The Million-Dollar Content Marketing + Social Media Strategy behind Dyslexia Connect - Ep#8 - Peter Groth

Content marketing and social media are marketing strategies that nearly every businesses uses these days.

But how do you use them together effectively?

Peter Groth built his business to over $1m ARR using content marketing and social media primarily. Recently I interviewed him on the StartupSauce SaaS podcast (Episode #8) and asked him how he does it.

The 7-Figure Content + Social Media Strategy Dyslexia Connect Uses To Drive Inbound Leads

We discussed how to sell to decisionmakers who are not the end users (in Peter's case, parents buy dyslexia tutoring for their kids), how Peter solved his "discovery problem" and gained initial traction and more.

Peter is the founder of Dyslexia Connect - the first company in the world to provide online dyslexia tutoring. It has been helping kids, teenagers and adults improve their reading, spelling and reading comprehension since 2010

You can check it out at Dyslexiaconnect.com

In this episode you can expect to learn about:

• How to sell a new category of product/service that nobody is searching for (yet)
• Marketing strategies for a "discovery problem" vs a "fulfilment problem"
• The onboarding processes Peter uses for both clients and new employees
• The exact content marketing + social media strategy Peter uses to get customers
• How to build a good company culture when you have a fully remote team

Here's a short 8-minute clip from our conversation.

 

Also you might be interested in these:

• 15 SaaS Marketing Strategies to Supercharge Your Growth
• Accounting For SaaS Businesses - A Guide For Founders
• How to Raise Capital From Investors For Your SaaS Startup - Ep#7 with Robert Gelb

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[00:00:00] Peter Groth: Come up with an idea. And we think this is a great idea. I'm going to work and work and work towards this, but we don't necessarily think, is this going to be a lifestyle that I enjoy that I like, what do you mean you had to change the paradigm? Do I have this wrong? There are my, was my estimation wrong?

[00:00:14] Peter Groth: Was my market fit idea wrong with this? I underestimated it. And I realized once I started the company, how, how ingrained it was and how much work it was going to be to change that. What do you do 

[00:00:24] Ryan Wardell: better than or differently to this? 

[00:00:27] Peter Groth: One of the things that's been really, really important to us from the beginning.

[00:00:32] Peter Groth: Peter Groth, welcome to the show. Thank you, Ryan. It's great to 

[00:00:35] Ryan Wardell: be here. So let's, let's start off with something pretty spicy. Okay. So what was the biggest roadblock that you encountered, uh, when you started Dyslexia Connect? 

[00:00:44] Peter Groth: Yeah, absolutely. The biggest roadblock I encountered was trying to change the paradigm.

[00:00:49] Peter Groth: That dyslexia tutoring needs to be in person to be successful and actually showing that it can be tremendously successful in the online environment. That was the biggest, the biggest hurdle I faced. 

[00:01:01] Ryan Wardell: Talk me through that a little bit more. Like what, what do you mean you had to change the paradigm? 

[00:01:04] Peter Groth: So up to that point, Dyslexia Connect was the, the first online dyslexia tutoring service available.

[00:01:11] Peter Groth: And I guess when I was starting the company, I thought that the main part of that reason was just that people hadn't really figured out how to sort of adapt it or move it to the online environment yet, and that's the main reason why there wasn't anybody offering that. Um, but I realized once I was starting the company, and especially once I got it started, that it was very much that idea that Dyslexia Tutoring has to be in person to work.

[00:01:36] Peter Groth: The reason for that is that the methods, um, the method that I'm trained in, that most dyslexia tutors are trained in is, has a strong emphasis on multi sensory elements. And the idea was that you could not transition those, those, multi sensory elements to the online environment. And so dyslexia tutoring need to be in person so that you could be giving the student objects and have them manipulating things and actually working that way.

[00:02:04] Peter Groth: And it wouldn't be possible to do it online and it wouldn't be nearly, nearly as effective. And so, um, with my own experience as a dyslexia tutor, I really thought it was possible to make online tutoring multi sensory and to incorporate those different aspects that needed to be part of tutoring. And that's, that's Part of what led me to create the company is I, I really thought and knew that it was possible.

[00:02:27] Peter Groth: Um, but that's why, that's why that was a hurdle. And it was an issue because first of all, there was a lot of, there were a lot of articles out there and different websites saying that. Online dyslexia tutoring wouldn't work. You have to find a provider in person. So that was working against the company when we first started.

[00:02:45] Peter Groth: But also there was an issue because a lot of dyslexia tutors hadn't considered online dyslexia tutoring before. And so in the beginning, we were really struggling to, to find clients who thought that it was possible and would work. But we're also struggling to find tutors who are really committed to the idea and who thought that it could work.

[00:03:05] Peter Groth: So, so both sides of the equation. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think the level, the level of the resistance, I, I underestimated it. And I realized once I started the company, how, how ingrained it was and how much work it was going to be to change that. 

[00:03:22] Ryan Wardell: I think it's really interesting. So a lot, a lot of the founders that I talked to, um, you know, so I come from a marketing background and so most startups have either a discovery problem or a fulfillment problem.

[00:03:33] Ryan Wardell: So discovery problem is, um, let's talk about fulfillment problems. That's. Wait, wait, wait, easier. Um, you go in and you see, is anyone searching for this? Is this a known category? Is there lots of search volume for it? Are people familiar with it? So if I type in email marketing software, there are thousands and thousands of searches for that every month.

[00:03:50] Ryan Wardell: So the way that you win, if you have a fulfillment problem, like people, people aren't, they know the space, they know that solutions exist. They just need to find the best one. So you just need to win at SEO. You need to win at Google ads and you need to be really good at persuading people to pick your solution as opposed to one of the other many hundreds of solutions that exist.

[00:04:07] Ryan Wardell: If you've got a discovery problem, though, people don't necessarily know that solutions exist. They don't even necessarily know they've got a problem. So when you were describing what happened with Dyslexia Connect, you not only needed to persuade people that Dyslexia Connect was the best option. You had to persuade them that this solution actually works.

[00:04:26] Ryan Wardell: You can do dyslexia tutoring online and it's just as effective, if not more so. But then you had to persuade a whole industry that was conditioned to believing that. You couldn't do it online. So you were really pushing the boulder uphill. 

[00:04:40] Peter Groth: It really, it really felt like that for the first number of years.

[00:04:43] Peter Groth: In fact, yeah, it very much felt like that. And I guess what really pushed me to continue is that I really, I really believed it was possible and I believed in the benefit that I was going to have. And I remember reconsidering several times during the early years when it was really tough and we weren't really growing that much, I remember thinking, did I.

[00:05:01] Peter Groth: Do I have this wrong? Did we are my, was my estimation wrong? Was my market fit idea wrong with this? And every time I came to the conclusion, no, this is right. This is going to work. I just need to keep moving forward. So, 

[00:05:14] Ryan Wardell: yeah, I think a lot of, I think, I think every entrepreneur has those kind of moments of self doubt, but so many people give up just before things start to click into place.

[00:05:23] Ryan Wardell: So I really want to dive into that in, in, in just a moment, but maybe for a little bit of context for, for anyone who doesn't know you or hasn't met you yet. Um, can you just kind of give us a quick overview? What is Dyslexia Connect and who is it for? 

[00:05:35] Peter Groth: Definitely. Dyslexia Connect is an online dyslexia tutoring service that provides tutoring for reading, spelling, and reading comprehension to kids, teenagers, and adults.

[00:05:46] Peter Groth: I would say that we primarily work with work with kids, but we do work with some teenagers and adults. As well. So we work with anybody who has dyslexia, who needs help in reading and spelling. And we also work with some students who don't have dyslexia, but just have general reading difficulties. Because the method that we use is really great for anybody who's struggling with reading.

[00:06:06] Ryan Wardell: It must be super interesting. Cause even though the, The actual client is quite often kids. The person you're selling it to is the parent or the parents. So how do you go about, like, how do you, how do you navigate that? Cause the, the, the actually end user is different to the person who is holding the purse strings and making the decisions.

[00:06:25] Peter Groth: Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So, um, one of the things that's been really, really important to us. From the beginning is raising awareness about dyslexia and providing information about dyslexia. And in fact, that's a, that's one of the missions of the company that I feel really, really good about.

[00:06:42] Peter Groth: And it's been very important since the beginning. So we, we provide online dyslexia tutoring, but we also want to help people better understand dyslexia and how you can help a student with dyslexia improve. And so that's, that's one of the real ways that I think we. Reach parents because we have a, we have a YouTube channel with videos about dyslexia.

[00:07:02] Peter Groth: We post lots and lots of information about dyslexia pretty much every weekday on social media. And a lot of people find us, find us that way. And we really, we really, Seek to help parents find their way through the confusing journey that discovering their child has dyslexia can be, um, a lot of times parents will, we'll either get a diagnosis of dyslexia for their child from a doctor, a psychologist who specializes in learning issues, or they might just get to a point where they realize, you know, Something's going on here.

[00:07:36] Peter Groth: My, my child's really smart and they're just having a lot of trouble with reading and spelling. I don't know why this is. And they'll start to actually seek out information that way. And they will discover, discover information about dyslexia and realize, wow, my child obviously has dyslexia. I need to get them, get them help for that.

[00:07:53] Peter Groth: And I would say that probably. Probably the majority of the parents who use our service, um, discovered dyslexia that way, they actually just realized a child was struggling a lot, started looking for answers, and sometimes they ended up finding those answers via our social media outreach or, or our YouTube channel.

[00:08:13] Peter Groth: Um, and so that's, that's a way that we really connect with parents. 

[00:08:17] Ryan Wardell: Can you run me through just what's, what's the origin story? How, how did you come up with the idea? How did you get started? And it sounds like you've got a lot of content out in the universe now, but in the very early days, like how did you get your first few customers?

[00:08:30] Peter Groth: Yeah, absolutely. So it's kind of a winding path that led me to starting Dyslexia Connect. When I graduated college, I started. Tutoring students privately, part time. And I really, really loved the work and decided to try to do that full time actually, and that decision led me to become trained in a method that's called the Orton Gillingham method, which is a really famous method that's been around for a long time for working with students who have dyslexia and helping them improve their, their reading and spelling issues.

[00:09:02] Peter Groth: So I became trained in that and started working basically full time as a dyslexia tutor, as well as. Substitute teaching a bit also. Um, and I've always had an entrepreneurial streak really in, in 2006, I actually started a company called adventure French, which was creating French language learning materials for kids who are homeschooled and part of my interest in that community came from the fact that I was homeschooled myself as well, um, through, through school and through high school until I went to college.

[00:09:32] Peter Groth: So I started that up. Um, I worked really, really hard on that business and I'm really happy with how the product turned out and what it did for families who are using it, but it never, it never really got traction. So some years later I ended up closing that business, but I mentioned that in the story of Dyslexia Connect because I often joke about that experience being my MBA program.

[00:09:57] Peter Groth: I feel like, I feel like the amount I learned from that experience. I can't really underestimate. I learned a whole lot about what works, doesn't work, and that experience had a tremendously positive effect when I started Dyslexia Connect later on. So, um, so some more years went by when I was just tutoring full time basically, and then in 2009, I really started to become interested in online education.

[00:10:23] Peter Groth: It seemed like a lot of things were going online. There was a lot of dyslexia tutor, or I shouldn't say dyslexia tutoring, but general tutoring going on online. And I, uh, I really started to get excited about starting another company. And really, you know, digging into entrepreneurship again. And I think I, that's one of those times in my life where I realized.

[00:10:46] Peter Groth: How much it's really in my blood because I just I can't seem to avoid it. I love it. No, I love it It's exciting. It's interesting And a couple times in my life I thought i'd kind of go do something else and leave behind It just doesn't work that way like I just kind of got back into it So so I spent some time thinking about what I might be able to do and in early 2010 I I thought well You know, parents are always talking to me about the fact that they have trouble finding dyslexia tutors.

[00:11:13] Peter Groth: There's no central place they can go to find a listing for dyslexia tutoring. It's really difficult. There aren't enough providers around in certain areas. Sometimes they have a two or three year wait list. I would talk to parents who are driving two or three hours round trip to get to somebody who had this specific training, sometimes two or three times a week.

[00:11:33] Peter Groth: And so I thought, you know, I should really, I should really start a website that has dyslexia information and a provider directory. So I thought about that for a while. And I thought that'd be, that'd be a good step, but it still wouldn't solve the problem that a lot of people don't live close to providers.

[00:11:51] Peter Groth: And that led me down the path of thinking, well, you know, would it be possible to actually offer dyslexia tutoring online? And I think once I had the idea and I thought more about it, I became really, really excited about it and thought that it would just be. a really great solution that would help people get the help they need wherever they're living.

[00:12:10] Peter Groth: And at that point, I started working really, really hard towards that. Probably for the next, for the next eight months, I started figuring out how it would work. I developed all the materials that we would be using online. I figured out a meeting software solution that we could use for the actual online sessions.

[00:12:28] Peter Groth: Um, and I also learned how to do some basic coding in Flash. I'm not a programmer myself. I'm not a technical founder in that sense. Um, I did not have that experience working with programming, but I ended up doing that cause I just really, really needed, I really needed some applications that would kind of replicate activities I did in person.

[00:12:49] Peter Groth: In the online environment to make tutoring engaging and fun and offer the same experience. So I did all that, spent a lot of time just at my computer working. And then November, 2010 is when I started with the first student through the company. And your question about the first client, actually, the first person I taught online, in the beginning, I did all the teaching myself, the first student was actually somebody who reached out about tutoring in person, and they lived maybe 20 or 30 minutes away from me, and I said, well, you know, Would you be interested in trying tutoring online?

[00:13:24] Peter Groth: Cause we have this, I have the solution now, and if you're interested, we can do that. And so that was the, that was the first student to ever work with the company. 

[00:13:31] Ryan Wardell: Wow. And, and how did you go from, you know, sort of one to 10 or one to a hundred? Like how, how did you get them that, that sort of initial traction to begin with?

[00:13:41] Peter Groth: So that initial traction, it was, it was very slow in the beginning. I would say in the first, probably for the first four or five months, we had a couple of students, we had some interests and then things would, things would fall through. So going into the summer of 2011. I really thought I needed to do something to kickstart everything.

[00:14:01] Peter Groth: So I started advertising more, advertising more online and offering, offering tutoring at very heavily discounted rates. For example, maybe, maybe one quarter. Of the normal going rate, one fifth of the normal going rate for dyslexia tutoring, because I really, I really wanted people to try it and see that it would work and that it was possible and move forward and that, um, that's the thing that actually helped the company start to grow and, and start to get some numbers.

[00:14:31] Peter Groth: So we started getting more and more students. And I think, I think by the, by the end of that summer, I think I was tutoring, maybe it's about 60 hours a week or 62 hours a week myself. And a lot of hours. Um, and then in September I've hired my first tutor who would work with, uh, work with the company and, and she's still with us actually.

[00:14:52] Peter Groth: So yeah, yeah, yep. She's still, she's still tutoring with us, which is fantastic. I'm so glad she's, she's still around with us. 

[00:14:59] Ryan Wardell: Did you, you mentioned earlier that you had a difficult time initially recruiting tutors because there was still that prevailing belief that. No, no, no, it has to be done in person.

[00:15:08] Ryan Wardell: It can't be done online. Yeah. Like what, what, what was different about that tutor? Like, was it, was it difficult to persuade them or. 

[00:15:14] Peter Groth: I think it seemed like a very good opportunity for her because she lived, she lived in a smaller, smaller area, smaller city or town in the Midwest where there weren't a ton of opportunities for tutoring right around her.

[00:15:27] Peter Groth: And so for that reason, she was looking for another solution. She thought, Hey, if there's something online, I could. I could possibly do this online and there'd be plenty of students for me to work with and that's how she found Dyslexia Connect and, um, and I think she was just very open minded. She thought, hey, if there's some way, I love this job.

[00:15:44] Peter Groth: And, um, from what I remember, she had been working at an in person tutoring center that had actually closed down. And so she, she knew she loved the work and wanted to continue doing it, but there weren't any other immediate opportunities in her area. And so she started looking online for that reason. 

[00:16:01] Ryan Wardell: So, so the, the whole offering tutoring at a heavily, heavily, heavily discounted rate, I think a lot of businesses start off by, we'll just go way cheaper than everybody else, but you can't sustain that forever, especially when you've got to start paying salaries and everything else.

[00:16:13] Ryan Wardell: Like at what point did you start moving your rates back up to something that would be a bit more sustainable? 

[00:16:19] Peter Groth: Yeah, I had to, I had to do that actually at the, at the end of that summer. So going into fall and I didn't, I didn't move them up much, but I moved it up to an amount that would be, would be more sustainable.

[00:16:31] Peter Groth: Um, and then, and then did that again at a certain point when it seemed like it was like it was possible. Um, you're definitely right. You kind of, you can't really go long term with offering heavily, heavily discount rates, cause you need to be able to pay your staff and, and pay your tutors. And in fact, it can.

[00:16:49] Peter Groth: I noticed at a certain point that I think. I think our rates were actually working against us in the sense that people were not taking us seriously necessarily, because we were priced very, very, very far below our competition. And, um, that's, that's an interesting aspect. I feel like at, at one point, once I got to the level where it was kind of in the ballpark of, of other, other services, still, still very affordable and kind of a budget solution still, but at least in the ballpark, it felt like That actually increased our legitimacy because I think some people wondered why on earth there was this service offering, offering this service that was so discounted compared to other options that they could, they could offer.

[00:17:35] Peter Groth: So I think that is an aspect that people have to think of when they're considering pricing as well, which is. Which is something that I maybe didn't think of originally. I 

[00:17:44] Ryan Wardell: think that's so interesting. Cause there is like, pricing's not an easy thing. Everyone thinks it's straightforward. You just stick pricing up there, but trying to figure out how much to charge and is it the right amount, but even something as simple as like, you know, Oh, it's, it's.

[00:17:56] Ryan Wardell: It's a quarter of what everyone else is charging. What's wrong with it, you know, and you really don't want that going through people's heads. Um, just a bit of a tangent, but if you were starting Dyslexia Connect today with what you know now, would you still have priced it like that in the beginning?

[00:18:12] Ryan Wardell: Because I think like there's a lot of advantages. People are more willing to give it a go, but there's some disadvantages as well. How would you have approached if you had your time over again? 

[00:18:21] Peter Groth: I think if the climate was still the same, I would do that again. However, if I was starting dyslexia connects today, the climate is drastically different.

[00:18:32] Peter Groth: So we were. We were the first online dyslexia tutoring company. We hardly had any competitors for a number of years that all changed in 2020. Uh, at that point it forced every dyslexia tutoring company to go online and offer an online option due to COVID. Um, and so the market has really changed drastically and also it's become so much more widespread that there's just a lot more acceptance of it in general as an Whereas when I started dyslexia connect, it was.

[00:19:03] Peter Groth: It was something completely different. It was, it was different from the normal paradigm. And, and so I think if I, if I started it in this day and age in the current climate of dyslexia tutoring, I would not need to do that, but I think it was. The right choice in 2010 when I when I started let's 

[00:19:20] Ryan Wardell: let's dig into it because if 2020 was the year where everything changed because suddenly all the other dyslexia tutors had had to go online or die off.

[00:19:29] Ryan Wardell: Um, so, so I think I think again, that's probably a bit of a double edged sword too, because that. That raises a lot of awareness and it brings a lot more legitimacy to the space because everyone else is doing it and suddenly you're not this sort of, you know, lone wolf, um, off in the distance. But, um, but then you've got a lot more competition to deal with.

[00:19:47] Ryan Wardell: So, so, so what, what is your secret sauce at Dyslexia Connect? Like what, what do you, how do you stand out against your competitors? What do you do better than or differently to your competitors? 

[00:19:57] Peter Groth: I think one thing, one thing is we have really fantastic tutors who work for the company. I feel really, really fortunate to have a staff of really great tutors who are really passionate, very well trained, very experienced, and very passionate about what they do.

[00:20:13] Peter Groth: And. fun to work with. They are very committed to making tutoring sessions fun and engaging for students. And we've had a lot of clients start with us who maybe tried another option and came to us and said, like, my, my kids really not on board for this, but like, they need to help. I need to give it another try.

[00:20:30] Peter Groth: And they start working with us and they're kind of amazed because their, their child doesn't resist doing tutoring sessions and they actually start to like it and start to really enjoy it. So, um, we place a premium on that. So I think that's, that's one of the things. Um, also we are a company that was, was founded by a dyslexia tutor.

[00:20:49] Peter Groth: Me of course, and, and run by dyslexia tutors. We, uh, all of my admin staff are, are former dyslexia tutors. In fact, who have that experience and that kind of training. And so we really have a, part of that leads to us really having. A passion for the mission of the company at every level. So our tutors are great.

[00:21:10] Peter Groth: Have a passion for teaching our admin staff really have a passion for helping kids learn to read as well. And so, so there's a lot of, uh, Really a wealth of knowledge about dyslexia and a passion for teaching at every level of the company. And I think that that comes through as well. Um, another thing is that, uh, we've just had a lot of years of experience.

[00:21:32] Peter Groth: So we started in 2010. We've been providing online dyslexia tutoring for, for 14 years. Sometimes that's. 10 years longer than a competitor that a client might be looking at. And so, um, and that time has given us a lot of, a lot of time to really help our, our system work really smoothly and delivery of tutoring be really, really great and easy.

[00:21:55] Peter Groth: And so I think, I think that makes a difference, a difference as well. Uh, another thing is we, we are still very affordable compared to a lot of options. And we have very transparent billing policies. Everything's completely clear and upfront and initial testing that a lot of companies do. It might, might cost several thousand dollars just to get your foot in the door and get started with tutoring.

[00:22:19] Peter Groth: We offer that for free and yeah, so there's no, no barrier to entry. We just have a flat rate. For each of our tutoring plans every month, no additional costs or fees beyond that. And so I think that helps clients know that they can really trust us. And we also don't, don't require contracts. People stay with us because it really works.

[00:22:41] Peter Groth: So they don't need to sign up for a certain amount of months. When they start with us, we just go, we just go month by month. Month by month. 

[00:22:48] Ryan Wardell: So I think that's, um, I think that's really powerful because, you know, you're only going to keep someone if you're delivering every single session. Um, and, and they know that, yeah, they appreciate that.

[00:22:58] Ryan Wardell: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Hey, it's Ryan here. I'm glad you're enjoying the video. Listen, if you want to meet me or some of the people that I interview, you should really join the startup source, SaaS founder community. It's a private Slack group for SaaS founders based outside of Silicon Valley who are past the idea stage and want to focus on growth.

[00:23:16] Ryan Wardell: About 30 percent of our members are doing over a million dollars a year in revenue. So it's a pretty high caliber group. You'll get access to regular mastermind calls and workshops. And every week we share exclusive marketing tactics and resources that you can use to grow your business faster. So if you want to give yourself an unfair advantage and learn from other SaaS founders who are one or two steps ahead of you, head over to startupsource.

[00:23:38] Ryan Wardell: com and sign up. I think there's a link in the description down below as well. Anyway, I'll see you in there. I want to dive in a little bit into some of the systems and processes that you use because now yours is more of a productized service with like a marketplace element to it. I know you've done a really good job of systemizing everything, having good processes for everything, but for both sides of that marketplace as well.

[00:23:59] Ryan Wardell: Um, and, and your business lives or dies on how well you deliver, you know, not just the services, but the processes that you use to deliver those services in the first place. So tell me a bit about, uh, What the onboarding experience is like for a brand new client. 

[00:24:14] Peter Groth: Almost everybody who starts with us goes through a free trial process that we offer.

[00:24:19] Peter Groth: We offer a free trial for anybody who's interested in our tutoring. And that, uh, that free trial includes an online tutoring session that lasts about, usually about 40 minutes to 55 minutes. Um, so, When they sign up, we go ahead and schedule that, and they're able to do that session, and the session serves two really important purposes.

[00:24:42] Peter Groth: First of all, it allows the parent and the student to get a sense of what online dyslexia tutoring with Dyslexia Connect is like, but it also allows us to do a basic evaluation of the student. So the tutors who provide those free trial sessions in the company are very experienced and very, very adept at being able to jump into a session who they haven't, with a student who they haven't met before, and do a great job of determining what their needs are, where the gaps are, and how we can best help them make progress.

[00:25:14] Peter Groth: And when that trial session is completed. There is a trial session report that the tutor generates, and we use that for our own purposes and keep it for our own records, and we also send that to the parents, in fact, so they can kind of see what we have observed, and how we might be able to help the student.

[00:25:32] Peter Groth: And, That's a really great guideline. That trial session report gives us a great idea of where we need to start with a student. And if the parent does decide to start regular tutoring, we pass that report onto the regular tutor who they're going to be working with. Once we schedule them with a tutor, they work with that, that tutor all the time for all their sessions.

[00:25:52] Peter Groth: So that the tutor is able to establish a relationship with a student and really track their progress well. So that's, that's kind of the onboarding process that happens. And that is. Um, that's completely free. Actually, anybody can do that. Anybody can try that out. And, um, we offer it if anybody is interested.

[00:26:10] Ryan Wardell: So that's, that's a lot of work and value to offer up front. Um, but you find that that tends to convert pretty well. And once people have that first session, they're keen to book another one. Definitely. Yep. 

[00:26:22] Peter Groth: Yep, the conversion rate is, is good for that. And it's great to give people a chance to see what the sessions are like.

[00:26:28] Peter Groth: And, um, I have a lot of faith and confidence in our tutors. And I think they offer a really great experience. And so, um, if, if the parent and the student try a session, I'm confident that the student's going to have a really good experience. And that they are, are either going to consider us at the top of the list, um, for the options they're considering, or we will be at the top of the list after.

[00:26:52] Peter Groth: After that. So, uh, so it works very well for us. And that's actually something we've been using since the very beginning. The, that free trial process has been around. It's, it's much more detailed now. And the trial session report is something that we developed later on that we didn't have in the very beginning of the company.

[00:27:10] Peter Groth: Um, so we've sort of developed that process and made it, made it smoother and more informative as we've gone on. But the basic, the basic system we were using from the beginning. 

[00:27:21] Ryan Wardell: Is that that that trial report? Is that the, is that the, the aha moment that you're kind of moving towards? So, so what I mean by that is, you know, there's, there's sort of one distinct moment where people go, ah, I see, I get it.

[00:27:33] Ryan Wardell: I see the value in this. I know, I think it was Facebook was, um, if you can get to 10 friends within seven days, that's the aha moment. I know, with, with, with, With the startup source community, um, the aha moment that we try and move people towards is getting on a call. Maybe it's a mastermind call or, you know, an office hours call or something, but a call where they're on there talking about their problems and there's a bunch of other smart founders giving them good advice.

[00:27:55] Ryan Wardell: And they're like, Oh, I see the value in it now. Like, so, so we, we recognize that and it's like, okay, how do we structure our whole onboarding experience to accelerate them towards that, that moment as quickly as possible? Like what, what is it for Dyslexia Connect? 

[00:28:09] Peter Groth: Yeah, that's very much. I think it's the combination of that trial session and their face to face interaction with the tutor during that online session, trial session, tutor, and also the great information in the followup, which includes that, that trial session report.

[00:28:23] Peter Groth: So I think they, they see the session and they realize that, um, the online tutoring session, process is really smooth and really enjoyable for their students, and also that lets them know that we're very, very knowledgeable about dyslexia and know what we're doing and the trial session report and the follow up email we send with that report, um, I think really emphasize that as well and also let the parents see what the path is.

[00:28:51] Peter Groth: If they decide to, to use our service. So it gives them a clear steps, clear steps about how we will move forward and how we will help the student make progress. Uh, and, and then the great thing is of course, no contracts, so they can go ahead and try tutoring. And typically, um, the parents in our program start to see progress with their students after, after two or three weeks of tutoring sessions and progress continues, because.

[00:29:15] Peter Groth: Consistently from there. 

[00:29:16] Ryan Wardell: Fantastic. So you've got this clear roadmap for them, but not a whole lot of friction or upfront risk that makes it much easier to say yes. Yeah. Okay. That's smart. I like that a lot. Um, and, and just detouring a little bit, um, because you've got kind of a two sided marketplace here, what is your onboarding experience look like for new tutors?

[00:29:36] Ryan Wardell: Like, how do you bring them up to speed quickly? 

[00:29:39] Peter Groth: That's a great question. We have a. A full onboarding system that we developed and we have a tutor onboarding website, in fact. So we, um, we always, we always interview tutors in person. I do those interviews myself. And if we decide to, to hire them, to have them work with us, we get them started with the, the tutor training process.

[00:30:00] Peter Groth: And that is them going to the website, following the process. We have checklists. We have two different stages of training. And. We have checklists for both of those that guide them through the process. Um, interesting thing about us is that all of the tutors that we are hiring, they all have the specific training and the method that they need to use before we hire them.

[00:30:24] Peter Groth: So we do not do, we do not do training and how to work with students who have dyslexia. That's a very, very involved process and Um, when we hire a tutor, they already have all that training. They know how to teach. They know how to work with the students. The onboarding process is just sort of get them familiar with how dyslexia connect works, um, how they will interact with the admin staff and the resources that we have available.

[00:30:47] Peter Groth: So they follow that website and the different checklists. And once they've gotten. Through that material and had a chance to practice, we do a very brief test session with them just to, just to make sure they're comfortable with the basics of online tutoring. We'll have them, for example, put some flashcards on the screen during a zoom meeting, take a flashcard down, put a book up there just to make sure that once they get their first session, they aren't going to feel lost about how to operate zoom and how to use the materials that we have available for them.

[00:31:17] Peter Groth: Um, and then if that goes well, they. They move on to stage two, which is just some, some basic logistical things like setting up direct deposit payment for them, them providing their availability so that we can list that on our calendar and know when they're available for students. Uh, and once that's done, then we can go ahead and get them started with, uh, with a student.

[00:31:36] Peter Groth: And I should mention that the, the current process that we have is so much more effective and works so much better than early on when things were kind of piecemeal. Um, we put a lot of time and effort into creating this onboarding system. It makes a world of difference. Once somebody gets through that, they are really ready to tutor.

[00:31:58] Peter Groth: They tutor, they know how Dyslexia Connect works and they, uh, they typically are, are all set to go. And to, to verify that in fact, we also have a tutor review system. So we review tutors from time to time just to make sure everything's okay. And we've gotten really overwhelmingly positive reaction to that because the tutors feel like they know exactly what the expectations are and what they're supposed to be doing, and it gives us a chance to spot if they're having issues or problems with anything so that we can help them out and, and kind of help them move on, move on from that.

[00:32:35] Peter Groth: So. I highly recommend having a really, a really robust onboarding process because it has, it was a lot of work in the beginning. It has saved us so much time and so many problems in the long run. 

[00:32:49] Ryan Wardell: I think there's, there's a, there's a bit of a stereotype in the startup world that But initially everything is kind of held together with, you know, duct tape and chewing gum and wishful thinking, but, but some, some startups get stuck in the trap of not ever going back and building a more robust systems and processes fast enough.

[00:33:09] Ryan Wardell: And then you get to a point where everything is breaking all the time. Like how far into your journey did you bite the bullet and say, okay, we need to invest in proper onboarding systems for both tutors and for clients. 

[00:33:19] Peter Groth: So I think the, the onboarding process for the clients. Came fairly early and we were using that free trial system fairly, fairly early on.

[00:33:29] Peter Groth: Uh, it got much more detailed and more informative later on. And that was probably some years before we started actually providing them with a trial session report and some other information like that, as far as the tutor onboarding process. That was a number of years. So previous to that, I had a lot of information I had gathered that I would, I would send to tutors when they were starting, but it's, um, wasn't terribly well organized and some people had a hard time working through it and kind of figuring out where they were supposed to start and what they were supposed to do.

[00:34:02] Peter Groth: And we probably didn't get the really great onboarding system set up that we have now until maybe. Maybe 2018. Wow. And so it was some, it was some years, eight years. Yeah. The other, the other system was working, but we also had a lot of, uh, a lot more churn rate with tutors who wanted to start, but then felt overwhelmed by the training process and dropped out for that reason.

[00:34:28] Peter Groth: So once we got that system set up, that went way down, in fact, um, And people have a much easier time getting through training. So it was a, it was a number of years and that was not done until I started hiring admin staff, because I just did not, unfortunately did not have time to dedicate it. To that until, until that point.

[00:34:49] Ryan Wardell: So you need to grow the business to the point where you had enough revenue to be able to hire someone to take some of the admin workload off your plate, to free up the mental bandwidth and the, and the time to be able to go and put this, these proper systems in place. I think that, I think that's really important because if you aren't able to delegate to someone else, then you're forever stuck in, you know, Instead of building a proper system, you're stuck in doing all the work yourself manually instead of, you know, taking the time to build it properly.

[00:35:15] Ryan Wardell: Um, so, so, so that way, that was a big inflection point for you when you put in the proper, uh, onboarding and training system. And you mentioned 2020 was a big inflection point for you as well, because that's when the whole tutoring world went, went on, or the whole dyslexia tutoring world went, went online as well.

[00:35:31] Ryan Wardell: Were there any other big key moments in the, the kind of journey of your business so far or that you've noticed? 

[00:35:38] Peter Groth: Yeah, definitely. So one of the other really big moments is when I really committed to using social media for, for content marketing and for spreading information about dyslexia. I, I had, you know, I had some accounts for the business, um, before 2015, but 2015 was when I think I really had the time and decide I'm going to really dig into this and see how this works.

[00:36:02] Peter Groth: And it really starts seeing how we can use it for dyslexia connect. That definitely was an inflection point because I saw, I saw the results almost immediately. In fact, that we started having more people sign up for trial sessions, more people were finding our website and I became very, very committed to it and really started to enjoy it as well.

[00:36:24] Peter Groth: I really like creating custom graphics and doing content marketing and sharing information about dyslexia. So, so that was a really big. A really big point right there. Another thing was when I finally reached the point that I could hire, hire an admin staff person. That was, that was a really big deal because I did it a hundred percent, all the admin work myself until 2018.

[00:36:49] Peter Groth: And at that point I finally hired somebody to work in the admin staff and she's fantastic. And it was like, it was like, A switch just flipped and we suddenly were able to work on things as a team and it freed up, it freed up a lot of bandwidth for me to think about bigger issues and to think about the strategic direction of the business.

[00:37:12] Peter Groth: So that was a huge, huge thing. And, um, and of course it was a little bit scary at first, just like whenever, whenever anybody hires their first employer is doing that, it can be a little bit. A little bit nerve wracking, right? You want to hire the right person. You want to make sure it works, but, um, that was absolutely fantastic.

[00:37:30] Peter Groth: And I knew a couple of days into it that it was working extremely well and she was gonna be a great fit for the position. And so that was a big. That was a big point as well. 

[00:37:40] Ryan Wardell: Do you remember, was there something like, did you know she was going to be the right, the right one when you did the interview? Or you said it was, it was a few days into it or a few, few weeks into it.

[00:37:50] Ryan Wardell: Um, like what, was there one thing in particular that stood out about her that really said, yeah, she's it. 

[00:37:57] Peter Groth: Interestingly, she formerly was a tutor for us, in fact, who had been, been doing tutoring for maybe at least a couple of years, two or three years. So I actually hired her from our, our staff of tutors to work.

[00:38:10] Peter Groth: On the admin staff. Um, previous to that, I actually, I actually had tried a couple of times to, to hire people to do admin work. Um, once I just went with random online service to try to find somebody that that did not work and it was kind of a tough situation because I, for me at that point, I wasn't really sure what it was supposed to look like.

[00:38:35] Peter Groth: When I had somebody working on my admin staff or how I could tell if it was working or wasn't working, but it's became clear after about two months, I would say that it just wasn't clicking wasn't wasn't clicking with having this person work for the company. And so I had to look for another another solution.

[00:38:53] Peter Groth: And so I decided to start looking within the company because I thought, well, I have experience. I know our tutors. Um, I, you know, have interaction with them via email a lot. And maybe I can find somebody who would be interested. And Nicole, um, in fact, my first admin staffer, she was, was going to be having a baby, I think maybe three months, four months after that point.

[00:39:18] Peter Groth: And she, as a result, she wasn't going to be able to continue working with students because it probably wouldn't be possible to do online meetings and to, uh, Actually do that right after she had, she had the baby, but I thought, well, it would be possible for her to do, to do admin work. And based on my, my previous interaction with her, she had, she'd had a lot of great suggestions for improvements for the business.

[00:39:43] Peter Groth: She would sometimes randomly email me and say like, Hey, you know, I was just thinking this might, this might be a great thing to do. And I'm like, that's a really good idea actually. And she always seemed very, very well organized and it seemed like she would Do a good job with, with admin work for that reason.

[00:39:59] Peter Groth: So, um, so yeah, I decided to check and see if she would be interested and she, she started the results were almost immediate. I feel like within a couple of days I was realizing this, this is great. This is exactly what I need. She's doing a great job and. This is a great solution. I feel like we're moving on to the next level here because we'll be able to handle so much more since I'm not doing this all by myself.

[00:40:26] Ryan Wardell: I think, I think that's, that's really important. I, um, so, so one, one, so Sonny, the, the community manager at startups was one of the best times I've ever made. And she did something that she, she did a few things that were massive green flags for me. But one of the first things she said when she started, I asked her if she knew how to do a particular thing.

[00:40:43] Ryan Wardell: I've forgotten what it was. Do you know how to do this thing? And her response was, well, honestly, like, no, but I can probably figure it out. Like that in one sentence that I think is what you need to optimize for if you're a startup and you're hiring someone early because you need someone that can just kind of, I've never done it before, but I'm smart enough.

[00:40:58] Ryan Wardell: I could probably figure it out. You know, I don't, you don't need to be holding my hand or, you know, watching over my shoulder. I got this like, and there are so many people that are like, Oh, that's not my job. I haven't been trained for this. It's never going to work, but someone who says, I've never done it before, but how hard could it be?

[00:41:12] Ryan Wardell: I'm sure I can figure it out. I watch a YouTube video, I read a few blog posts and, and, and I got this and it might not be a hundred percent, but it'll get you 80 percent of the way there. And that's, that's, that's way better than someone who freezes up and does nothing. So, um, I think that's, that's something that kind of initiative, it's really important, really important.

[00:41:29] Ryan Wardell: And it sounds like you found, you found that person straight away as well. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go back to what you're talking about, uh, content marketing on social media, cause like the marketing geek in me wants to dig into this in a little bit more detail, but like what, what, what was the strategy that you took?

[00:41:45] Ryan Wardell: Or like, what, what, what specific content marketing activities do you do that are effective or did you do that were effective? 

[00:41:51] Peter Groth: One of the first I did. Was opening up the YouTube channel, the Dyslexia Connect YouTube channel with information about dyslexia. I spent some time looking online to see if there was a lot of information available, and it just seemed like there was kind of a gap in information about dyslexia that parents really would need to figure out what was going on with their child and to be able to get them the right kind of help.

[00:42:13] Peter Groth: So I think I did that in early. I started creating videos and the, the videos are pretty basic, but they've got really good content and really good information and those, um, After a couple of months, those started doing really well, actually. And a lot of people started finding us through those videos. And I think that also did a lot to boost the legitimacy of the company, because we were putting those videos out there and people were finding them and thinking, this is exactly the information I needed.

[00:42:43] Peter Groth: This person seems to understand exactly what I'm going through right now. And they would. Would connect with us for that reason. So the YouTube channel, um, has been really good as far as the, the other strategy I started, um, in the first few years, I just was doing a lot of reposts actually, uh, of information and graphics.

[00:43:05] Peter Groth: I found, uh, I was connected with a lot of other. Other dyslexia pages online and dyslexia, dyslexia support groups and things like that. And I would just spend a lot of time looking around for, for good information, good information that I could share with our followers and post on our, on our Facebook page and also Instagram and, uh, well, it was in Twitter.

[00:43:30] Peter Groth: So a lot of that. And then I think. Yeah, after after a while, I actually started getting into creating our own graphics. I found a really good software for that and started having enough time. So, um, I started really trying to create our own graphics that would just talk about different parts of dyslexia, different elements of dyslexia and, and really help educate parents that way.

[00:43:54] Peter Groth: And so, I started creating a lot of those and a lot of, a lot of what we share online now are our own signature graphics. Actually, they're ones that the ones that I'd created. I have a pretty big, pretty big library of them from the past few years, and I still make new ones from time to time as well. And those, uh, Those tend to get quite a few likes, which is great.

[00:44:16] Peter Groth: Likes and shares. And in addition to sharing those on our own channels, uh, usually the, the ones that are the most popular, I will also share those in different Dyslexia support groups and also Dyslexia tutor groups online. And that's been really helpful because some of those have done very, very well in those, in those groups, because people are always looking for information and those groups are often looking for information.

[00:44:40] Ryan Wardell: I think a lot of people are reluctant to share stuff in Facebook groups, subreddits, online communities, sometimes just because if you're Two self promotional, you know, people come down like, like, like a hammer. Um, so you, so the way of doing it is being, being helpful and sharing information as opposed to we do this thing.

[00:45:00] Ryan Wardell: If anyone's looking for to start a free trial, like here's, here's a link. So you're not salesy about it or 

[00:45:04] Peter Groth: exactly. Yeah. It's not. It's not salesy at all. In fact, we just share helpful information about dyslexia and, and helpful graphics about dyslexia. So there's no, there's no, no sales pitch in any of the posts that we do in those groups.

[00:45:19] Peter Groth: Just all, all content marketing, helpful information about dyslexia that we share on those because you're right. Sometimes if, uh, if people do try to do that, sometimes they end up getting banned from groups or there's just very negative reactions. So we really just share. Share information about dyslexia, and that's very much, that's very much, um, what we do on social media in general, on our own channels.

[00:45:40] Peter Groth: Well, share people, information about dyslexia and help guide people through that journey of getting their kids the help that they need. 

[00:45:46] Ryan Wardell: Um, do you put the Dyslexia Connect logo or website URL or something on those, on those images? Cause I think there's a, there's a fine line where if it's, If it's purely informational, but zero sales, then you don't get any benefit out of it.

[00:45:58] Ryan Wardell: So how, where do you draw that line, I think is a really important, 

[00:46:02] Peter Groth: important lesson. Exactly. All, all of the graphics are branded, so they all have our, our logo on them and our website at the bottom, usually in fairly small font, um, but enough that it's visible. So yeah, so there's that fine line that you have to have to tread and that's how we do it.

[00:46:18] Peter Groth: Everything is branded. Um, and also that's, that's good as well because it helps to, to make sure that maybe, um, other people aren't sharing it and like passing it off as their own graphic that they've created. So I find that works really well for us. We have the logo and then our, our website URL at the bottom of the graphic.

[00:46:36] Ryan Wardell: So people, people might see, see the graphic that you, and then they'll see Dyslexia Connect. They'll Google it going, what, what on earth is this? And then land on your website or on one of your YouTube videos or all the other content that you've got scattered around the universe now. And that's how they, they come in.

[00:46:50] Ryan Wardell: So you've got this whole big inbound funnel. That's really clever. I like that a lot. for indulging me. Cause the marketing geek loves talking about this stuff. 

[00:46:58] Peter Groth: I find it fascinating too. Marketing is really, really a fascinating topic for sure. I 

[00:47:02] Ryan Wardell: want to dive into your team. Um, cause especially, so, so you've got your, your team team, but then you've got this wider network of tutors as well.

[00:47:10] Ryan Wardell: Um, and you said it's, everyone's working remotely, right? So how, how do you maintain a good company culture? How do you get people really kind of bought into that? Um, and feeling, you know, valued as employees, feeling happy, feeling motivated. Like, how do you build that kind of great company culture when everyone's not, you know, all over the place in different time zones, in different cities, a hundred percent remote?

[00:47:33] Peter Groth: Absolutely. Absolutely. We're a hundred percent remote and I have never met anybody who works for my company in person. Actually. So, yeah, yeah. A hundred percent remote. That's how it's been from the beginning. And so, um, so that's a, that's a great question. So as far as our, our admin staff, I have five people who work on the admin staff for the company.

[00:47:55] Peter Groth: Um, I do weekly meetings with the admin staff and those really serve two purposes. It, it helps us address issues that might be going on. It's also just a nice time to socialize a little bit. And kind of talk about what's going on and it, uh, it can be enjoyable too, just to sort of talk shop a little bit about what's going on with the business and what's going on lately.

[00:48:18] Peter Groth: So, so I see the admin staff on a weekly basis and in weekly meetings I do with them and for our tutors, we really try to develop a sense of community with them as well. We have a private Facebook group that is just for tutors who work for the company where they can interact and share different things.

[00:48:36] Peter Groth: We, uh, We post tutor compliments on there as well. So if we get an email from a client, that's just a really nice email. We'll post that in the group. So other tutors can see that. Um, usually if I, if I see a nice email come in like that, I will also email the tutor and just say, Hey, great job. This is a really awesome thing that this person said about you.

[00:48:56] Peter Groth: I just wanted to, to share it. Um, in addition to that, we also, we also host tutor socials from time to time. And those are just open zoom meetings where anybody can drop in and just Hang out and talk. Sometimes we talk about tutoring. Sometimes we just talk about life, how things are going, and that's a great opportunity for tutors to meet each other and feel like they're part of a community and also to get some face time with admin staff who they interact with regularly via email.

[00:49:25] Ryan Wardell: I think there's a lot of value in that. So I, um, when it comes to management, whenever I talk to people and they say, You know, like I'm hiring these people, but they, they keep on quitting or, you know, they're, I can't get this good person because I've hired three of them and they didn't work out for whatever reason.

[00:49:38] Ryan Wardell: Like, I think something that people often forget is people very rarely leave just because of money. Most of the time when people quit their job, it's because they don't like the coworkers or they don't like their boss. Um, and the thing that you can control as the boss is both of those things. Like you, you have control over the coworkers and the way they behave, but you also have control So you mentioned something that I really like, which is whenever someone says something good, you share that with the person and then you say, Hey, you know, well done.

[00:50:04] Ryan Wardell: Cause I think it goes a long way. Like words, words don't cost anything, but they do have a lot of value. And I think, you know, most people, if, if, if you, as, and this is probably some advice that I would give to anyone else out there who's running a business and maybe struggling with management a little bit, or it's not something that comes to them naturally.

[00:50:20] Ryan Wardell: Um, anytime, Someone does something good or a customer says something good about you. I think it's really valuable. If you go to the person who did that good job and say, Hey, you nailed it. Well done. Like, you know, give them some praise. Um, I think, I think we're, we're very, you know, naturally very, very quick to criticize, but not very quick to praise.

[00:50:39] Ryan Wardell: And it should be the other way around. Um, so I, I, hats off to you, man, that sounds like a, you know, you, you've really got this in management piece down pat because so many entrepreneurs struggle with that and it sounds like you've been able to attract good people and also to keep them longterm, which is, which is key.

[00:50:53] Ryan Wardell: Yeah, 

[00:50:54] Peter Groth: absolutely. And I think I realized some years ago that that was, there are really two, two parts to this equation we do, right? We, we need great tutors. Who will teach our students and we also need students for them to teach. And that really, I think, realizing that really made me think more about both ends of that and, and really make the effort to, to make this a great job for our tutors because we really do want them to really enjoy the work with us and feel like this is a place where they belong and have a sense of community and, um, and something that just fits in really well with their, with their lives.

[00:51:30] Peter Groth: So that's been a priority for a long time. 

[00:51:32] Ryan Wardell: Why don't I ask you, you, you touched. Way earlier on, you said when you're first starting out, you know, you had a few years that were, you know, things weren't moving as fast as you would have liked and you're kind of grinding. And I think that's, that's pretty normal.

[00:51:43] Ryan Wardell: Every, everyone goes through that. I did a podcast interview with, uh, Aaron Cass over from agent methods, uh, a little while back. And one of the things that he pointed out, you know, yeah. So, so one of the things that he pointed out is you hear, you know, you read in tech country, you hear these stories about, you know, five months after launch, they're doing 20 million a year.

[00:52:00] Ryan Wardell: And like that, that, that's. You know, very, very, very, very exceptionally rare. That just doesn't happen in, in, in my experience. Most of the time it's a slow and steady burn. And that's, that's what you're signing up for. Um, but we've all been through periods where you're starting out. I had, I had a mentor when I, when I first got into entrepreneurship and he said, do you know about the rule of threes, Ryan?

[00:52:19] Ryan Wardell: I said, no, I've never heard of that. He said, okay, so the rule of threes is this. Everything will cost three times as much money as you think. Everything will take three times longer than you think. And you'll make one third of the revenue that you expect to make. And that's the three, the rule of threes for entrepreneurship.

[00:52:34] Ryan Wardell: And it's, yeah, it's, it's proven eerily true, uh, in my experience, but everyone goes through some periods where. Yes. Okay. Thanks. They're just kind of grinding away and grinding away. And you know, when you were doing the 60 hours of tutoring at a way lower rate, stressed out, and then running a business on top of doing the actual work in the business as well.

[00:52:50] Ryan Wardell: Like when you're going through one of those, there are probably a lot of people watching this, listening to this, who are going through that grinding period right now. Um, do you have any sort of practical advice or sort of tactical steps that they can, they can take for someone who's in that, You know, would, would you, would you tell them to kind of delegate as quickly as possible?

[00:53:08] Ryan Wardell: Like what, what would you do if you were giving advice to a younger Peter, you know, 10 years ago, who was, it was going through one of those grinding periods. 

[00:53:15] Peter Groth: One thing I would say is try to connect with other founders. I feel like that is incredibly valuable. That's, that's something that startup sauce has done for me.

[00:53:25] Peter Groth: And it's been. Extremely valuable for me. Um, when you can connect with other founders, you're going to be talking to people who just understand what you're going through. And if you need advice on things, they can offer you advice, but they're also just a great sounding board. If you just need to have a day where you're like, man, I'm feeling really frustrated, I just need to talk about this and, and that person can say.

[00:53:48] Peter Groth: Yeah, I get it. I went through that myself two years ago, the exact thing. And so that's incredibly, incredibly valuable. And I feel like, um, I feel like when I started Dyslexia Connect, I was coming from a place where I wasn't totally sure how to connect with other founders, in fact, I don't think I had experience with that in the past, and it took me some time to figure out how to find that, and that's been incredibly valuable for me.

[00:54:15] Peter Groth: I think so. That's something that can answer questions. Sometimes something might take you days or weeks to figure out somebody else has gone through it and then give you the answer just like that, which has definitely happened with me and mastermind calls and startup sauce before I've been thinking through some issue and somebody is like, have you thought about this?

[00:54:33] Peter Groth: I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's it. That's it. And, and other days I'll show up to mastermind calls and I just, I don't have any specific questions, but. I just need to talk about what's going on, and I always find receptive ears who are, who understand what I'm going through and offer encouragement, which is huge.

[00:54:52] Peter Groth: So, so that's something I definitely recommend. Uh, also, hiring, hiring and delegating. Is something I also strongly recommend. If you can, if you can do that, you're going to free up more of your own time and more of your ability to, to think about things strategically. And that can be really tough when you're starting out because you are just working, working, working.

[00:55:17] Peter Groth: There's almost always more work than you have time to do. So it can be really difficult to set aside time to think about things and reflect about things. But the times during, I guess, my career. With Dyslexia Connect that I've been able to do that, I've noticed a big difference. I'm going to set aside a couple hours I'm able to do this today just to think about this problem and think about where I can go with it.

[00:55:40] Peter Groth: And often I've been able to come up solutions or with solutions or think about what I need to to do next. So that's definitely something If I was going to go back and give myself advice, I would try to start hiring admin staff much sooner than I did. Probably, probably as soon as possible. So that's, that's something I would recommend.

[00:56:00] Peter Groth: Um, another thing I really recommend is just taking time to reflect on your business and the progress you've made so far, it's really easy to not do that. There's always another goal, like something else you're grinding towards, something you're aiming towards. And. At least for me, I've noticed a lot in the past that led to me just not celebrating my successes enough.

[00:56:24] Peter Groth: I would get to a point that I've been working at for maybe months, or some years, that great, that's done, on to the next thing. Which, just overall, I think, can lead to burnout. So I think it's really great to just take some time and think about, Think about what you've done with your business, what you've done with your startup, and, and also the different things that you're proud of.

[00:56:43] Peter Groth: What you're, you're really proud of working hard towards, and what you've done, and I think that really can help, can help maintain that sense that, Hey, this is, this is something cool. This is something cool and interesting I'm doing. It's not just something that feels like a weight pulling at me every day.

[00:57:01] Peter Groth: This is something really cool that's worth the work. And work, uh, worth working towards really hard. So, so yeah, that's, that's something as well. I've got a couple more if you're interested. Fire away. Please do. Um, yeah, something, something else that, that I really love is just. Working from different locations.

[00:57:22] Peter Groth: It seems like a small thing, but sometimes when you're working a ton of hours per week, you've got to be on your computer, but you don't necessarily have to be on your computer in the exact same spot. And for some people, this isn't a big deal. For me, this is a huge deal. I have a home office I really like, but if I don't get out at least a couple times a week, I kind of go nuts.

[00:57:44] Peter Groth: And so I'll just get out and Go to a local coffee shop and work from there. Take my computer with me. Or we have a really, um, big university in the city I live in and a lot of it's open to the public. So I'll just go down to one of the student unions and just hang out there and work super fast wifi. And it's just kind of a cool environment because it feels like exciting things are happening and, and going on.

[00:58:07] Peter Groth: So that's. That's something else that's been really helpful for me is just to kind of mix up the work week. I might be doing the exact same work, but just mixing up a little bit and doing it from different locations, gives, gives 

[00:58:20] Ryan Wardell: some variety. You touched on something before that, that really struck a chord with me.

[00:58:24] Ryan Wardell: So the, I had a mentor once who used to talk about, um, you know, we talk about product market fit. Everyone's heard of that. What, what hasn't gotten as much attention is founder market fit. Um, and I said, well, what on earth is that? So, so, so, so quick, quick, quick aside. So, um, I think it's really important when you're starting a business, um, mentally think, okay, I'm going to be doing this for the next 10, 20 years of my life.

[00:58:50] Ryan Wardell: Am I going to be happy doing that? You know, when things aren't going well, if it's not bringing a lot of money, if I'm stressed out and I'm working a squillion hours for not a lot of cash, am I still going to have. The passion. Am I going to be interested in this space enough to persist through that, those tough periods, because there are always going to be tough periods.

[00:59:06] Ryan Wardell: Now, I had an idea years and years and years ago. Um, and it was, it was in the fashion space and I went to a mentor and I was so excited. I'm like, this is going to be huge. This is going to be amazing. And he said to me, Ryan, that's a great idea for someone else, not for you. I said, what do you mean? Like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm willing.

[00:59:21] Ryan Wardell: I'm going to work hard. I'm good. I can, I can make this work. I can use Ryan. Have you seen the way you dress mate? Like you're not a particularly fashionable man. This is not the right business for you. This is the right business for someone who really deeply cares about fashion. You don't care about that.

[00:59:36] Ryan Wardell: You're just attracted because you think it's a good idea. And it's like, yeah, right. You're probably right. You're probably fine. And he was absolutely 100 percent right. I would not last in the fashion business at all. Cause I just don't care that much about it. Um, but But, but you found a space that you cared about really, really passionately.

[00:59:52] Ryan Wardell: And I suppose the other, the other advantage that you got to is like that, that feedback is, is, is very immediate, right? You have parents who are saying, Hey, you've made a difference in my kid's life. Um, and I think that's on another level. Like, you know, most businesses can't say that they're really making the world a better place.

[01:00:08] Ryan Wardell: If you've seen the Silicon Valley TV show, that's kind of a recurring joke, but you actually are. So you love that show. 

[01:00:14] Peter Groth: Well, that show, yeah, 

[01:00:17] Ryan Wardell: but, but, but do you, um, do you sort of have a, I don't know, whenever I try and keep testimonials and keep track of, of all that kind of stuff. Cause I think, you know, anytime I'm having a bit of a, a bit of a crappy day, it's nice to see, Hey, actually the thing that I built, someone is getting some value out of, do you, do you do something similar?

[01:00:35] Peter Groth: Absolutely. I have a long, long running document with all of the nice things that people have said about dyslexia connect over the years. So that really means a lot to me. Yeah. I've gotten so many emails over the years that just completely make my day. You know, I might be, might be struggling through something, frustrated with something, and I get an email from a parent saying that maybe their child has avoided books their entire life and is suddenly asking for books for their birthday.

[01:01:00] Peter Groth: And is excited about reading and that, that just, I just love getting those emails and I take them all, copy them into a document so that I can, I can look at them anytime I want. And that makes a big difference because if I'm just having a rough day and kind of need a reminder about why we're all doing this and working so hard at this, I can look in that and that really, that really makes a difference.

[01:01:21] Peter Groth: So I highly recommend that just. Keep track, keep testimonials, keep track of what people say about your business and keep it in some place. That's, that's easy to look at because that feedback really means, really means a lot. Peter, do you have 

[01:01:36] Ryan Wardell: any, any books or tools or resources that you would recommend to other founders?

[01:01:41] Peter Groth: Yeah, definitely. I would say that, um, you know, we were talking about. We're talking about founder, founder, market fit, and a book that I really liked that actually somebody in startup sauce recommended to me is the, the e myth revisited by Michael Gerber. And I really liked that book. It's focused primarily on small businesses.

[01:02:02] Peter Groth: Um, doesn't specifically talk about online businesses, but there's a lot of really useful information in there. And, and one of the chapters I really liked was figuring out. How to make your business fit the lifestyle you want to have, because like you mentioned, sometimes we don't think about that. We come up with an idea and we think, this is a great idea.

[01:02:23] Peter Groth: I'm going to work and work and work towards this, but we don't necessarily think. Is this going to be a lifestyle that I enjoy that I like? And so I thought that book was, was really helpful and also really helpful, I guess, describing the need for delegation of things and kind of how to do that process.

[01:02:42] Peter Groth: So that's a book that I really liked. Another suggestion I actually got during a mastermind call was buy back your time by, by Dan Martell. And I really liked that one as well, because I think. By the time I read that, I already had delegated a lot, but it really got me thinking about delegation in more detail and how to prioritize things, you know, which, which tasks do I need to be doing myself?

[01:03:07] Peter Groth: Which ones should I be delegating to somebody else to do? How do I, how do I decide that? So I think those, those are two books that I enjoyed that I. But we're very helpful for me. Awesome. 

[01:03:19] Ryan Wardell: Um, Peter, this is, this has been fantastic, mate. Um, if anyone is interested in learning more about Dyslexia Connect or in contacting you or getting in touch, what's the best way for them to reach you?

[01:03:30] Peter Groth: Yeah, absolutely. The best way is just to go to our website. Which is dyslexiaconnect. com and, uh, yeah, I can be contacted off of there through any of the contact forms on our website. So if somebody wants to contact me about things I've discussed today, or they're interested in dyslexia tutoring, um, they can do that the same way just by going to dyslexiaconnect.

[01:03:51] Peter Groth: com and, um, sending a message that way. 

[01:03:54] Ryan Wardell: Perfect. Thank you so much, buddy. This is, this has been a real pleasure. 

[01:03:57] Peter Groth: Thanks, Ryan. Really enjoyed it. Yeah. Thank you.