Ep 027: Selfless, Supporting, and Social w/ Cameron Ripley

Cameron Ripley is the Founder and Director of Community Boost, an award winning digital marketing and web design agency that primarily focuses on the nonprofit and social entrepreneurship space. He’s brought together a caring group of millennials to really tackle on today’s social problems. His organization has worked with many causes, including: Google Ideas, Noah Homes, Miracle for Kids, just to name a few. STRATEGIES USED TO FUND BUSINESS Community Boost was incubated out of another digital marketing agency, named E-Boost Consulting. E-boost Consulting was mainly focused on the startup tech space. We had this program where we would bring in young people and teach them digital marketing and then have them apply that to the nonprofit and social space. We had a big vision for what that could do and how that can be its own company. We’ve bootstrapped the whole thing and never received any outside funding. FOUNDER I think any entrepreneur looking to get started and have that founder discussion can sometimes get very difficult. When I came out of school at 21 years old, I went out and sought a founder, and I found someone who was really smart and could help fund the business, which was a really big pain point for many startups. But I also realized that we were not aligned with certain key areas and that was an issue. At Community Boost, a lot of the partners, including the management team, has really found us, and have given the opportunity to bake themselves into the business. WHAT WAS ONE THING THAT YOU STRUGGLED WITH IN THE EARLY STAGES OF YOUR STARTUP? I think one the things I struggled with the most was not failing fast enough or a fear of failure. Not failing fast on a certain idea. And just, you got to have no fear when validating your market, validating sales. HUGE SUCCESS My biggest achievements are some of the successes we’ve created for other organizations 3 years ago we were working with Mia Roseberry and she has an organization now called Wounded Warrior Homes. At that time she had multiple veterans who were suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), and she just wanted to help them out. But seeing where they are today, and supporting them from ideation to an office and full-time staff. And really helping her create her vision and what she wanted to make a stand for in the world. That’s some of the stuff that makes me fulfilled and most proud of. SUPERPOWER I really try and value authentic and deep connections with people and really bring in a sense of compassion. So that’s why my superpower is compassion, and I think that’s why I’m so drawn to the space we work in. That authenticity was how we were able to secure business in the early days. KRYPTONITE Delegation of tasks can sometimes be a struggle of mine. The transition from being self-employed to a business was slowed down because of that weakness. IF YOU CAN HAVE ANY SUPERPOWER… For me it would have to be teleportation. I just want to see as much of the world as I can. If I can teleport to all those cool places, that would be amazing. RECOMMENDED RESOURCE OR APP My best resource is not an app, but a routine I do every morning. Take 10 minutes every morning. The first 3 minutes, concentrate on being present. 3 minutes to bring and really feel your breathe through your