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Today’s co-host is an architecture major turned “sudden entrepreneur”. From his time teaching tennis, to running a t-shirt company, to working his way through the Facebook marketing ranks with various companies, he has always felt the entrepreneurial bug. Building a successful Facebook fan page business from his dorm room, he did over 70k in revenue…while his friends were doing keg stands, he was watching his Paypal account skyrocket.
A voracious reader who distills 3 books a week into his brain, he founded heyo.com in 2010. Heyo isn’t just a cool-sounding name, it’s a platform to create mobile-optimized contests and marketing campaigns for Facebook. He is certainly living the proudly unemployable lifestyle! We’re happy to have him on today, ladies and gentleman, Nathan Latka.
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Even as a youngster Nathan was blessed with the entrepreneurial spirit. He took a job as a tennis coach because he wanted the money, but most importantly, he wanted the connections. The job was at one of the most elite tennis clubs in his area and he knew he could build relationships by being there and being a great coach to his students.
That same forward-thinking led him to create Heyo when he was just a college lad. Being a financially-conscious guy, when Nathan overheard 5th year architecture students say they were having a hard time getting a job he got spooked. Despite being in the top architecture school in the country, Nathan understood in that moment all he wanted was to be in control of his financial future. He didn’t want to be dependent on anyone else, so he created Heyo.
Out of the confines of his dorm room, his new company was born and it was off to a great start. He generated $70,000 in revenue and today he has taken Heyo to its current corporate offices in southwest Virginia. They employ between 20 and 25 people and are aiming to have 500,000 businesses or more as clients by 2017, setting them up to be a $15 million a year company.
The finer details of the show include:
- Who did he recently have dinner with?
- Knowledge is most powerful when?
- What are his flow states and how can you use this same strategy?
- How many Facebook pages did he initially sell at the start of Heyo?
- 3 ways people learn and how to leverage those to connect with your target audience.
- The night of the week Facebook’s changes are implemented – do you know when it is?
And if all of that wasn’t enough, Nathan is a mere 24 years old! It’s simply a matter of time until he has a Ted Talk, a book and does the rounds on the speaking circuit. He’s truly a man with a vision and a thought leader not only of his generation but for all solopreneurs everywhere of any age.
One of the habits that has gotten him to that thought leader status is his habit of reading. Nathan reads three books a week – three! Most people don’t read three in a year, let alone in one week. And he doesn’t just read them, he studies and commits them to his knowledge bank. When he reads, he does a few things that ordinary readers do not. First, he underline notes that he deems important. Second, he circles any interesting names or concepts to keep in mind for potential reading topics in the future. Third, he puts quotes around any articles or books mentioned so he can read those in the future as well.
He doesn’t stop there: when he finishes a book, he writes a summary of it on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and then reads that summary every morning, then every week, then every quarter. If you want to know for how many days, weeks and quarters – or any other info about his process check out the Resources section for a link to his blog post that details his reading strategy.
He started implementing this practice after hearing Warren Buffett’s speech at Harvard. Warren said reading is compound interest for your brain and Nathan took that to heart. He read what Tim Ferriss had to say about how to read and retain information quickly so he could consume three books a week and Nathan gives us a tip he picked up: don’t read the words on either edges of the page, your lateral vision will pick those up and fill them in for you. If you do that, you can read a bit quicker and still retain the information just as readily.
Nathan also tells us about his flow states that he uses to set aside time to read, why they’re so important and what a campaign with Heyo is all about. That last topic Nathan and I discuss a bit more in-depth: campaigns with Heyo. Here’s a quick overview of how it work:
- You go to their site, you sign up for free.
- Next you are dropped right into the builder that creates your contest.
- Setting this up takes the average person 3 min 39 sec to publish their first campaign, it’s very easy to use.
- Then you run your campaign!
As long as you see a profit, you can continue your campaign with Heyo for $30 a month. Nathan says they don’t want your money unless you’re making some with them. It’s a terrific concept and they’ve now done over 750,000 campaigns in the last 3 years in a ton of different industries. So if you have a business and you want to generate likes and leads on Facebook, Heyo is worth checking out.
Please join me in thanking Nathan for stopping by The Solopreneur Hour. It was a pleasure to have him on the 166th episode of the show and I look forward to meeting him down the road and seeing all that he accomplishes. I’d say he’s off to a pretty good start wouldn’t you?! I hope you enjoyed the show, thanks for being here. Leave a comment or send a Tweet. See you next time.
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Episode Resources
Heyo web site
Heyo on Twitter
Nathan’s blog post on his reading strategy
Tim Ferris on reading
Kitchit
Proudly Unemployable, the Facebook group
SoloLab: A Unique Mastermind
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“It was like promocodesterbation”
I literally laughed out loud. And even had to back up the player to get the word right for this comment.
Nathan’s perspective on reading – 3 books per week & the concept of compound knowledge – struck me! Nathn’s achievement in his 20s makes me want to time travel back to my younger self and tell him to get into business earlier (or at least read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Cashflow Quadrant” around 2002).
At the same time, I have to caution myself that reading great books does not a business make.