What does it take to scale a business for sustained success?

In this episode, Rich sits down with Joel Holland, CEO of Harvest Hosts, a unique membership program for RVers offering stays at over 5,000 locations.

Joel shares his entrepreneurial journey founding and growing Storyblocks into a nine-figure business, culminating in a successful sale to a private equity firm. He dives into the real challenges of starting a company, from nailing the perfect product-market fit to scaling. Joel details his experience jumping domains from a tech startup to scaling Harvest Hosts in the hospitality travel space through leadership, listening, and learning.

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“Any action is more powerful than inaction.”

“The simplest way to run a good company is hire great people.”

“A lot of times the answers exist either with your customers or your team members. They already know the answer. You just have to find it.”

“So when you're starting from zero, you've got to create brand awareness. You've got to convince people, ‘This isn't too good to be true. Trust us, give us a shot.’ All those things go into product market fit. So it's frustrating because just having the best product for the best price doesn't necessarily get you the fit. And so you start to learn that brand is important.”

Practice Makes Profit: Using the Business Model Innovation Framework to think about how your business needs to evolve to remain relevant in your market.

League of Strategic Minds [listener question]: What's the most important skill for a leader to possess?

Winsights: Ideas for Advantage: Warren Buffett. Billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” What have you said no to in the past month that's enabled you to work with greater focus and precision?

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(00:41) Deep Dive Interview with Joel Holland

(46:28) Practice Makes Profit

(49:44) League of Strategic Minds

(50:41) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

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Links:

Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds

Joel Holland on LinkedIn

Harvest Hosts

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

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Rich Horwath on Instagram

Strategic Thinking Institute Website

Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book

New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System
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