Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in marketing but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Greg Potapenko, Founder of H-Hour Marketing, Inc., located in Toronto, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
H-Hour Marketing, Inc. is an award-winning Veteran-owned performance marketing agency helping DTC brands grow with paid ads.
Tell us about yourself
I actually made my first dollar online in 1997 when I built a "viral website" before viral was a word and monetized it with banner advertising. But it only lasted for a year or so, and I got a degree in Finance, served in the Canadian military, and then worked several jobs in Investments, Project Management, and even Gold Mining before starting my affiliate marketing business in 2007.
At the end of 2011, we became a full-time marketing agency, and in the last decade, we have acquired over 30 million new users for mobile apps, desktop software, and gaming using paid media on Search, Display, Social, and Video channels. Generated hundreds of thousands of qualified leads for clients in finance, insurance, and home services from Google and Facebook Ads. Bootstrapped & Scaled an internal Direct-to-Consumer electronics brand from $0 to $2M in sales in less than 12 months and helped multiple E-Commerce startups go to market and scale.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
The biggest accomplishment as a business owner is the impact I was able to make on people who are/were on my team, our clients, and our followers. Changing lives!
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
One of the hardest things that come with being a business owner is probably keeping yourself, and the team motivated and executing, even when everything seems to be going the wrong way. In Sir Winston Churchill's famous words: "going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm."
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
The top 3 tips for anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today would be:
- Start now. Don't hesitate, don't procrastinate - just start, and "fail forward fast."
- Create an exceptional product or service that solves a real problem in a growing market.
- To grow, learn how to get more customers, how to keep them coming back, and also learn how to get more people on your team and get them to stay!
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://h-hour.biz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hhour48/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hhour48
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gpotapenko/
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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