SDH146: Learn to Trust Your Gut with Rebecca Sholiton

How well do you know your clientele? Do you know their needs or wants? How can your product or service improve their lives? Rebecca Sholiton, founder of Eat Pakd in Chicago, found out from one of her friends that her business idea could help their kids not have M&Ms for breakfast. Eat Pakd operates with the goal of helping the modern family provide healthy meals for their kids. The lunches are completely prepped, and are either customizable or customers can chose from an assortment of packages. Through meticulous and extensive market research, Eat Pakd has taken off tremendously since it's opening in August of 2016 and has continued to grow by the week and has already expanded to most neighboring states. Take a minute to listen to how Rebecca continues to sustain that growth through trial and error in this week's episode! In this episode you will... Know when to take the path less traveled to become the professional that you want to be Understand the importance of market research before you launch your business in order to hit the ground running and continuing that research in order to continue to grow Find what products and technology work best for your business and what you should try to produce yourself in order to achieve maximum functionality Learn the best way to gain investors and funding Figure out how to develop your product-market fit and what is the most marketable channel Know how to continually progress your according to a schedule INSIGHTS "There was normal self doubt...but I learned at a really young age to follow my gut....I looked at my friends going to business school and it looked like a lot of fun, but I didn't see the purpose of why I was going...who's the person on the other side that I want to be." -Rebecca Sholiton "We really need to prove we have product market fit. This entire round is dedicated to improving our product; what is the product we want to scale. And figuring out from a customer acquisition stand point, what are the scalable channels" -Rebecca Sholiton "You have to have good people around so you that you trust them, so that everyone is empowered and everyone is creating their own future with your company, which I think is something super special to watch happen." -Rebecca Sholiton "Things are going to go wrong...all you can do in those moments is own up to it, accept the responsibility... [and] try to have some personality while you're doing it." -Rebecca Sholiton "It takes one person to give you your first 'yes'. And it can feel like a beating to get there, but once you get your first 'yes' the other no's don't even feel that bad because you know you have somebody behind you." -Rebecca Sholiton RESOURCES Rebecca Sholiton LinkedIn Rebecca Sholiton Twitter Eat Pakd Facebook Eat Pakd Instagram Eat Pakd Twitter Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program Techstars The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon Daring Greatly by Brene Brown