Watch #techtuesday Episode #5 and meet Jonathan Grzybowski of Penji.

Jonathan Grzybowski, is the Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of Penji, an on-demand graphic design service that is fast, simple, and affordable. Use this link to save 15% on your first paid month. 

The Art of Conversation

Jonathan believes that if you can't have a conversation with your customer then, you shouldn't be a business owner as simple as that. Something that's really important when it comes to customer acquisition and growth is conversation.

If you're a small business that relies heavily on chambers of commerce or natural meetups or whatever it may be, these types of conversations go a long way. The foundation of how Penji actually started and why it grew the way that it did was built off of the foundation of exactly what Tech Tuesday does.

He also created a podcast that ended up having around 320 episodes. On those podcasts, he interviewed SaaS founders and they ended up being one of the first foundational customers of Penji. Because they had a need and Penji had the service, an hour-long conversation ended up being like a lead generation to the people that are listening or watching. 

How Penji Started

A lot of tech startups come from a need. People identify a gap in the market and then they come up with a product but Penji started in a little different way. 

“We were a digital marketing agency primarily before this. We did SEO, we did website design, we did web development. If somebody needed an app we did that. If somebody needed a university website we did that. We were just a jack of all trades master of none.

When customers leave the business, which is natural, they usually say something along the lines of “you know we didn't get the results that we were looking for, however, your graphic design was really good” and so we were just “Okay, well you know you're like the tenth person that said that”. Then we started just googling graphic design services until we found an interesting way to enter the market. 

Then we ended up interviewing around 125 to 150 people. We asked them what are the pain points of your business and marketing? What is the biggest thing that you're struggling with?

Answer: It was hiring a graphic and marketer and then also the ability to afford it. 

Our first 100 customers only took a couple of months because we were able to get them at the price that we wanted. We were able to get the customers that we wanted because of the podcast and then also because of the interviews that we did.”

Content Creation Strategy

When you have a little bit of cash flow, you need to be able to actually do a good job. Penji incentivizes people which they still have to this day. People started referring them until they started obtaining profit which was put into advertising. In addition, they created really good content which is the best idea as people consume content every single second of every single day.

When Penji was doing content that people want to consume, people want to obtain it, they want to eat that up as much as possible. So just create content and repurpose it. It doesn't have to be good content. People are watching live, they're seeing Jonathan answer a phone, he collects their email, he put them into the ecosystem. Therefore, if you're doing cool stuff that ecosystems built naturally and then you end up getting sales from it, that's literally the recipe that helped Penji start.

The Story Behind the Penji logo

“Penji actually didn't have a logo in the very beginning so it was kind of counterintuitive because we are like the foundation, we are the star, but we didn't follow our own practices ourselves. I think a logo is like a suit to walk into a meeting and feel good and feel confident, but you also need to be able to talk and sell. It doesn't matter how good-looking you might be or how sexy you feel, if you can't talk then the suit is worthless.”

As Jonathan said, that's the differentiation between a really good entrepreneur and that of somebody who is just working off the seat of their pants. You have that foundation, you know what to do with it, you have that confidence, you know what to say to a customer and you fine-tune it over time. 

That's what allowed Penji to succeed. They didn't give a crap about what other people were saying. They were singularly focused on helping people and servicing their customers. They didn't care about what they looked like because they knew that if their customers knew how hard they worked, they would reciprocate and respect them more.

Productivity Tips

• Time management 

Organize your day before you actually start it. Jonathan’s day actually begins the night before where he lays out what are the most important things that he needs to do the next day in order to succeed.

•  Stop doing busywork

People who like doing busywork like to feel busy but at the end of the day, they end up not actually amounting to anything for the business. If you're not producing revenue for your business then you're dying. 

FAVORITE PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY

Jonathan’s favorite piece of technology is a scooter. He lives in South Philly and it takes him only 10 minutes to get to work which is absolutely beautiful.

Recommended Readings: 

• Introducing Business on a Browser
• The Importance of Balancing People with Technology
• New Business? Tax Issues to Consider 
• You Can Expense Business IT Purchases
• Episode #1 with Peter Yeargin of Sage
• Episode #2 with Scott Dickson of 20 Digits
• Episode #3 with Kim Henderson of Cobalt Compass Solutions
• Episode #4 with Dayana Pereira of Dayana, Inc

SEE YOU NEXT TECH TUESDAY

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