Top 10 Insights From the Co-Founder of Software Startup Mixtroz

Ashlee Ammons, cofounder of software startup Mixtroz.

Mixtroz, a software company dedicated to combating the discomfort of traditional networking events, was launched by mother-daughter duo Ashlee Ammons and Kerry Schrader. We got the opportunity to speak with co-founder Ashley Ammons about how Mixtroz was developed and what she’s learned along the way — these are the top 10 insights from our interview.

1. Make Your Own Solution

“Mixtroz was really born out of experiencing the problem in real-time and then looking for a solution to solve that problem. We couldn't find what we were talking about. And so we built it ourselves.”

2. You Don’t Need to Be an Expert to Be Successful

“[W]hat we came in with was domain expertise around why the product made sense, how the product should work, how it can be applied, how do those different business units work? How do they purchase those sorts of things? So, although we couldn't code it, we could come together and think about how it should function and what it would do and what are the results that we wanted the product to yield.”

3. Dedicate Yourself To Doing Your Own Research

“[W]e say that everything that we learned was from the University of Google. So for anybody who is starting out trying to be an entrepreneur, you can learn so much from the internet. You literally have this depository of information inside of your pocket. You just have to be willing to put in the work to find the things that you're looking for.”

4. Live Your Mission

“[L]iterally, we live what our mission is, which is this networking matters, this connectivity matters, being open matters.”

5. Don’t Skimp on Business Formation

“You have to do what you need to do for where your business is, but that [business formation] is not an area where you want to skimp because as your business starts to grow, it's going to be a pain to have to go back and clean all those items up when you could have done them clean from the beginning.”

6. Find Your Local Entrepreneur Center

“[F]igure out where your entrepreneur's center is, figure out where your, whatever it might be, entrepreneur center, chamber of commerce, whatever is that business entity for you. And more often than not, they will have someone there who can guide you in the right direction.

7. Use Your Resources

“So use the tools that you have to get to where you're trying to go. Sometimes you got to be thrifty; you got to be crafty. So go where the people are offering these services already. And more than likely, someone will be there to help.”

8. Don’t Wait to Think About Company Culture

“People start to think about [company] culture way after the fact when it is really something you need to be thinking about from the ground up.”

9. Take Care of Your Mental Health

“We need to find our own space because numbers don't lie — a higher percentage of us than the general population are more likely to have a mental health issue. So I think it's very important to do what you need to do to keep your mind clear and be able to work at this level because not everybody can do this. It's pretty intense.”

10. The Best Connector is People, Not Technology

“One of the lines that I say to my customers that generally gets me a nice head nod is, ‘In a world of AI, VR, internet of things, all of that, that's great, but the actual best connector of people is humans. It's not a technology.’”

11. You Need More than a Great Idea

“The hardest thing to do is actually get started because I feel like all day every day, people are like, oh, that's a great idea. Oh, I should build a thing that does that. And all that talk is cheap, but what are you doing to actually make it happen? That's what separates idea people from entrepreneurs.”

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