Interview transcript

Reade (00:00):

Two. One. Okay. Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining me for another growth secrets interview. I'm here today with Amber Schroeder. Amber and I have already shared a few tips on how I can have a not so wrinkly backdrop. So I appreciate her. She's already given me value, so I know she's going to give you guys value. So without further ado, Amber, thank you so much for joining me.

Amber (00:25):

Thank you so much for having me.

Reade (00:27):

Awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. What brings you here today?

Amber (00:31):

So I've always kind of had that entrepreneurial spirit. I come from a family of entrepreneurs. They say there's a genetic marker that makes you an entrepreneur. And my grandparents immigrated to the U S and worked their way across country until they were able to start their own bakery. And the town I grew up in, and they were literally the only bakery in town besides the grocery store. So that European roots and I watched them from the front of the house to the back of the house with my grandfather in the back and my grandmother in the front and learn how to run a business from being a little kid. My mom did the bookkeeping and was the cake decorator. So you kind of see like the roles of every single person in a family fulfilling in a business. And I always found that part fascinating. And I've worked for other startup companies and kind of got them from zero to a hundred and realized that I really wanted to do it for myself. So I did.

Reade (01:34):

So I love that story. That's like such a classic American dream story and the L the bakery, I mean, it's perfect. It's I mean they're really, you'll learn a lot. I actually got to a friend of mine here in Atlanta with a similar background. It was his parents. They started the business and he was just telling me all, all of the lessons you'll learn that are applicable to any industry that you learned from running a little. His was a bakery, became a sandwich shop. Mmm. But I mean, it's operations. It's people, it's sales, it's marketing, it's financial management. It's a little business school right there. We just happened to be selling cakes and cookies instead of, you know, multimillion dollar software. But it's really the same principle.

Amber (02:17):

It's very much the same principles. And I think in a lot of ways doing food is always harder. But it is one of those that you learned. I learned from my grandfather that there was not a job that was ever too good for him to do. And he worked, he obviously worked Baker shifts. So he worked middle of the night through the middle of the day and he took out the trash. He swept the floors. And when I started my own business, I kind of had that same thing that said, as I, I grow this and, and build up a technology company, there's no job that I shouldn't be able to do because I'm going to be able to understand every single person I hire and what my is for them because I've done the job and I'm going to be really realistic and I've always believed in being kind of a candor person. And so it allows me to go, you know, I know it's difficult but maybe if you adjust your day like this or have you tried this, I found this really helpful and I think the one-on-one, like I had experienced it instead of just armchair quarterbacking like many people do, it made it a lot easier to be a good manager as well.

Reade (03:28):

That's really great advice also. And I think it was the, the rework book by Jason fried who founded base camp, who said that before you delegate any task, you should know how to do it. That's not always possible, right? Depending on what you're doing. And I know for, yeah, myself, I mean there's a lot of tasks that, that I delegated and hired out because I could not do that. Right. It would required years of schooling and developing and coding and things like that. But generally speaking, that's a good practice. I want to shift a little bit ask the question we always ask is, you know, you being an entrepreneur, you alluded to your business. I always want to know what the problem is that you found in the marketplace that you decided to go solve. I think that's what an entrepreneur does, is we solve problems for money at scale. And so what was that problem that you saw that you felt like you needed to solve?

Amber (04:23):

Kind of a different space. I'm in that digital forensic industry, which a lot of people are going to kind of raise an eyebrow of. What is that? So we do investigations on anything that's electronic. The problem that I saw, cause I was already in this space is I saw a problem with smartphones and this was back in 2001 so the smartphones were not as smart as they are now. There are more PDAs. But I saw them as really becoming a primary piece of evidence in an investigation because he said, people are really gonna start shifting what they're doing onto these mobile devices instead of just on computers, which is what we were looking at at a time. And I said, we really need to do something about this. And I pitched the idea to my existing employer and he was like, nah, I don't think so.

Amber (05:13):

I don't think that's going to trend up. And I said, do you mind if I do something on my own? And he said, yeah, go ahead. It's not going to conflict with us. We're doing computers, we're doing cryptography. And so I developed something with a contractor on my own and kind of built it up and said, okay, how are we going to tackle this problem? And then how do I convince people that this is going to be a longterm problem? And it's kind of nice now because obviously smartphones are going gangbusters and they are long term problem for investigations. But by starting it and establishing it, it showed them that there was a problem, they weren't addressing it, and then there was a value behind it, which think is always the, the trick to having that good sales process is saying there's a value for you. Looking at what I'm telling you is a problem. And so far it has done really well as far as it's grown. It's actually the top area of investigations now. None surprisings everyone's on their smart phones. And it's just grown since 2001.

Reade (06:20):

That's really great. Yeah, so basically the same thing as the bakery. Right. and it's, it's a little bit of a different industry. But what's interesting about that is that you saw this when it was, I would say barely emerging. You know, you jokingly say that smartphones weren't as smart. I would say those, the smartphones at the time, I don't know if they could have been called smartphones, right?

Amber (06:45):

Personal digital assistance. But I'm going to, I'm going to make them feel a little better.

Reade (06:50):

There you go. Yeah. So, so that's really fascinating that you saw that emerging and you, you guessed right as a way of saying it. So, so who's the customer for this? Is this primarily I mean, who's, who's the customer for this? Who's your,

Amber (07:04):

Everyone thinks the primary customer is just public sector, so law enforcement, government, et cetera. But you know, it's, it's actually any sized business. And the reason is, is any type of digital device really becomes a risk factor when you're growing your business. And it's because it's your primary container for your data. So your data is the most valuable thing any business owns because that's what's making you work, that's what's making you have customer lists, it's making your product get delivered and all of that. And so you have to protect that. And forensics is part of that process of protecting it because it kind of acts as an audit control. So we deal with people anywhere from a small business to say they have a disgruntled employee that stole data and it was on their smartphone to, on their computer because we deal with both of them. But it's all the way up to the larger enterprise that, you know, they have forensic departments that actually do this type of investigative process. But everyone has a risk. We even deal with regular consumers that are having problems where it's civil cases with divorces or even parents that are just dealing with problems with their teens,

Reade (08:14):

Can't get away from the digital devices. So yeah, I you, you probably would have found a customer in my parents' circle, mid two thousands or so. I can't believe that person, that kid. Yeah, I'm glad they didn't know that this was around back then. Well, well that, that really is fascinating. So, so I get the story, I understand the value there. How do you communicate that in a sales and marketing context, right? Are you blogging, you creating content? Are you doing interviews like this? How do you get that message out that that really one conveys the the problem and the solution. But then how do you do that in a systematic way so that you can grow your business.

Amber (08:59):

You know, I learned a long time ago and even more so right now is content is truly King and you have to have something that is compelling. So a real reason on why you're different than other people cause you're always going to have competition. Even in something as unique as what we do. We have competition and we have competition that has way larger funding than us and has some that are about the same and it's in between and other countries. And so you need to make sure you have a compelling reason on why you are different. I was calling it kind of like your gold stars, like when you were a kid and your mom would put like a gold star on your forehead, what your gold stars are for you and your product. So it's always something about the product. And then it's also something about about the company because when someone buys something from you, they're not just buying that product, they're buying the entire relationship with your organization.

Amber (09:51):

And I think people forget that. I think a lot of times customer service is dead and it really shouldn't be because that's a big differentiator between you and someone else. It's how reachable are you. Do you actually listen because there's one of the things taking feedback on your site, but there's another thing to actually listen and show you. Listen, by responding back to your community of customers and future customers with our response, and I make sure I do that through content, whether it's through YouTube, blogging, tweeting you got a whole variety of ways to do it. Luckily there's not a shortage in that.

Reade (10:28):

Yeah, and this is a, this is a question I get a lot is how do we come up with content? How do we know what kind of content to create [inaudible] and it's really simple. Just ask, ask your, your customers what questions they have, ask your team, what questions they're getting most often from customers and prospects. And just to ask the world, right, what put out, put out a tweet, but out of Facebook post what, what are you most curious of? What do you know about digital forensics or what are you most interested in and then make that your content calendar.

Amber (11:04):

What is it, what is your biggest concern? You know, what do you feel your biggest risk is? I actually ask, don't laugh. I ask, it's my kids because they're younger generation, they're in generation Z. So I asked them because they've always known life with the internet and they have a different perspective on it because I work in a digital space. I say, what are your concerns? And I had one of them the other day say, you know, I hear a lot of talk about malware. What is it and how do I know if I have it? And it was an interesting question because it was my 16 year old asking this. And I said, okay, well let's go through and talk about what malware is. And he's like, well, do I download all these other things to try to fix it? And I said, absolutely not.

Amber (11:50):

All you're doing is trying to put five bandaids on a bleeding that you've cut the tip off. It's like it's not going to work. It's not going to work. And I think if he has that concern in his generation, then other people out there have it as well. And I think we forget to ask multi-agent my dad constantly sends me information that says, have you seen this? Is this a bike? Okay, this is, and it's valuable because I get to see his perspective on the other end of the generation. And I know if I produce content that kind of answers all of the spaces, I'm really hitting the largest stroke of the market that I can and making sure I'm applicable to each one of those different generations with my information. Cause you never know when they're going to say, Hey, I heard of this company Paramin and they're doing this. And that referral is super important because it's like a little mini endorsement,

Reade (12:44):

You know, that's really smart. I need, I need to find a younger yes. And to ask some things too. I tend to ask my dad, my dad's a baby boomer, and if my dad, if I can explain it, if he can understand it, if it sounds it sounds disrespectful, I don't mean it that way, but meaning if he understands the lingo and the language and the terminology as someone who's who's not as familiar with my industry, then I feel like I can get that message across. I've never really thought about it as like a, as a part of the process, right. That I actually intentionally went through. But I love that idea of, you know, asking people if you know, what their concerns are from different perspectives people who may be affected, who, who aren't as knowledgeable in the area. I, I think that's really wise. So, so that's what drives the content calendar. Do you have a team that helps create content?

Amber (13:36):

I do. I have an amazing technical writer that constantly is contributing in. Her name is ginger, so I'm obviously approach into your company. So anyways so as a pro ginger company and having a great technical writer, she does a wonderful job working on some of our video content. And she also has a very different perspective because she's looking at it from a very analytical, functional standpoint. And so her and I can brainstorm and say, how do we make something that's very functional, very applicable cause just because it's functional doesn't make it applicable everyone. And you kind of have to have that twist that says what is the story behind the function? And she does a wonderful job with that. And I have great marketing people that I work with and they help push it out through social media. I'm a natural introvert, so it's one of those I've had to really push myself to try to say, how do I become digitally social? And I've really tried to be much better at that in participating in the online world.

Reade (14:42):

I mean that's, that's good to be self aware. Right. We had a guest not long ago who she has a, she has her own philosophy on personality tests and personality traits. And how to build your business around not only your personality type, but around your, your customers and building your sales process around that. But understanding yourself and then building a team around that to really augment what you do well and cover up the things that you're not as comfortable doing. And also just putting yourself in a position where you're, you're, you're making yourself accountable to do those things. She had me at pro ginger company. I know it looked like it,

Amber (15:26):

Like 1%. People were like a 1% level of the population.

Reade (15:30):

It may not look like it, but this used to be red hair. It's going away as I get older. It was a, I think it kind of faded away in high school, but before that, and then my, my oldest son, same thing, he had this like reddish, like a, what do they call it? Strawberry blonde hair. And it's already starting to get Brown. And so that's a

Amber (15:55):

Manger. So I feel bad that I'm not passing it on, but my son has started to grow a beard and so he's got a ginger beer. And I'm like, it's in there. Yeah.

Reade (16:04):

That's funny. Yeah. That's how I proved that. I still have the, the red hair gene cause mine gets gets red too. Well that's funny. Well, yeah. Amber, this has been a really interesting conversation. I, I don't know that I'm, I don't know that we've had a story like this before and I've already got a title in my mind. I love doing this where, you know, we start in grandparents bakery and we're into a very sophisticated technology company with with a very well constructed sales and marketing process. So, you know, I'll congratulate you and let you know that, that I appreciate your story and I know that the audience does as well. Folks, if you have questions for Amber, if you have questions for me about this interview, please leave some feedback in the comments below on Facebook. And if you're watching this on YouTube later, drop them in the comments there as well. And if you're listening to the audio podcast send me a note, send me an email. And I'll either get you in touch with Amber or I will try to get an answer for you as well. Amber, where else can people learn more about you and what you guys are doing?

Amber (17:09):

So it's really simple. The website is paragon.com, so it's P a R a B E n.com. I am on Twitter, sees that, that's me pushing my extroverted sides. But I am ginger wonder mom on 20 Twitter because I did always want to be wonder woman. And so my fight for justice in forensics is, has come out and made the ginger strong. So

Reade (17:33):

I love it. That's great. And we'll drop all those links in the comments and in the show notes as well. Amber, thank you so much for joining me today and thank you all for watching. We will see you on the next interview series or the next interview in our series in the gross secrets Facebook group and podcast. Thank you all.