that they can handle exports. So check out our website, people can email me and I can funnel them in the right direction based on the stage that they're in. I
I'm funded by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunities. So we do have to work with Illinois -based businesses in my team. Some other teams have other funders that are national and they can work with people from all over. But my email address is mmitchell, M -M -I -T -C -H -E -L -L, at wbdc .org.
So I would love to hear from people and help people. I just love hearing the stories of businesses and ideas and how people are so passionate about their ideas and hope we can move them forward.
David J Bland (34:13.569)
That's amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing all these stories for listeners. Definitely reach out. We'll create the links as also and include them on the podcast detailed page. So thanks so much for joining us today and sharing your stories with us more.
Maura Mitchell (34:26.412)
Sure, my pleasure. Thank you, David.