Digital: Disrupted: Entrepreneurship 101: Using Data to Your Advantage
December 8, 2023
In this week’s episode, Paul sits down with Phil Masiello to discuss what makes a disruptive business model and how startups can cut through the noise of today’s digital age. Phil shares how startups can use data to their advantage and best practices when using it to target customers.
Digital: Disrupted is a weekly podcast sponsored by Rocket Software, in which Paul Muller dives into the unique angles of digital transformation—the human side, the industry specifics, the pros and cons, and the unknown future. Paul asks tech/business experts today’s biggest questions, from “how do you go from disrupted to disruptor?” to “how does this matter to humanity?” Subscribe to gain insight into what’s coming and how to navigate it.
About This Week’s Guest:
Phil is the founder and CEO of Crunchgrowth Revenue Acceleration Agency, a comprehensive marketing solutions provider for startups. He has written several books, including Think-Engage-Thrive: Marketing Actions to Skyrocket Your Brand In The Digital Age and Empires and Entrepreneurs: How Business Shaped The World: Stories of Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship Throughout History.
Listen to the full episode here or check out some highlights below.
Paul Muller: Should people reading the book take the lesson that they can't be an entrepreneur until they go to business school? I think business schools would very much like you to believe that sentiment. What are your thoughts on that?
Phil Masiello: No, I think it was good for me because I struggled with processes. And I think what business school taught me was that every part of the business, whether it be finance, marketing, or operations, all had a piece of a process to it, and I wasn't good at that.
Leadership was something that I learned from watching other people because when I grew up in restaurants, it was not very structured. I don't know if you've ever worked in a restaurant, but there's a lot of insanity that goes on in there. Everybody prides themselves on the fact that they serviced all those customers for the night, and now it's onto the next day. I never really learned how to be a great leader. I think most chefs are not great leaders. They're good at doing what they do but not necessarily great leaders.
Paul Muller: Are you telling me that throwing a pan at somebody across the kitchen is not leadership?
Phil Masiello: Well, yeah, that's the problem. At the time, going to graduate school for business was very helpful. I got involved with this specialty food company in Washington, DC, with products from all over the world that you couldn't get anywhere else. Eventually, I got involved with that company and did a lot of “intrepreneuring” and acted like an entrepreneur within the company because it was very small. I made an investment, but we built into different business channels like online sales and cataloging. Eventually, I helped create a smaller store concept—because most of our stores were 25-30,000 square feet—I developed a smaller store concept to penetrate urban areas. So, I did a lot of incurring, but the company's president was a very good leader. He was able to get across his vision to the staff, the people who were going to execute this at the store level, in a very positive, calm, methodical way, and that’s whatI took away. I think that one specific experience, along with graduate school, really made me a better leader and a better process manager.
