Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in finance but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Jeff Proctor, Co-Founder of DollarSprout, located in Virginia Beach, VA, USA.

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

I run DollarSprout.com, which is a personal finance blog geared toward people who are just starting to learn about money. Our content focuses mainly on teaching readers how to make and save extra money. Our revenue primarily comes from advertising and affiliate marketing deals. We also recently launched DollarSprout Rewards (rewards.dollarsprout.com), which is a free browser extension for Chrome and Safari that finds cash-back deals and coupon codes for users at over 15,000 online merchants.

Tell us about yourself

I started DollarSprout with my business partner Ben in 2015 when I was 25. I was working at an investment management firm at the time but desperately wanted to find a way to work on my own time and reach more people. I was always interested in online businesses and knew that, eventually, I wanted to take a shot at it. What motivates me today is knowing how many people we still have left to reach (and to help). With inflation running rampant and credit card debt at all-time highs, our society has a massive problem. I know our work with DollarSprout is not done.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

It sounds cliche, but I think our biggest accomplishment has been our persistence. We got off to a very slow start with the business -- it took a year before we were making any money at all. And even once we started to get traction, there have been countless stretches. It's been a roller coaster ride.

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

One of the hardest things for me to accept as a business owner is that you don't always know what projects are going to be total failures and which ones are going to blow past expectations. I can list dozens of projects within DollarSprout that I've spent hundreds of hours on that ended up being flops, but at the same time, some of the things we have tried have ended up growing our audience and revenue 100-fold. Wrapping my head around that is a challenge, but I feel like I get better each year at accepting it. I no longer see the failed projects as "wasted time" -- I just know that that is part of the process of finding winning ideas.

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

  1. Start small, and don't quit your day job just yet. It's okay to have an unbalanced life for a while as you work a 9-to-5 and then work on your business at night or on weekends. Delay quitting your job as long as possible because the stress of having no safety net is a very real thing (speaking from experience).
  2. Be willing to pivot and double down wherever you start to find success. When we first started DollarSprout, our vision for the business was completely different than what it ended up being today. When we started listening to our audience and giving them more of what they wanted, our business grew.
  3. Scale responsibly. It's easy to be tempted into reinvesting all your revenue into the business when things are going well, but that is not always the best move. There is nothing wrong with putting money away and growing your business at a pace that you are comfortable with. Big tech companies fail at this all the time -- just look at all the recent layoffs that have been happening across the industry. It's an avoidable mistake that can make your life a lot less stressful if and when the good times slow down or end.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://dollarsprout.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dollarsproutblog
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dollarsprout/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DollarSprout

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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