Mehak Vohra & Stacey Ferreira
CEO of Jamocha Media, YouTuber & Growth Hacker. + Founder & CEO of Forge & co-author 2 Billion Under 20
Discussion
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
Hi! I’m Mehak Vohra, founder and CEO of a growth hacking agency called Jamocha Media. I work with early stage startups in user acquisition and social growth. I also run a YouTube channel called watthemehak (“What-the-Ma-heck”) where I document my time as a young startup founder and my decision to leave school and try things on my own.
I'm joined by my friend Stacey Ferreira, she is the founder and CEO of Forge, which builds flexible scheduling software for retail/restaurant employees to chose when and where they work. Her previous co-founders and her sold MySocialCloud to Reputation.com when she was 20 years old and she co-authored a book called 2 Billion Under 20.
Ask us anything!
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Shriyash Jalukar
@shriyash_jalukar · CS@Purdue, BoilerMake and Purdue Hackers
What was the best lesson you learned while you were in college?
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@shriyash_jalukar Thanks for the question Shriyash! :)
You can't take life too seriously. You're allowed to make mistakes and grow from them. Not everything is going to work out the way you wanted it to and that's okay.
It's just important that you constantly move forward.
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Stacey Ferreira
@staceyferreira
@shriyash_jalukar I learned that not everyone has the same metric of success as me, and my metric isn't better or more worthy than someone else's.
For some people, happiness and success means raising a successful family and working a part-time job. For others, it means coming home and watching TV every night at 6pm. For others, it means building a unicorn company. And still for others, it means eating Doritos and playing video games. All of that is 100% okay, if thats what truly makes those people happy. The world needs it all.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
Have you faced any stigma or prejudice from clients / employees / investors because of your age?
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Stacey Ferreira
@staceyferreira
@ems_hodge There have definitely been people I've interacted with who have been ageist (some even have said it straight to my face).
I think of this in the same way I think about people's personalities. Some people are more pessimistic than others; some are more optimistic. Some people are ageist, some are not. You can spend time trying to change their mind, but the best way I've found to do this is to keep pushing forward either with or without them. You don't need people's approval to be baller anyway.
If it's a client, you have a few options. You can:
1. Chose not to do work with that client (plenty of fish in the sea)
2. Identify someone else to be your champion internally at the client company.
3. Identify someone else to be your champion internally at the client company & bring someone else from your team (maybe with a little bit more gray hair) onto your deal team.
If its an employee, you can:
1. If you're running the company, you probably shouldn't hire them.
2. If you're a peer, have an open and honest conversation around your strengths and weaknesses and your experience and lack-thereof so that they understand where you're coming from. You can also take this as an opportunity to learn from them (and turn them into a mentor/friend).
3. Ask to be moved to a new department or ask HR the best plan of action.
Investors:
1. Onto the next.
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@ems_hodge Thanks Emily!
I have multiple times.
Usually when a potential client comes to me, and questions my agency's services because of my age, I've always had the argument that it's because of my age that I understand the market so much better than people older than me that have had to learn it.
I understand that my age won't be an asset forever, but I have chosen to use it as a way to springboard my career, and after I can use hard data to back up what my agency can do for our clients.
Rahul Srivastava
@rahulistic
Would you suggest any online course I can take to expand my social media expertise?
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@rahulistic I personally wouldn't. I haven't taken an online course ever.
Experience and psychology is the best way to learn how to hack social media. From my experience I've learned so much more from other people, than I have ever learned online. I have a group of friends in the growth hacking world that I talk to regularly and bounce new ideas off of.
Also try joining growth hacking Facebook groups. It's a great way to connect with new people that are interested in social media marketing.
I specifically help run a growth marketing group called Marketers and Founders: https://www.facebook.com/groups/...
Rahul Srivastava
@rahulistic
@watthemehak Great! Thanks for the wise words Mehak. Will surely join the aforementioned group.
Varun Joshi
@va3unjoshi
Hi Stacey, Mahek. Hope you guys are doing well. What are your work hours like? I imagine since this is something you like, work + fun would go hand in hand? P.S Just wanted to say, I have known Stacey for almost 4 years now since the mysocialcloud days and I am so glad to see the progress that you have made!
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Stacey Ferreira
@staceyferreira
@va3unjoshi Hey Varun! Thanks so much! :)
My thoughts and thinking on work hours has evolved a lot over the past year. I used to think that the number of hours I put in was indicative of how successful I was going to be. And while I do think there is a correlation (I don't know anyone working 2 hours a day that I would say is "successful" by many standards), there is also an inflection point. There is such thing as working too much, getting stuck in your head and being completely unproductive while also harming your personal health.
Right now, I have little to no responsibilities outside of myself. My immediate family isn't local. I don't have kids. I'm also a work-aholic. So I'm typically working 8:00am-9:00pm, 6 days a week. But there are definitely weekends where I'm taking a Friday to take a trip to Tahoe or somewhere else fun to get a little bit of balance. And there are definitely days where I've had too much for that day and just need to leave the office at 4pm. I learned that taking a few days away from work is a lot better than getting burned out and taking 3 months to recover. I work a lot, but I work flexibly. So does everyone else at Forge.
Varun Joshi
@va3unjoshi
@staceyferreira That was good insight and exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
Hey Mehak and Stacey thanks for joining us today. What's your advice to other young people looking to start their own business?
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@ems_hodge Just start.
You don't need to "prepare" to start a business.
A lot of people think that business and entrepreneurship can be learned in the classroom, and that's not the case.
If you're interested in doing something try to find the closest thing to real world experience.
Seth Williams
@sethbwilliams · Web Designer
What life moments have helped shape the way you approach decision making?
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Stacey Ferreira
@staceyferreira
@sethbwilliams Most of my biggest life-moments have been personal.
My mom was diagnosed with Crohn's when I was in middle school. Throughout middle school and high school there were a lot of trips in and out of the hospital. This created a lot of times when my brother and I needed to simply figure out how to get to and from school and how to go get food. Luckily, my dad always had a good job and was worked long hours on planes, trains and automobiles to ensure that my mom would always have the best healthcare and that monetarily my brother and I would be able to live a middle-class life. Growing up, this taught gave me a healthy balance: every day is truly a gift, so I should make the most of it and pursue my wildest dreams, but passion doesn't make the payroll. So everyday I make decisions with those two things in mind. What would I do if I wasn't afraid? Does this decision make me financially responsible to myself and everyone working with me?
Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
Do you think higher education is ever necessary for launching your own company?
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Stacey Ferreira
@staceyferreira
@jakecrump I don't think higher education is needed to launch your company, or even be successful at running it (I consider these to be two different things).
However, I do think the necessity of higher education depends on what field and industry you're going into. For most industries, I don't believe that going through what we traditionally call "higher education" (an institution within four walls) is necessary to launch your own company. But I do think that if you're going into Healthcare, for example, higher education might be a necessity and also might be the difference between being successful or not. Imagine trying to start a pediatrics practice without an education.
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@jakecrump Hey Jake thanks for your question! I like getting an early start in the morning because I have clients on the East and West Coast.
I usually wake up between 4-5am and work till 7am. I then follow it up with a run, and head to meetings or whatever my work day brings at 9am.
Mike Coutermarsh
@mscccc · Code @ Product Hunt
Hey! Would love to know. What's one thing you've done so far in your career that's scared you the most? What was risky about it and how'd it turn out?
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Mehak Vohra
@watthemehak · CEO of Jamocha Media
@mscccc Thanks Mike!
Dropping out.
I remember the day all of my friends went back to school and I stayed in San Francisco.
I was terrified. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't eat. The fear of the unknown was eating me up inside.
When I started Jamocha Media at Purdue, I still had my education as a back up.
Leaving school to take it on by it's own was scary and lonely. It's just you and your work.
So far things have been going well! It's only been 8 months, but I'm incredibly excited for the future.