Thursday, June 27, 2013 By 

I was honored recently to have the opportunity to speak at TechPoint’s Tech Thursday about two entrepreneurial endeavors that are close to my heart: LeadJen and PlanSoon. At first glance it may seem that LeadJen, a B2B sales lead generation company, and PlanSoon, a new social network that helps people try new things and meet new people, would have little in common. However, I’ve found that the fundamentals of entrepreneurship apply to both companies.

At Tech Thursday I discussed the importance of pilot programs to the ultimate success of a lead generation program. Having a successful pilot doesn’t necessarily mean you end up with a full pipeline at the end of 90 days. In fact, you probably won’t. A pilot program will be successful, however, if you spend that time vetting the market and finding out what works best.

For example, one of our clients spent $10,000 a month for three-month pilot program, and after 60 days didn’t have an appointment set. However, the work we did in the first 60 days allowed us to build a strong plan based on testing and revisions. That company remains a client today.

I shared other examples that can be seen here.

One of the reasons LeadJen has been successful is because of our leadership team. I have made an effort to build a strong leadership team that is able to solve problems without me hovering. This is the key reason I’ve been able to devote time to building PlanSoon and participating in VentureCamp, an eight-week, immersive, startup docu-series being piloted right here in Indianapolis.

I am thrilled (and a little exhausted!) that PlanSoon has been chosen as one of the three startups that is moving forward in VentureCamp. In a sense, VentureCamp is PlanSoon’s pilot program…on steroids. I’m hugely proud of the exposure Indianapolis and the entrepreneurial community are receiving from this program, and I’m excited to see how PlanSoon evolves and grows as we move through the VentureCamp program.

I invite you to take part in the growth of PlanSoon by signing up today, and follow our progress at VentureCamp on Twitter @PlanSoon and #socialmonsoon.