Patrick McKenna is the Founder and CEO of Strike Social, a global technology-enabled digital advertising company. Patrick has more than 30 years of experience in business development and technology consulting for major corporations. He co-founded and sold the telecommunications company WCI in 1996. He was recruited by Microsoft as part of a 50 person team to develop the internet audio and video industry. Patrick has spent his career mentoring and investing in startup companies and in 2013 founded Strike Social, which was named the No. 17 fastest-growing private company in the U.S. for 2017 by Inc. Magazine. Strike Social develops AI-powered software and services for digital advertisers across industry verticals with over half of the Fortune 500 benefiting from its solutions including brands like Beat, Xbox, Honda, Mattel, Lionsgate, and large financial institutions.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
When business started difficulties overcame:
“when you take that leap you know you are not getting paid right. So you are using your own capital in most cases at least that’s how it was for us… We didn’t put together a deck and go and raise money, we put together a offering and went out and started building it. And so you know I had to fund that out of my savings account and that becomes very challenging. And the banks aren’t super helpful when it comes to giving new entrepreneurs loans and business credit lines and things like that. So I would say one of the hardest parts is just the pressure of that especially when you have family and kids and then you have people that work for you who are also looking at you and wondering if they are going to get their paycheck or their next paycheck and they are going to get paid. I would say the money pressure is probably one of the most challenging pieces of putting something together”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Book by Malcolm GladwellFavourite Quote:
“by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail”
Recommended Online Resources:
Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware.
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“you are going to work. Nothing is easy you are going to be working and it’s going to be 18 to 20 hours a day and that’s not going to start. The good news is, is that once you are trained to work that hard when you work an 8 to 12-hour day you kind of feel like you had half day. So there is an upshot you will get used to it but you are going to work, so be prepared for that one”…[Listen for More]
More About Patrick McKenna:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” Rocky, Rocky Balboa
Other Quotes From the Chat with Patrick McKenna:
- “everything is in the data, the strategy is in the data”
- “I think it’s important to go and work for a large company and see how it’s done, how it is done well”
- “you are going to have to thread that line carefully of getting experts in your business who can actually deliver. And if they are not delivering because obviously they are being paid very well you have to be able to get rid of those people pretty quickly to”
- “you have got to bring something to the table that you think you can scale that companies want. And the best way to find out is to go and meet a bunch of companies and ask them a lot of questions. You have to be careful because some people in organisations will lead you down the wrong road and they’ll say yes to what you think the market is, and some will be really honest with you. And you need to be able to filter that in your brain to ensure that you are on the right path. There is nothing worse than hearing someone or groups of people in organisations tell you that it’s this and then finding out later that it’s something else and that’s going to cost you a lot of money if you don’t do that work upfront”
- “getting to that tipping point in any business is critical if you want to grow fast”
- “I prepare scripts for every sales meeting I am going to. It drives me crazy when salespeople think they are just going to walk in to a room and wing it. You have got to be prepared. It’s hard enough to get meetings, you want to make sure that you leave them with the impression that you know what you are talking about, that you are a domain expert. And you are not going to get there by reading the deck that the company put together and having a general gloss over knowledge of the entire business. And that digging in part is the one thing where I think people fall down the most”
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