We were lucky to catch up with James Richard recently and have shared our conversation below.
James , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Im James, I started my supplement company Bizi in 2020. There was a lot of pressure, but at the same time it was like if I made a mistake who cared the world had so much other stuff to be worried by. Keeping the company going through the years is not an easy task. Especially when you bootstrap it. You have to have some sort of resiliency and understand your goals take time.
Resilience for me can be broken down into 2 parts, feedback and goals.
Part of owning a business and being able to continue on is having the ability to hear feedback and react to it appropriately. You need to listen to what people say and determine how you want to filter the information you are receiving. Taking harsh, unhelpful criticism personally can easily discourage you on your entrepreneurship journey. While some one might be giving your company or product that feedback, ask your self.
Are they your target customer?
Are they users of the product?
Are they in the same industry as you?
Keep in mind who and what type of people are giving you advice! The same goes for when you’re struggling and feel defeated. Listen to the customers when they praise your company for helping them achieve a goal or fill a need. These wins can be the wind in your sails some days.For us getting that first customer review that was outside of our family and friends felt like a giant win and reminded us that we have what it takes to make a good product and run this business.
On my own journey whenever I ran into something I wasn’t sure of I asked other business owners questions about how they handled that certain situation. I had to make sure that I was asking people in the supplement industry for feedback and how to best plan for the future of the company. After talking to them I had to evaluate their company to see if that was the same path that I wanted my company to go down.
It is also important to not get dragged down by the day to day of situations. Keep in mind the end goals for what you’re working on. Things happen everyday, good and bad. It is how you navigate those situations and realize there are more wins and more losses coming your way. Stay positive and stay realistic. This just comes with practice of setting goals and not getting to hyper focused on the small details. Remember the big picture.
For us we had so many of these happen. Inventory gets messed up. You spend money on the wrong services etc.. We had to keep believing in the product and remind ourselves what our end goals were daily.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I started this business with my co-founder in 2020 and we launched it during the pandemic to help people get their nutrition in a tasty and transparent way.
Lots of supplements use binders and fillers in their capsulation’s and powders and we decided that instead of using that method we would in turn use a natural sweet and delicious item as the vessel to deliver the nutrition. We use raw honey to eliminate those ingredients! Honey is naturally good for you so why not utilize it in vitamin delivery.
People like my younger brother with Crohn’s can use this product and not have to worry about it disrupting their digestive system with things that can cause inflammation. His journey to health inspired us to create a better for you way of taking supplements.
We now sell on Amazon, our website and small mom and pop stores around the South East. We are in a growing stage and trying to grow the brand and product with our bootstrapped method. If you want to learn more about us visit www.gobizi.co
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
It is important to ask questions. That is the number 1 thing that people do to find success. As I stated before you do need to make sure you’re asking the right people the right questions but to start you need to be curious and always be learning. Just because you’re in an industry and have been for some time doesn’t mean you know everything. Learning continuously is important .
Be willing to adapt and lose the ego at the door. Being an entrepreneur means that your customers and clients will help guide your business, not that you know best. Just because you think something is a good idea or good product does not mean the market feels the same way. You will be fighting the market the whole way if you don’t listen to your customers.
Finally once you have gathered data and have your product or service it is important to believe in yourself and remember your goals. Like I mentioned, the big picture is more important than the small details. Work backwards if you need and figure out the steps of how to get where you want to go.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
A good thing to practice when feeling overwhelmed or making hard decisions is take time. Don’t rush into decisions. Obviously some decisions might need to be made within a relatively quick period of time, but make sure you’ve thought about possibilities and outcomes from this decision.
Personally I like to comeback to things a day or two later to see how I still feel about a certain decision or find out if I need to do more research. Rushed research is surely going to lead to headaches down the road. After all that has been done, trust your gut. If you feel like it is the right decision then go forward.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gobizi.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gobizi
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letsgetbizi
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vitamin-honey
Image Credits
James Richard photos
