On Building A Network Of Specialists That Help Startups Grow From Series A To C
I’m Matt Widdoes, CEO of Mavan, an exclusive network of on-demand VP-level specialists who validate and scalable grow startup concepts and businesses from series A to C.
Our specialists are from some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley and across the globe and work across a wide range of fields and disciplines, including user acquisition, data science, product marketing, lifecycle, UX design, creative direction, branding, and public relations, and more.
Mavan has helped over 30 companies scale over the last 18-24 months and we’re working on a few internal projects that we’ll likely be able to share more details on before the end of the year.
What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
I’m originally from Dallas and have been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area for 17 years now. Both of my parents were entrepreneurs and I followed suit at the ripe age of 13 when I began to mow yards in my neighborhood for cash. Early on in that venture, it occurred to me that I could increase business by posting flyers to advertise my services.
That said, I didn't know exactly how much I should be charging, so I posted flyers on different streets offering different pricing. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had organically run my first A/B test with that experiment. That led me to pursue a career in marketing which ultimately served as the breeding ground for what has now become Mavan.
Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?
It's no secret that the entrepreneurial journey can be extremely challenging, long fought, and all-consuming. I feel fortunate that, with Mavan, we'd already proven our value proposition by signing our first client before our company's official launch, which helped us become and remain profitable from Day 1 without requiring outside investment. Our first client came from a prominent VC in Silicon Valley who wanted to sanity check an idea he had. This set the tone for Mavan’s early stages as all of our business for the first 18 months was inbound, word-of-mouth driven referral business.
The second you start doing something that you believe in with total commitment, your energy changes.
This early buy-in and proof of concept also allowed us to onboard some of the top talent from major tech companies across Silicon Valley and beyond in both fractional and full-time capacities — our unique business model has been instrumental in our mission to deliver world-class growth solutions to scale transformative companies.
While we’re able to bring in a wide range of specialists for nearly any role, we typically focus on the core elements of a growth funnel for most clients. From the top of the funnel down, we consider those to be: Persona Development/Creative Production, User Acquisition, On-page Conversion Rate Optimization/SEO/ASO, Lifecycle/Email/Push/SMS, and Data/Analytics/Segmentation. Our first few weeks with a new client are spent going through their existing documentation, historical data, context gathering, and various workshops with the leadership and functional heads. Those first few weeks of discovery are crucial to understanding the opportunity and mapping out the plan that will act as the initial building blocks to bridge them to their desired future state.
Once we’ve got sufficient context, we map out an initial 90-day sprint, align with senior stakeholders and begin the next phase of the partnership focused entirely on the execution of that strategy. We’re able to scale up and down in various areas of the business as the needs of our clients change and new opportunities present themselves. We let the data drive decision-making and focus on the levers of growth that have the highest potential for impact. By being agnostic to where growth comes from, as opposed to a typically vertically integrated agency, we’re able to maximize value for the client. Our incentives are perfectly aligned with those of our clients.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We’ve been doing very well and are thankful for all the support and interest. We’ve successfully scaled out the Mavan network of experts and continue to onboard top-tier talent while rapidly developing our core services as we come out of stealth mode.
Our forecasts anticipate a $20 million topline by the end of 2023, so we are growing quickly. We plan to hire at least 25 more full-time people before the end of the year and would expect to likely double again the following year.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
We learned firsthand that our startup benefited from specialized fractional talent saving us from having to make substantial capital investments (and, effectively, proving our solution’s central thesis). We learned that we could bring in a dozen specialists at a cost similar to one full-time employee or generalist, which is what we also coach our clients through doing in their businesses.
My advice to any aspiring or budding entrepreneur would be: if you go in, go all in. Don’t do any of it halfway. Entrepreneurs always run the risk of quitting a secure, established, well-paying job to take the leap of faith in themselves and failing in the process, but nobody wins big being halfway in.
We observed that, oftentimes, the highest quality talent are also the ones that can get bored easily. And it's not surprising, as these tend to be high-capacity achievers who are capable of impacting much more than one business at a time. So, for those people (including those we hire on a fractional basis), we learned that creating the freedom to accept smaller projects on the side can help inject more life and excitement into their regular, day-to-day work.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We’ve been very happy with:
We’ve also enjoyed leveraging Customer.io as an email service provider.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
One particular episode from the Naval podcast, “Play Long Term Games with Long Term People,”perfectly summarizes our approach to building relationships in business.
In terms of books, three books have been truly influential for me:
(1) Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras, which is a great resource for those who are leading their business through tough times.
(2) Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh.
(3) Measure What Matters by John Doerr, which is excellent for those who are looking to quickly scale their startups.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
In my own experience, there was a big turning point between the "I'm thinking about doing this" phase and the "I am doing this" stage. There’s certainly something to be said about feeling fully committed to the fierce pursuit of your idea. So, my advice to any aspiring or budding entrepreneur would be: if you go in, go all in. Don’t do any of it halfway. Entrepreneurs always run the risk of quitting a secure, established, well-paying job to take the leap of faith in themselves and failing in the process, but nobody wins without playing the game — and arguably, failure is an essential part of the path to greatness.
Of course, I’d encourage them to first do the research and secure the resources necessary for success, but that scary leap is well worth it once they’ve put those early puzzle pieces into place. The second you start doing something that you believe in with total commitment, your energy changes.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Yes, we are currently hiring for full-time roles across nearly every function of the business. We’re looking for:
- Analysts
- Developers
- Designers
- Salespeople
- Organic social
We leverage fractional talent at the traditional VP-level of talent and have a full-time staff that’s a blend of C-level down to button-pushing operators. There’s not really a function within a business that we don’t have an incredible resource already on staff for. We’ve also created entire roles and divisions around the right people. We’re always open to new ideas, skill sets and talent. For more information, checkout our careers page.
Where can we go to learn more?
For more information, please go to our website.
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
- 4,818 founder case studies
- Access to our founder directory
- Live events, courses and recordings
- 8,628 business ideas
- $1M in software savings
