Outlier On Air | Founders, Disruptors, & Mavens
154: Bradley Joyce - A True Definition of Entrepreneur

“Even if you’re not trying to be a high-growth company, it’s hard [being an entrepreneur], it’s a roller coaster. You go through crazy highs and crazy lows.” - Bradley Joyce

About: Bradley Joyce- Founder of Velocis SocializerHQ, and Launch DFW

Overview: Bradley Joyce is the true definition of being an Outlier. During this interview, he shares with us all about the different companies he started and what it’s like balancing so many responsibilities in the entrepreneurial world.

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Bradley Joyce

Highlights:

Velocis: It is a company Bradley started in 2008 as a way to get into the web development world. It was the entity under which he did all of his work. He spent a lot of time helping small companies build their businesses, and eventually got into bigger build-up applications. It’s a team of 13 people- designers, developers, marketers, and sales people. They act as an incubator for a lot of the smaller companies. Up to this point, they have about 5 companies and have equity stake in most of them while helping them build their sites, and platforms.

Application Process: If you’d like to become a partner, get on AngelList and set up your profile. For the equity base deals, they are looking for a few companies to work with later in the Spring. Feel free to reach out directly to Bradley as well.

About Socializer: Is a spin out from Velocis. At the time, Bradley and his co-founder worked full-time on this company for about a year and a half. They raised some money, and really pounded the pavement building product. It’s been on the shelf for the past 12 months. It’s been through just about everything a startup can go through.

What is Socializer: A predictive analytics for social media. They would use specific algorithms to help increase clicks and re-tweets.

Why the Hold on Socializer: Money was the biggest reason. They needed a lot more investment for infrastructure. They had a hard time sustaining the monthly fees, and their customers at the time were not ready for the cost required to help pay for the business itself.

Plans to Revive Socializer: Bradley and his team have been thinking about moving forward with Socializer- but are waiting on funds to come through. It’s not necessarily off the table, they may sell it, but they’re not quite sure yet.

Apps Created: Previously, Bradley worked for a company, and during that time, the company built a product called Tweet Saver. It was back during the time when Twitter was open to companies building upon it. It essentially archived all of your tweets. Another app they created was called Quitter- and it tracked all of those who unfollowed you on Twitter. Bradley didn’t originate Quitter, but it was given to him by a client. He grew it from 50,000 users to 200,000 users. Quitter was somewhat profitable, but not something that made large amounts of money. Eventually, Bradley didn’t have the time to run all these apps, and so he listed the apps on a site and sold them to another Twitter app-like company.

Learning Mistakes: Bradley admits that selling these apps were some of the biggest mistakes in his entrepreneurial career. Bradley feels that if he had the patience, he would have worked more on these apps, and grown them in different ways to get them into a niche area.

What is Launch DFW: Bradley started the company in 2010. It’s an online community that started off as a very simple blog. From there it grew into hosting network events, happy hours, meetings, etc. The best way to think about what Launch DFW is a TechCrunch for the Dallas area. They try to aggregate as much information as possible for the Launch DFW community. Right now, they have about 20,000 visits a month. They have around 200 people at their events, and about a 100 people to their happy hour. It started out as a passion project, but within the last 6 months, they’ve really focused on making it a successful business because of its role of importance in helping the community. They have a lot of goals around making sure it’s a sustainable business for 2015.

Unique about Bradley: He is really into sports, and played water polo from 3rd grade through college. And he shares that sports prepare you for business in so many ways: dedication, hard work, teamwork, etc.

Advice for Entrepreneurs: From Bradley’s experience, the more you share your ideas, and the more you talk to other people to get feedback, the more you grow and become better. It’s so important to be open and honest with everyone around you. Being an entrepreneur is hard work, and you need that support. For those who are dipping their toes into the entrepreneurial world, talk to a lot of people about what you want to do. Try and get as much validation with potential customers that you can do up front to get a feel for what’s out there. Once you do it, be 100% committed. . Don’t straddle the line too long.

Take Away: Bradley teaches us that the sky is the limit when it comes to starting a business. Although, there are many highs and lows to being involved with so many different companies, the rewards are worth the risk.

Connect With Bradley:

Website | @BradleyJoyce | @Velocis | @SocialyzerHQ | @LAUNCHDFW | AboutMe

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Direct download: Bradley_Joyce.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 10:50pm MDT

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