PRESS/EVENTS

Source: Business Insider You’ve got a great idea, you’re brimming with enthusiasm, and you’re pretty sure that the world is going to beat a path to your door to buy your new product or service. But the road ahead will be filled with speed bumps and potholes, from outside competition to legal disputes within your own company. To help you steer clear of at least some of them, we asked several successful entrepreneurs and experts for their take on the biggest mistakes that startup entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. Here are the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when trying to get their startups off the ground. They take too long to launch “You can plan and research forever, but the key is to just get out there, and then there will be natural feedback and momentum to carry you forward,” Thomas Donohoe, founder of Level Agency, told Business Insider. “You don’t have to have everything perfect and figured out in order to launch.” In fact, if you labor over your idea for too long, you may be wasting time creating something that’s not quite right for your customers. Get what you’re offering in front of them and let them help you create what they need most. Read the full article…   Featured image courtesy of: Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr

Source: Askmen.com While I think many CEOs and entrepreneurs have an innate ability to always be kind, patient and understanding of the mistakes of youth, I did not come close to having those qualities early on in my career. Fatherhood definitely changed that for me.  While I’m still working to walk down the path of being a good human at all times professionally, I’m positive that being a father has accelerated that personal growth exponentially. https://www.askmen.com/home_auto/parenting/male-entrepreneurs-on-how-being-a-dad-has-changed-them.html  

Source: Idea Mensch Thomas Donohoe is the CEO and Founder of Level Agency. Donohoe is a digital marketer with over two decades of experience creating, executing and managing digital strategies to drive results for B2B clients. Thomas is a member of YPO, Young Entrepreneurs Council, and he is a Founding Member of EO Charleston. His award-winning agency is the recipient of the Top 10 Digital Marketing Agency in the Region, INC 500, Diamond Award for Outstanding CEO’s, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and #1 Fastest Growing Company in the Region by Pittsburgh Times “Pittsburgh 100.” Where did the idea for Level Agency come from? I worked for a decade on the client side as a marketer whose main job was to spend millions of dollars in order to drive more customers at good acquisition costs. I hired the biggest and best ad agencies in America. I witnessed firsthand these giant agencies having massive problems with either the quality of their work or the depth of which they would own results and offer all essential pieces to a very complex ad channel ecosystem. So I started the agency I wanted to work with when I was the client. The idea was that there was a massive need for an agency that treated digital advertising as an advanced science to perfect as opposed to an extension of old school marketing. At the time, I knew it would be essential for a marketing firm to do more than a handful of tactics that are required to solve the whole equation of digital customer generation, instead of only one small component of it. Today, that model has proven itself to be 100% true. B2B companies ranging in revenue from $5,000,000 to $500,000,000 continue to be underserved by global advertising agencies. Often times, you need to hire 6 of their incredibly expensive divisions to get a cohesive best practice digital marketing team ready to battle in the 21st Century. Read the full interview…

Source: Forbes Author: Rhett Power Thomas J. Donohoe, CEO and Founder of Level Agency Frontline employees aren’t the only ones with wisdom to share. Sometimes, even the most senior employees deserve a little more attention. “My president, along with my SVP and employee No. 1, sat me down a few days shy of New Year’s 2018 and told me that, while our company had come a long way, I was the biggest reason for limiting growth,” Donohoe says. “They also said that unless a few specific things changed, both would be leaving the company.” After that dramatic warning, Donohoe recognized that he had been suffocating the growth of his top team. So he took a step back to focus on a smaller number of tasks, leaving his trusted inner circle to manage their departments with more freedom. Today, Donohoe says the company is running better than ever, KPIs have improved, and his people are happier—all because he listened when his team asked for more space. Read the full article…