Entrepreneur Interview: Dan Roitman, Stroll : Business Info Guide ...

Business Name:
Stroll

Website URL:
www.stroll.com

Year Founded:
2000

Number of Employees:
166

What does your company do?

Stroll is a next-generation education e-commerce platform company which uses proprietary analytical marketing methods to sell educational products to consumers.

Was there a specific turning point when you realized your business was moving to the next level?

There have been many turning points in Stroll?s twelve year history. Perhaps the most dramatic was when Ajay Segal joined the company. Before bringing Ajay on board, I was solely responsible for the vision, strategy, and execution of the business. Ajay joined us as VP of Marketing and then worked his way to COO in 2009, taking over the day-to-day operations. He?s played an important role in complementing my skill set and transforming Stroll into a professionally managed organization ? one which now has a six-member management team. It?s rare when you find someone who you can strategize with at a high level, and can then turn those strategies into actionable plans. We build on each other?s thoughts and share a vision for the company. He?s enabled us to get the benefit of having inside and outside leadership. His detail orientation and operating plan management frees me to constantly go outside the company, find new ideas and bring them back to Stroll. Before joining the company, Ajay worked as an industry analyst and publisher in the online interactive space. That role gave him unique access to best practices drawn from thought leaders, which we have been able to integrate into Stroll?s operating plans in order to achieve triple-digit growth.

What processes or procedures have you implemented that have helped grow your company?

We have structured every area of the company and developed standard operating procedures for each task from human resources to our call center, marketing, accounting, and IT. Our fundamental commitment is to constant optimization, or the ability to continually make small incremental improvements that compound over time to deliver triple-digit growth. For instance, we have built sophisticated financial models that allow us to accurately predict cash flows a year out in time. It?s these types of procedures and processes that allow us to grow more in one month than most companies do in one year.

What is most rewarding about running your business?

Building a team of all stars, working in it, and seeing the team execute on plan. Seeing how our employees come together to achieve aggressive growth plans is very rewarding. We are always growing, hiring new people, and embarking on new initiatives. There?s never a dull moment and it?s an incredibly challenging, rewarding and fun way to live life.

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?

The greatest challenge we have faced was during the recession when our bank became impaired and withdrew their commitment to double our line of credit. We spent over a year finding a new bank to provide the capital needed to fund our aggressive growth and expansion. From 2002 until today, we have grown at an annual compounded growth rate of over 70%. Even if you?re profitable, that kind of growth requires capital. When our banks developed issues to no fault of our own, we couldn?t fund our marketing at our historic trajectory, so we only grew 3% between 2009 until 2010. We interviewed and talked to more than 170 financial institutions during that period and finally secured the money needed to jumpstart our growth, growing 105% in 2011. In essence, we lost a year as a result. On a positive note, we lined up the working capital we needed for the foreseeable future and developed new capital relationships which will support other future needs.

If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

I don?t believe it takes money to make money if you have sharp business skills and time. But I do believe it takes money to make money faster. If I was starting all over again, I would do one of two things. First, I would trade money for time and buy a business that I could grow, instead of starting from scratch and wasting valuable start-up time. Or, I would start from scratch with sizable investment capital so that I could finance the company correctly from the beginning and shortcut the growing pains of boot strapping. With the proper capital and a recruiting team, I?d be in a position to perform rapid market testing to prototype the business model while building a management team which can in turn bring in the successive layers of employees and structure.

What advice do you have for other business owners?

Surround yourself with like-minded people who share your values, commitment and vision. If you want a growth business, surround yourself with high-energy, analytical people who share your desire to get big quickly. Another piece of advice is to ready everything you can find that relates to learning more about your business, reach out to industry thought leaders and network with owners of similar businesses. Learn from them so you have an endless pool of fresh ideas to apply to your company. For instance, finding out that a certain strategy worked for a similar (or dissimilar) business often provides you with an 80% chance of duplicating that success in your business. If you incorporate such data points into your marketing experimentation, you?ll likely have a secret weapon against your competition. Never underestimate the value of your network!

Please list any favorite books, tools or resources (software, website, etc.) you would recommend for others?

I have read more than 500 business related books over the past ten years in an effort to learn more about every aspect of business and apply best practices to Stroll. Among my favorite books are: Winning, by Jack Welch; The E-Myth by Michael Gerber; and Getting Everything You Want Out of All You Got by Jay Abraham.

My favorite tools are simple ones. I use Excel for project plans and action items. I use my iPhone to take notes and capture photos during brainstorming sessions on white boards. I have a running spreadsheet where I keep ideas and return to them when we need to look at things in a different way. And I have an endless list of marketing books popping with Post-It notes or Kindle books with juicy highlights to refer back to. My advice is to find what works for you and optimize it in every way you can.

What is something that people might be surprised to learn about you?

I was the first person in the state of Maryland to ever win a scholarship for guitar. When I was young, I loved music, particularly the guitar, and was awarded a scholarship to Towson University. I later walked away from that guitar scholarship and transferred to the University of Maryland because I wanted to apply my creativity and love for numbers to pursue business. I graduated with two degrees ? one in International Business and one in German.

Source: http://businessinfoguide.com/entrepreneur-interview-dan-roitman-stroll/

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