Michelle Tinsley is the COO and Co-Founder of YellowBird, an online marketplace matching EHS professionals with businesses on-demand nationwide. An experienced executive and angel investor in the startup community, Michelle continually delivers fresh ideas to build relationships and drive growth. She is a dedicated mentor to professionals, investors, and businesses across the country.
In 2018, her skills and successful career led her to launch Tinsley Retail Insights, a consulting firm dedicated to helping retailers drive innovation to compete with digital disruption. Her dedication to growing individuals had a lasting impact on teams around the world, resulting in greater shared success.
During her 26-year leadership career at Intel, Michelle served in finance as a mini “CFO” in IOT and as a manager. Michelle earned her bachelor’s degree in Finance and Marketing from the University of Oregon and a master’s in Finance and Supply Chain from Arizona State University.
What is YellowBird all about?
YellowBird helps business leaders find the experienced and credentialed environmental, health and safety (EHS) professionals they need while allowing them to save money and time. YellowBird is a two-sided, online platform matching professionals with job opportunities. The company provides a broad swatch of critical services and enables safety professionals to leverage their experience and knowledge to land jobs on-demand.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I have worked in technology for over 30 years and that experience has equipped me with the roadmaps and tools to help businesses succeed in the startup space. During my 26-year leadership career at Intel, I served 18 years in finance as a mini “CFO” in IOT and six years as a general manager in multiple sectors. I founded Tinsley Retail Insights in 2018 to leverage my knowledge and skills to help companies succeed. My focus was on retail as digital disruption was key to survival. Since then, whether through the Angel Investor community or through my consulting firm, I have mentored startup founders and business leaders nationwide.
When Michael Zalle and I founded YellowBird, our goal was to deliver a client-focused service. Our CEO had the vision for our company after he took an UBER ride with an overqualified driver. The driver told Michael that driving for UBER was the only gig work he could find. YellowBird is solving business needs while tapping into the experience and knowledge of EHS professionals.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., businesses had to scramble for strategies to stay open. We had launched YellowBird 10 weeks earlier and, like most businesses around the world, we found ourselves unable to serve clients in person due to social distancing and lockdowns.
Our team at YellowBird decided we were not going to become a victim of the pandemic, and we realized that we were sitting on a pot of gold: the same EHS professionals we matched with businesses are the ones needed to safely navigate a pandemic. Our creative solution to overcome the challenge was to pivot our services and develop a COVID-19 Return-to-Work protocol. Today, this represents about 25% of YellowBird’s revenue and we are proud to help schools, churches, and businesses reopen safely nationwide.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
When I launched Tinsley Retail Insights, I assumed that my network of retail executives would need my consulting services. What I found was that there was a large appetite to have dialogue, but few were ready to start working on a new use case. What I learned from that is testing product and market fit are the most critical aspects of growing a business.
When we founded YellowBird, we deployed this lesson we’ve learned by conducting 100 interviews of potential professionals to ensure the website and business model would address their needs. We then interviewed 50 prospective company users to see if the value proposition resonated with them and that the pricing model worked.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I am my own coach. Only I experience the reality that affects my decision-making process and my career. I am the one who must take inventory of my goals, wins, and fails, and determine which improvements are needed to achieve my goals. When I realized that, I developed a disciplined method to advance as a business leader. At the end of each week, I block off some time on my calendar to reflect on my achievements the past week, what tasks I did not accomplish and why, which roadblocks I am encountering, and how to get around them. This self-coaching process has helped me and the leaders and I mentor overcome numerous challenges.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
- Michael and I are lead Yeallowbird guided by the lessons we’ve learned from Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winders on Rocket Fuel. The book is helpful in defining how a visionary and an integrator work together to build a successful company.
- Eric Ries’ Lean Startup is a must-read for anyone in the entrepreneurial space. I have a lot of corporate friends asking if they should start their own business and this book adequately portrays both the hard work and sheer grit you need to succeed.
- I also recommend Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high by Patterson, by Grenny and McMillan. It is indispensable because it helps you frame working through disagreement with any stakeholder in a productive way.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I am learning that promoting equity in our society can start with us, with simple acts. At YellowBird, we are on a mission to ensure everyone gets equal chances of getting a job opportunity based on their skills, credentials, experience. We asked ourselves, “How can we level the playing field for EHS professionals so they can play by the same set of rules? We discovered that one of the main reasons professionals in the EHS industry do not get consulting jobs is their lack of liability insurance, which is a financial hurdle. We then decided to offer all professionals in our platform free professional liability insurance coverage. We are learning small steps can be taken to advance toward helping bridge gaps.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Our best source of new business is referrals from existing customers and professionals on the platform. The referral comes with implied trust- because any time a customer is trying a new service and a new model (gig marketplace) they are taking a risk to try something new. The referral leverages this trust, and we build upon that trust with having a consistently great experience.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I think the key to this question is $1000 to start. I would use that to build a pitch deck and get out raising investor funds around the idea so that it could be validated and prototyped. Then another round of funding would ensue. Too many times entrepreneurs spend all the money building a product before they have vetted the use cases and figured out the business model that amplifies it to the highest value. Investor feedback can help in that regard.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
As an entrepreneur, learn by watching other entrepreneurs, but also be your own coach. As a woman in a business environment, expect to be invited to have a seat at the table, but also make room for yourself. You can use the different style you bring to the table as an advantage: stand out in a good way for showing there is more than one way to build businesses.
We used in the early days Type Form to mimic the “PRO” side of our platform. That way we could quickly change based on feedback the questions asked and intake process during the MVP stage. Once we landed on that “golden” fit experience we were able to hard code it into the cloud platform – building it onto what was there already for the company side.
We use web scraping tools to generate digital leads- companies currently looking for/hiring EHS positions.
Lastly, we are implementing amplitude on our platform to give us excellent insight into product health and user experience to further make it a strong experience for both customer groups.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Let YellowBird help you find the experts you need while saving time and money on your time sensitive projects. You can learn about how YellowBird can match your EHS needs with experienced and vetted professionals on demand by going to goyellowbird.com.
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