Atish Doshi is the founder and CEO of The Black Sheep – the nation’s fastest growing college media and marketing company with a team of more than 150 campuses and growing. The Black Sheep’s goal is to help businesses and brands reach the 18-24-year-old demographic through local contact, and on-campus marketing campaigns. Atish built The Black Sheep (among other businesses) and is filling a unique void of helping brands and businesses connect with college students. In his experience, he’s connected two generations of students to new brands, including millennials and now GenZ. In addition to superb client services, Atish has lead the way in collegiate hiring and culture initiatives, as The Black Sheep employees hundreds of college students across the U.S., and the majority of the company’s core creative staff of 20+ employees have at one point worked for The Black Sheep while in college and have become permanent employees. Through Atish’s unique perspective and foresight of cross-generation culture building, he has developed a creative company that has more than a 90% employee retention rate and applicants beating down the door to work The Black Sheep.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
- Richard Branson
- Mark Cuban
- Founders in Chicago
When business started difficulties overcame:
“I think because I started my first company as I was still in school thing the challenge of just trying to figure it out. You know I was so young I didn’t know any better so its a blessing because you are willing to just take chances and take risks that you may not say when you are 15 years older… So I think the challenge of not knowing anything was great but also was potentially something that took longer to get going. I also think being in college and not having any money we were trying to make a viable company and seeing what we could do for fun and having to scale that. And as it got going just really thinking through okay how do we create a real business model around this? How do we continue to grow and scale? How do we hire employees? And being able to build out an actual company not just an idea.” …[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
The Accidental CEO: A Leader’s Journey from Ego to Purpose Book by Thomas VoccolaFavourite Quote:
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” Bill Gates
Recommended Online Resources:
- Finding different Newsletters
- The Hustle – Your excuse to do epic sh*t – All The Tech & Business News You Need, Each Morning, Bite-Sized.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“just being a very self-aware is supercritical, knowing who you are, what your business is, what type of business it is and all that stuff. It’s great to shoot for the moon but to get there you really have to know what you are amazing at, what you need help with and all that because it puts you in a better spot to succeed. And sometimes I think entrepreneurs and founders want to think that we can do everything and we try to but I think once you take a step back and you become self-aware about what areas that can do better if I had some out here with me that’s when you really start to succeed and grow a business”…[Listen for More]
More About Atish Doshi:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Those who are growing great are always asking “why?” If they fail or lose, they ask “why?” If they succeed or win too, they ask “why?” Israelmore Ayivor
Other Quotes From the Chat with Atish Doshi:
- “when you are willing to take different chances that you may not take later on but it helps you get going and it helps you get a foundation built”
- “try to build a good network of other founders to bounce ideas off of. In the end it becomes therapy being able to vent to them about frustrations you might have”
- “I always think that if I was to start something else down the road I would be much quicker and faster at it because I have learnt so much”
- “if you are a single founder of a company just having a really really strong number two person is critical. Just been able to find somebody who compliments your skill sets that you can focus on what you’re great at and have someone else focus on what they are greater and they are not going to overlap. And by not overlapping they going to drive towards the success of the company”
- “finding great people and finding those that share your vision and share you passion and can really take over something better than you”
- “you ultimately want people that are better than you at every single thing because the sum of the parts are going to be better and that’s what you want to be driving for”
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