{"id":40269,"date":"2023-10-20T15:07:13","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/five-lessons-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs-from-rokt-co-founder-ben-voltz-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:07:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:07:13","slug":"five-lessons-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs-from-rokt-co-founder-ben-voltz-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/five-lessons-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs-from-rokt-co-founder-ben-voltz-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Five lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs from ROKT co-founder Ben Voltz – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ROKT<\/div>\n

\u201cEveryone I\u2019ve been successful in doing business with, I\u2019ve worked with in the past,\u201d says entrepreneur Ben Voltz.<\/p>\n

Eight years ago, Voltz and co-founder Justin Viles started building a small digital marketing platform at Viles\u2019 home in Sydney.\u00a0Back then the business was known as Rocklive.<\/p>\n

Today, that company is ROKT, and under the leadership of chief executive Bruce Buchanan, who previously headed up Jetstar, it has grown to a team of nearly 100 with offices in Australia and New Zealand, the US, UK and Asia.<\/p>\n

It has also just raised $19.4 million ($US15 million) in a Series B round, which follows an $US8.5 million funding round led by Squarepeg, Paul Bassett, Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer four years ago.<\/p>\n

Voltz continues to sit on ROKT\u2019s board as a director and is now leading a an investment network for startups called Voltzcorp. He\u00a0told StartupSmart<\/em> keeping relationships warm and networking have been critical to his entrepreneurial career.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways be smiling and in a spot where you\u2019re open to conversation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The journey from home office to multimillion-dollar global organisation is a roadmap many startups aspire to. Reflecting on his experience, Voltz shares four more crucial lessons for ambitious entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

1. Address your knowledge gaps<\/h3>\n

When ROKT grew to about 20 to 30 people, Voltz says he and Viles realised they lacked the \u201cknow-how\u201d to take operations to the next level, and so they sought help.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing we did was bring in Jetstar\u2019s [chief executive] Bruce,\u201d says Voltz.<\/p>\n

\u201cBruce had experience that was going to enable us \u2026 we looked at him as being human power.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t raise capital too early<\/h3>\n

Voltz believes founders should think twice before raising capital early on in their business’ journey because it can take away a great deal of time that could be used for developing the business instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first three years, up to 50 percent of our time was spent on trying to raise capital,\u201d says Voltz.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start, we bootstrapped but ultimately, that can only get you so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest milestone was then not being greedy in the capital we acquired.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Let go of equity for the right investor<\/h3>\n

Too often, Voltz says, founders get an opportunity to work with a great investor but shy away from fear of losing net wealth if they give away too much equity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen too many of these entrepreneurs go out [to meet investors] and not give equity away\u2026 ultimately, you\u2019re freezing up your ability to move forward with great people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA small piece of larger pie is much more valuable than a large piece of a small pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Get the foundation right<\/h3>\n

When Voltz and Viles first began working on the company, an initial investment of under $100,000 was spent on\u00a0web development and tech deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got on so well with our web developers that we rolled them into our company,\u201d Voltz says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fostering strong relationships and building a \u201cfamily\u201d in your startup can make for a great culture to grow on, says Voltz.<\/p>\n

Equally important is creating a team of diverse skills and abilities. This includes having both talent in tech and sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t have one of the two,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you\u2019ve got a whole lot of great tech, [you] might as well not have the tech at all if you have no one to sell it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about scale and it\u2019s all about having the right people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEveryone I\u2019ve been successful in doing business with, I\u2019ve worked with in the past,\u201d says entrepreneur Ben Voltz. Eight years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}