John Kaczmarowski - I Try To Find People Who Are Better At Their Job Than I Am (Founder & Group Manaager from Vancouver)

It is important to know exactly what it is you're delivering, to whom, for what benefit and then to hyper-focus on only those things that meet your scope and goals.

1. Tell us more about your company and your journey.

Lynxhubs.com is a site that is dedicated to connecting professional service providers with clients in an online marketplace providing video and audio conferencing, direct messaging, file management, scheduling and billing services. 

Clients may review, select, schedule and attend online meetings with their service provider in an extensive and secure platform. Service providers may register, promote, attend and bill for conference services and off-line tasks provided to their clients. 

Our first release is scheduled for January 2021 covering online tutoring (tutors.lynxhubs.com) and online mental health services (mentalhealth.lynxhubs.com). The platform is an extension of an earlier company we launched to provide legal services (www.qase.ca) in an online marketplace. 

Our early success with Qase led us to believe we could generalize the approach to any number of services; from health care to education.

2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?

While various online communication tools have existed for years (Skype, Zoom, Teams, etc.) none of them provided a means to manage the delivery of professional services including all aspects of a case (meeting scheduling and execution, notes, file sharing, direct messaging, invoicing and payment) in a single platform. 

Qase and LynxHubs represent the first time all of these services were packaged for a P2C and B2C marketplace.


3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that?

The biggest challenge is the effort required to develop a dual-sided marketplace that attracts both service providers and clients in a classic "what came first, the chicken or the egg" scenario. 

To overcome this, early in our process we engaged the professional services community through various professional associations which could deliver large numbers of potential service providers relatively efficiently. 

Developing a critical mass of practise areas and service providers who provide services in those areas then allowed us to focus on consumer-based marketing through various online and localized advertising methods. Taken together, this dual-sided market development was able to attract sufficient populations to support ongoing development efforts.


4. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Focus, focus and, um... focus. It is important to know exactly what it is you're delivering, to whom, for what benefit and then to hyper-focus on only those things that meet your scope and goals.


5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business?

The most important factor is hiring the right team, giving them the right tools and guidance and then standing back and letting them do their jobs. 

I try to find people who are better at their job than I am. I focus a lot of energy on developing a very diverse team in terms of talent, age, gender and background. Only through this wide lens of differing experiences and motivations do the best ideas get identified and delivered. 

My goal is to develop a "loud and proud" culture that celebrates the conflict of ideas over the conflict of personality; that encourages everyone to challenge orthodoxy and thought in order to arrive at the best solutions meeting the needs of a diverse community of users.

6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs?

No matter what you're doing, consider the three most important aspect of any business decision:

1. Does it make money? Will the thing you are building actually be able to generate the revenue you project? How do your decisions affect this revenue generation model?
2. Does it save money? Will the thing you are building save money; for your company, for your clients, for the marketplace your serving?
3. Is there a competitive imperative? Will the thing you are building serve to keep you, your clients or your marketplace "in the game"?

Do only those things that have concrete, measurable impact on these business drivers.


7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?

Start small, deliver early, focus on the largest and most important aspects of the product you're planning to delivery and then deliver those in affordable chunks on which you can build future deliveries. 

Select an idea that you can deliver on your own (even if you end up looking for assistance, you'll want to know/be able to handle delivery tasks yourself to reduce costs). Be honest about your capital needs, be focused on how the investment is returned over time and be realistic about growth strategies and projections.


- John Kaczmarowski (Founder)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kaczmarowski-64a3289


Interviewed By Pratibha Sahani