I had an example of a guy that I chatted with a few years ago and he was building a software product for tattoo parlors. You need to be able to build a business that you personally have a real problem. This is something that I see a lot in entrepreneurship which basically results in failure. Number one, I think whenever you’re looking at a business, you should always be trying to scratch your own itch. How did you go about finding the information that you need, especially from someone who doesn’t have a tech background in this? And now you have a huge company, you have two, and you figured things out as you want, right? Because you didn’t have a background in this and now you are running this company with your partner. Well this was a really interesting journey because you did something from a negative, right? You couldn’t really do teaching – that wasn’t for you. I kind of call it like spring break for nerds and I met my now co-founder there, Rob Rawson, and we put together this app called Time Doctor that could completely solve that problem which measures not just how long someone is working for you remotely but how productive they are while they are working for you remotely. So I remember I was at South by Southwest, which is basically a big tech conference. I worked with him for five hours.” Then I’d have to go to the tutor and say, “Hey, did you work with Jimmy for 10 or 5 hours? And of course the tutor would say, “I billed you for 10.” So I’d end up having to refund the student for the time and then I would have to end up paying the tutor for the full amount.Īnd this was really destroying the business. So I bill a student for 10 hours, and then the student would come to me and say, “Hey, I didn’t work with my tutor for 10 hours. And then I ran into another problem which was, I couldn’t actually figure out how long a remote tutor was working with a student. I was out into the real world and that actually turned in my very first business which was an online tutoring company, and we would teach students premed prerequisites that grew to dozens of tutors throughout North America and Europe. So six weeks later, I threw a master’s thesis under his door. So either figure that out or figure something else out to do.” I remember walking into my supervisor’s office and I said, “I don’t think I’m very good at this.” And he said, “No, you’re not.” And I said, “Okay, so what do you think I should do?” He said, “You got to get pretty good at this teaching thing if you want to pursue academia. And I’ve got some of the best of the worst academic reviews in the department’s history. I started with about 300 students and ended up with a little over 150. So I was given a first-year class which was very exciting for me. And for anyone that has been to university before, graduate students usually are the ones that teach the first-year classes. I was in graduate school at McGill University. Where did you have your “aha!” moment and started this whole company? Now, Liam, how did you actually end up starting this company? Because, like you said, there’s not a lot of Canadians that do it. Well, that’s why you just came back from Egypt, right? So that’s a good life to live. So I came back here and realized that I need to get the heck out. Right now, it is currently snowing where I’m at. There aren’t many Canadians that do what I do. It’s funny that you’re saying that being Canadian is more offbeat. And not only do my employees live that philosophy, but I do as well. We have a company policy in our organization that we want people to work wherever they want, whenever they want. And I’m able to basically do it from anywhere. I’m also the co-founder of two technology companies: and. And outside of that I just got back from Cairo literally this morning. So I think the biggest thing that’s offbeat about me is I’m Canadian. So can you tell us a little bit more about you and why you live an offbeat life? Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining us. 144: How this former banker left her 9-5 to become an overseas teacher and social media manager with Courtney Brady My Offbeat Journey: How to let go of the unnecessary in order to make room for positive change. 145: How this content marketer balances work, adventure and family life while living in St. Listen on to find out how Liam has been able to build a remote company and help others become more efficient while working online. The companies have 40+ employees in 9 different countries and specialize in remote long term employee management. In this week’s episode, I speak with Liam Martin who is the co-founder of and.
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