Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Ben Jacobson, Owner of CiscoLessons, located in Owings Mills, MD, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

CiscoLessons is focused on providing top-tier learning material for entry-level IT networking certifications at an affordable price. Our customers vary from individuals looking to further their education in IT networking to businesses who want to train their technical teams.

Tell us about yourself

I started working in IT in 2010, though I only started taking my formal IT education seriously some years later. At this point, I found many resources to study for IT certifications.

I learned best from instructional videos, where I could see, hear, and practice the information being taught. The video resources were quite expensive. A popular service was $100/mo for access. This led to cramming to get the most for my money, which only works well for long-term learning.

After working through and passing several professional certifications, I could probably create the same style of content to make it more affordable to others like me. Helping to spread my love of IT learning and the satisfaction of passing certification exams keeps me going daily.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We have surpassed 10,000 student enrollments across our platforms! This is a huge milestone that I'm very proud of. We have more certification training material focused on Juniper Networks certifications in the pipeline to be released in 2023.

What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?

I'm not sure I'm doing the best I can to grow the business, taking advantage of all the utilities and tools I can and having the most efficient advertising. We make daily decisions that impact how people see our brand and access our material. However, we have yet to determine if it's the right or completely wrong thing to do. Getting over that uncertainty and pushing in a chosen direction as hard as possible is very difficult.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Work out a minimum viable product to test with. This helped me significantly in my pursuits, as I was motivated to develop a more substantial product after I saw the minor success of the minimum viable product.
  2. Strive for the best quality that your money and time will allow. Given unlimited financing and time, we could make the best products possible, but that's different from reality. In my business, I invested in a quality microphone for recordings, took the time to develop a compelling slide template, and made a small recording booth to eliminate excess noise. These items took minimal effort and didn't cost much, though they helped me stand out from the crowd.
  3. Keep pushing. Just keep developing and keep working at it. Even when you don't see much return, it's essential to keep working, assuming you've completed #1 above and have tested a minimum viable product.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://ciscolessons.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ciscolessons
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-jacobson-bb318143/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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