Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in career development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Leah Berg and Ray McLendon, co-founders of Data Science Rebalanced, located in Kansas City, MO, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Data Science Rebalanced is an online education company that helps Data Scientists new to the workforce bridge the gap between academia and industry. We created Data Science Rebalanced to help new Data Scientists "rebalance" their skills after completing a degree program, boot camp, or various other training.
Tell us about yourself
We met over five years ago, working together as Data Scientists for a large financial institution. As we got to know each other, we discovered that we'd both had the same experience ten years apart. We graduated from university with math degrees, learned a bunch of algorithms, and felt confident going into our first jobs as Data Scientists, but we quickly realized that academia didn't equip us with the skills we needed. In fact, we heard the same story from every Data Scientist we talked to. So we created Data Science Rebalanced to help educate and mentor the next generation of Data Scientists.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
At the end of 2021, we submitted one of our workshops to PyCon US 2022, the largest Python conference. Not only were we accepted, but our workshop sold out! It was our first time presenting at an industry conference, and we received great feedback from our workshop participants. It was also validating to see that over 50 people would pay to learn from us.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
When you're first starting out, you'll most likely be doing everything yourself. We're experts in Data Science, but we quickly had to become experts in finance, legal, marketing, information technology, human resources, and so much more.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Work smarter, not harder - We knew nothing about running a business when we created our own. Rather than building everything from scratch, we were able to leverage Youtube, podcasts, books, and Google to get a crash course in the logistics behind running a business.
- Don't try to appeal to everyone - It's critical to find your niche. You can't be all things to all people.
- Do lots of market research - Find what products exist in your niche and create a plan to stand out from your competitors. You'll also learn a lot about what does and doesn't work.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.datasciencerebalanced.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/data-science-rebalanced/
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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