Dragon’s Den, Bootstrapping and Scaling With Diana Goodwin

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Diana Goodwin is the founder of Aqua Mobile, which is an on-demand at home swim school service, the largest of its kind in North America today.

Diana is an accomplished entrepreneur and a thought leader on boot strapping businesses to seven figures.

She has been featured in a ton of publications including Forbes, Success Magazine, The Huffington Post, Tech Five, Mashable, among many others.

In this episode we discuss why Diana decided to quit her day job and start her own business. She shares why she prefers to bootstrap rather than raise capital. Diana discusses her experience on the Dragon’s Den TV show.

It’s an enlightening conversation about failure, triumph, getting out of your comfort zone, focusing your ideas and leading a balanced life.

Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Find out why Diana quit her job and decided to start her own business.
• How Diana used her MBA to propel her business.
• The toughest part about bootstrapping a startup business.
• What is the Aqua Mobile business model?
• How Diana overcame her first Dragon’s Den rejection.
• How Dragon’s Den helped Diana to leverage her business.
• The most painful things about being an entrepreneur.
• Finding grant money; what is the best approach?
• How to break the 9-5 rut and make time for your own ideas!
• Diana’s advice for brand new entrepreneurs.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“This misconception that an idea is just going to hit you on the head; It doesn’t always happen that way.” — @DianaMGoodwin

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[0:45].50.1]

“It’s easy to say “I want a business” but to actually change your circumstance is a whole other bear.” — @_robnunnery

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[0:48].15.1]

“I’m all about hustle, but I am not about burning out.” — @DianaMGoodwin

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[0:52:30].1]

“Just go and just try it because if you don’t try you will never know and you will never learn.” — @DianaMGoodwin

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[0:55:16].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Diana Goodwin on Twitter — https://twitter.com/DianaMGoodwin

Aqua Mobile Website — https://aquamobileswim.com/

Aqua Mobile on Twitter — https://twitter.com/aquamobileswim

Dragon’s Den TV Show Website — http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/

Shark Tank TV Show Website — http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 021

“DG: I’ve seen some people who don’t like to get outside of their comfort zone and so they don’t necessarily grow to that same level and you know, I see some of those people, I tell them that you know – I said look, you have to – don’t come down hard on yourself if something doesn’t – don’t worry about what other people are thinking. Just go and just try it because if you don’t try, you will never know and you will never learn.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:26.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:52.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes in embracing failure and sharing your honest struggle is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only shares successes, we share the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs, these are their stories. Today’s Fail On featured guest is Diana Goodwin, Diana is the founder of Aqua Mobile which is an on demand at home swim school service.

Now, the largest of its kind in north America. Diana’s an accomplished entrepreneur and a Thought Leader on Boot Strapping Businesses to Seven Figures, she’s been featured in a ton of publications including Forbes, Success Magazine, The Huffington Post, Tech Five, Mashable, amongst many others, we’ll be discussing why she prefers to bootstrap rather than raise capital. Her experience with Dragon’s Den in Canada and what it led to with her business and the moment she actually decided to leave her day job because her dissatisfaction in that job exceeded her level of comfort.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all The Fail On podcast interviews and keep takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:04.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to The Fail On Podcast. Today we’ve got Diana Goodwin in the house, really excited to have you on the show today, welcome to the Fail On Podcast.

[0:02:11.7] DG: Thanks Rob, happy to be here.

[0:02:13.8] RN: Is Toronto your hometown?

[0:02:16.0] DG: It is my hometown.

[0:02:16.5] RN: You grew up here, high school, university, everything here?

[0:02:20.0] DG: Everything here, yup, University of Toronto, yup.

[0:02:23.6] RN: You guys didn’t roll out the red carpet with the weather.

[0:02:27.3] DG: I’m sorry Rob, I know, I was going to say, today it’s cloudy and rainy, two things they don’t have in California.

[0:02:32.7] RN: Yeah, very rarely. Actually, this winter, this is going to sound super snobbish but we’ve had like terrible weather and what I mean by terrible weather is it rained like, I can count on two hands how many times it’s rained this winter and that’s a lot for San Diego.

[0:02:50.3] DG: I was in California during that torrential downpour that you guys had, I was actually more on LA at that time but people were saying it’s been 10 years and they haven’t seen anything like this ever. I get it, you're a little bit used to it but the whole city shuts down when it rains a little bit.

[0:03:05.0] RN: It’s crazy, people drive like nut jobs. Here, well I grew up in Georgia in the south and whenever, it would like – we’d get a very light snow, I’m talking like, not even like an inch, people would rush to the grocery stores, to get milk and they where just the worst drivers in the world because they’re so terrified of driving in the snow but in California, it’s the rain.

[0:03:26.1] DG: Yup.

[0:03:26.4] RN: It’s interesting. Anyways, let’s just jump right in to it.

[0:03:30.0] DG: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:03:31.7] RN: If you have to go back, what was the first time in your life where somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or a service you created, whether it’s your current business or whether it was a previous business?

[0:03:47.5] DG: When I was a kid, you know, I think it probably started when I was around six, seven years old. I was one of those kids who was always looking for ways to make money. I loved creating things –

[0:03:58.9] RN: The born entrepreneur?

[0:04:00.0] DG: It definitely was in my blood. It could be even things like, you know, trying to put on a garage sale with my parent’s stuff, stuff that I thought they didn’t want or need anymore to go and sell it.

[0:04:10.7] RN: Would you ask them or you just take their stuff and sell it?

[0:04:12.5] DG: It depends. Some of both. You know, I had jewelry that I would make and sell. It was always something that I was trying to create when I was younger.

[0:04:23.9] RN: Was it something that your parents kind of like led you towards or is it something that you feel like it just kind of, you saw the world and that kind of lends?

[0:04:33.8] DG: You know, I think where my parents helped is I was, I was and still am a very strong headed child, I was going to do what I was going to do and to their credit, they let me go and explore, they didn’t force me down one path or another.

If I wanted to, whether it was trying a certain sport or you know, a certain activity, they were very open to that and they never shut me down, they were always supportive of it. Because they were more science background, they didn’t necessarily come from that entrepreneurial background at all. It was something that I think for them to be open minded parents and let me, trust me enough to go and explore and learn that way.

I think that fostered what I was able to become.

[0:05:15.2] RN: That’s cool. You’re starting to be an entrepreneur as a kid, just garage sale stuff. Do you actually remember, maybe not but do you actually remember the first time somebody actually gave you the dollar and you’re like, wow.

[0:05:30.5] DG: I don’t, in terms of money, one thing that with my current business that was – that I remember still is you know, again, because I’m Canadian, I did start my Aqua Mobile in Canada and so when I first expanded into the US, that moment, that moment of checking the online system and seeing that there was a customer in Orlando Florida that had purchased lessons and had booked in with one of our swim instructors.

[0:05:58.4] RN: Why was that so cool? Why the States? Because I’m sure you had customers outside of Toronto in Canada right?

[0:06:04.6] DG: Yes.

[0:06:05.5] RN: Not physically where you’re located.

[0:06:07.6] DG: Yeah, we were across Ontario and you know, across many number of cities but I knew that to get the business to where I wanted to grow it in terms of size, I would need to go in to the US market pretty quickly, just because I mean, 10 times more people than in Canada and in a smaller land mass, you know, more condensed which for a business like mine, where my swim instructors are traveling to client’s homes, it makes it easier.

That was huge because I had put so much work into understanding the US market and building out kind of my corporate structure and getting everything setup so that I could succeed in the US and it wasn’t easy, it took a lot of work at the beginning so, to see that and be like wow, it’s working, people are, they’re buying.

That’s pretty powerful, especially now when I look back to that, that I remember. Now, US revenue is over 70% of our total revenue. Yeah.

[0:07:01.3] RN: When was it that you first went into the US market, what timeline.

[0:07:05.6] DG: That would have been in 2012.

[0:07:07.9] RN: Okay, so about five years?

[0:07:09.2] DG: Five years ago, yeah. Pretty quickly after launching, I knew I needed to go into the US. Florida was my first test market. It was one of the natural spots, I mean, in retrospect if I could do it over again, I would do California first but in any case –

[0:07:27.8] RN: Why?

[0:07:28.1] DG: I think, for me, just – there’s a lot more people in California and I think a lot of people, a lot more people willing to spend money on the best, the top services. I mean, Florida’s been great for us, it’s still our biggest state, we’ve also been there the longest but you know, for me, it was a great place to go because my family also had – this is a common Canadian thing. Exactly.

I had a place where I could work on my business low cost, get a lay of the land, spend some time there and you know, not have to spend money renting a place, I could deal with that, you know, use their car to get around, it was just a low risk way to do things especially because I was bootstrapping the business, I wasn’t looking for venture capital, I was doing it on my own and so, you know, every dollar counts.

[0:08:21.3] RN: What was the size of the business before you moved into the US market?

[0:08:25.9] DG: Let’s see, it was probably only around I would say, 100 to $150,000 I would say before moving in.

[0:08:35.8] RN: How long had you been operating business at that point that you’d gotten it to six figures like that?

[0:08:40.4] DG: Technically about a year but I had a small client based, very small from kind of my, you know, I had another business called Swim For Life Aquatics from when I was younger, when I would go and teach clients, I myself –

[0:08:52.9] RN: Just instructor.

[0:08:54.2] DG: I was a swim instructor, I did everything, I did the marketing, the book keeping and that was, you know, just a little business that I’ve kind of left on the side.

[0:09:02.2] RN: Trading time for money type deal.

[0:09:04.1] DG: I didn’t really have, it was never meant to be anything big but once I got into the corporate world, I kept it running but have you know, friends or other instructors on staff and so – you know, I basically went away and did my MBA for a year and while I was there, I kind of transitioned, I was like look.

This is a time, I’m going to turn this into an international company. You know, all that to be said, I had a little bit of a client base from that old business that I kind of carried over. I didn’t have to – when I started, I didn’t have to start at scrap.

Right at zero dollars revenue, I had a little bit so I knew there was that market there and so once I finished my MBA, end of 2011, that’s kind of where I just kind of worked full time on the business. Finished out that year and then 2011, 2012 is then when I started to go west.

[0:09:54.8] RN: Did you get the idea for the company while you’re doing your MBA and that’s what made you transition into it?

[0:10:00.8] DG: No, because I’d had this idea. To give you a little bit of context, when I graduated from my under grad. I had a commerce background, commerce undergrad. I was recruited to go work at a management consulting company, Bane and Company which is a fairly well known company, well known and a very great place to learn. While I was there, again, I still had that entrepreneurial spirit and drive and I was starting to become burnt out, not as happy with my job, I would brainstorm ideas with a friend who was also unhappy in her job.

Then one day, it kind of came to me, wait a minute, what am I doing wasting my time, trying to come up with all these new business ideas when I have this old business that I had totally been ignoring because I just didn’t have enough time because I was working so much.

[0:10:45.1] RN: Wasn’t that business still running at that time? Other instructors that kind of thing?

[0:10:48.8] DG: There were a few other instructors but I mean, on my end, you know, a couple of hours a week, I really didn’t have much time and it was like a two-hour work week. Plus, my 60 hours plus at another job.

That’s where I was like you know what? This is where I’m going to take that and make it something big and that’s where I said I’m going to take that idea and use it, I did a one year MBA and I took courses that would – I’d be able to focus on that business. Market research course, business plan writing course, where I’d be able to bring you know, a group of smart students who come from different background.

[0:11:23.3] RN: Smart, yeah.

[0:11:24.2] DG: Yeah, bring everyone’s brains together and get this thing done and use that for our class project.

[0:11:28.7] RN: That’s awesome, to actually use your MBA as almost like a tool, most people just get their MBA to get their MBA and to like propel them into like a corporate job that pays better than it would if you just had your undergrad degree.

You actually used it to strategically figure out how to direct the business that...