We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ray McKenzie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ray below.
Hi Ray, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
My optimism comes from the belief that I have in myself that I will figure it out. I don’t think I have all the answers. I know I will mess up. I’ll try different things. But if its something that I want for myself, my company, my family, or others..I will figure it out and get the right answers.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m the Founder and CEO of StartingPoint. StartingPoint is a workflow management software for professional services consultants and teams. I’m excited about the software because it solved a problem I had running my own consulting firm. This is my first software startup and working through the challenges has been tough, conflicting, and mentally rough to make sure you continue to push through. Try something. Fail. Try something else. Might work a little. And keep going. Our software and our company is built on providing solutions and that’s what we are doing. Our software and company has released several integrations, features, and solutions for firms…we are excited about our continued growth, partnership with BDev Ventures, and new customers.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The top three qualities or skills that have helped me on this journey have been my willingness to be vulnerable, ability to persevere, and having an outlook to run a lean company.
As a startup founder it’s difficult to create something and be willing to take criticism and feedback. Once your product or service is created, you have to put it out into the world. Take the comments and feedback and improve on it. Nothing is perfect.
My ability to persevere has helped the company continue to grow. As we go into year 3 in the market, growth is our focus. It’s not easy launching. It’s not easy continuing. It’s also not easy to make mistakes and overcome them. See the long term vision and plan to work towards that.
The last important quality is the commitment to running a lean company. We do not want to waste money. I self-funded this company so we watch every dollar and what is spent where. It’s allowed us to look for the best delivery of services from people and we make decisions quickly if it’s not working as we want.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I believe it’s better to know your strengths, know your weaknesses, and lean into bringing your weaknesses up to being average if possible. It takes a LOT of work to make weaknesses become strengths, but you have the ability to make them average or above average without losing aspects of your strengths. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can be great at everything. In my career I was never a sales person. I would honestly say I was a bad person. I could close a deal if a person brought it to me, but to go from nothing to a customer was difficult. Over the years I have read several books and worked to become a good sales person. This has helped both of my companies and helped me reach levels of success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.startingpoint.ai
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/raytmckenzie
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondmckenzie
- Twitter: https://www.x.com/raymc209
Image Credits
Corporate images owned by me.
