For the ninth stop of the nationwide Shark Tank Diversity Tour, the casting team for ABC’s Shark Tank visited Oakland, California, where entrepreneurs pitched their businesses at the Kapor Center for Social Impact.
While at the Kapor Center, Brandon Andrews sat down with La Donna Higgins, founder and CEO of The Startup Admin (TSA); a new way for startup founders to get the professional services they need to grow their businesses.
(The Startup Admin CEO, La Donna Higgins. Image: The Startup Admin)
Every business needs a good team. What’s the Startup Admin story?
La Donna Higgins: Before starting The Startup Admin I was a career executive assistant. I’ve supported Paul Marciano, owner of Guess Inc., Jeff Bonforte, SVP of Communication Products at Yahoo Inc., and Matthew Brezina, co-founder of Xobni and Sincerely.
I joined Xobni in 2007 as an executive assistant, office manager, HR manager, bookkeeper, and event planner. Within my first six months of being at Xobni, I was asked to prepare due diligence for Microsoft. During this process it became clear to me how many processes were not in place. Finding documents took longer than necessary because there wasn’t anyone managing where things should be kept or if the documents existed.
I began to create working procedures for every task that needed to be done. I started to implement policies and procedures and found I had a lot of free time on my hands. I began to answer questions from other founders on things like “Who do I use for payroll?”, “What insurance plan would be good for our team?” or “Can you recommend a vendor to deliver lunch to us?”
In the beginning, I was providing consulting services free of charge. Then a company reached out to me and asked if I could setup their new startup with everything they needed and they were willing to pay me. I did this for a few startups then one day Jeff Bonforte, who was the CEO at Xobni, said to me “if you could teach others how to run startups the way you do, it would be a goldmine.” This is when the light bulb went off and I started to work on my own startup, The Startup Admin!
Why is this the right solution for entrepreneurs?
Higgins: The Startup Admin is the right solution for entrepreneurs because there is a race against time to get your product or service to market. Having an admin who can take on all of your administrative tasks and create a compliant infrastructure for your business is a huge asset. Some administrative tasks are not the best use of a founder’s time, however, getting these tasks done could lead to the success of your business.
In the beginning of starting a business, the entrepreneur might not know exactly what they need from an admin; they know more that they just need help with all the moving pieces. Our admins are trained on all things “startups.” From Human Resources and creating that perfect onboarding package to due diligence and company wind down. Our admins are armed with a how-to manual to efficiently create policies, procedures, and systems to help a business scale.
Startups have—perhaps—never been more popular. How is The Startup Admin keeping pace with the rate of new business formation?
Higgins: The Startup Admin is keeping our admins trained on the latest technology to improve how we work. One of our goals is to save startups resources to help them stretch their runway and build a successful business. We are constantly working with startups as beta testers for companies creating productivity tools, accounting software, HR solutions, and many other tools.
We are always hiring and training new admins to meet the demand on new business formation.
How does The Startup Admin work? How do entrepreneurs get an admin on their team?
Higgins: Once a potential client reaches out to us, we schedule an intake call or meeting with the client. We gather information about the company such as employee size and anticipated growth,…