Dr. Nicolas Stephan is the co-founder of Sparrks, a premium business coaching provider. As a former Senior Manager at Bain & Company, Nicolas consulted leading corporations on strategy and in transformational situations. He also co-developed and directed several trainings for consultants. At Bain & Company, Nicolas and his colleague and now co-founder Jakob Hansen first had the idea of building a highly time- and cost-effective business coaching format to also give talents and young leaders access to top business coaches and bring organizational development.
Building a high-value offering is not uncharted territory for Nicolas. He was the co-founder of logistics unicorn sennder Technologies. And yes, Nicolas is a Medical Doctor, having studied medicine at the University of Munich and Harvard Medical School before obtaining an MBA from INSEAD. This educational background certainly influenced Nicolas’ “surgical” precision in identifying and fulfilling customer demands.
What is Sparrks all about?
Sparrks is a business coaching platform devoted to a high-value and cost-efficient framework. This commitment translates into an effective 1:1 coaching format focused on four 45-minute digital coaching sessions with the best executive coaches for the respective development goal, with practice phases in-between.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company.
Before business and entrepreneurship sparked my interest, I completed my medical doctorate in Clinical Pharmacology at Ludwig Maximilians Universität München. Then, my priorities shifted, leading me to a Master of Business Administration at INSEAD. This priority shift, the period as Senior Manager at Bain & Company – an established brand specializing in strategy consulting – and getting to know Jakob Hansen all marked the birth of Sparrks, launched officially in early 2021.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- Discipline. Through discipline, you can be consistent in your work and keep working even through the stuff that you don’t like but is necessary. It also means being accountable and someone people can depend on.
- Follow-Through. Don’t stop until you get something done! Even if it’s annoying stuff. Just get it done.
- Customer obsession. It doesn’t matter if you think you got a fantastic product. Ultimately, you need customers that think you have an outstanding product. And if you have such customers, the best thing is to keep them before aiming to acquire new ones. After all, it is easier to retain existing customers than gain new ones. Also, customer retention is especially crucial when you are a small young company as you have a structural advantage to be better in customer retention and satisfaction than others.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
We want to grow as a business coaching platform or, in other words, as a professional development platform. Coaching is a solid starting point. We will continue focusing on business coaching in the mid-term as it is massively growing and gaining market share, especially in Europe. So, our first plan is to keep growing as a business coaching platform and, as a second goal down the line, grow in other areas of highly-tailored professional development solutions. Our True North will continue to be offering over effective development solutions. We highly value the time and resources of our clients.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
We started Sparrks during the pandemic. The pandemic proved determinant for the work of our business model. Since we offer one-on-one business coaching via videoconference, it’s good when people are not afraid to use their computers and video conferencing to exchange with other people. So, in a nutshell, it was a boost, an enabler of our business model.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
If we approach competitors narrowly, meaning other digital coaching platforms, we offer a significantly more effective coaching format, meaning coachees achieve the same, if not more, in less time. Our offering is so powerful because we leverage the psychological effect of a clear scope and the quality of our coaches. We have the most experienced and high-quality pool of executive business coaches. We are very proud of that! Our coaches can deliver a lot of value in a short time. Also, our product is not only for a few select senior executives but for entire organizations, leaders, talents, and so on.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
- I should note that we are a bootstrapped company, so we don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing. Marketing is beautiful, but you need some resources for it. So, in retrospect, I think we started with marketing and spending resources for that too soon.
- Secondly, we started with sales too late, meaning we hired dedicated sales personnel not early on after we launched our offering. Salespeople can carry everyone else until marketing pays off in bringing leads.
- Finally, another mistake was that we continued hiring and growing as a team during the first half of 2022 despite the start of the overall economic slowdown. Maybe we should have slowed down on hiring to some extent, given the external context. Now, all is fine, but as a bootstrapped company my co-founder and I had to invest a bit more capital.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Due to the business-to-business nature of our offering, we rely heavily on sales marketing. Prospects have unique questions because each business is different. Thus, providing answers from a sales representative that understands customer challenges and frictions is critical. Nevertheless, we take part in other marketing activities to back our sales endeavors. These promotional mediums embrace the majority of digital promotion and PR. We desire to enhance our brand recognition hereabouts.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
My biggest challenge was building a team and a product with few financial resources. That remained a challenge until we could pay suppliers, team members, and everything else from earned revenue.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
My first business idea was when I was a kid, I assume. But I had my first genuine business idea during my MBA program. It was building an AI that crawls through medical publications/research papers and accessible medical records to derive diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations. Several companies out there do or try to do this now. I had this idea as well, maybe a bit earlier, but it remained just an idea.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
I am trying to learn origami with my son. I think it is a good exercise for being patient and precise.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
The most important thing I would do differently is to hire sales personnel sooner.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- I am using Hubspot, a super important tool for sales marketing and keeping records and documentation in order.
- I find Trello to be an excellent team management tool due to the canvas board feature. It allows for a great deal of organization when planning tasks.
- Recently, I have been exploring Chat GPT and leveraging its AI potential.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
Do not multitask. Multitasking doesn’t work. Do one thing, get it down, and maybe take a short break before jumping to the next thing. Also, don’t assume you can remember things. Write things down.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
- A book I would recommend is “The Great CEO Within – The Tactical Guide to Company Building” by Matt Mochary. It resonated with me. The book is available in English. I will let readers discover it for themselves.
- I liked the audiobook in podcast format called “Can’t hurt me” by David Goggins.
- I have not done any online courses for entrepreneurs, so I cannot give a competent recommendation here.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I think it depends very much on the market one would wish to compete in. Maybe I would start by subscribing to a digital application solution, something like Zapier (also a good candidate to mention as a top 3 tool) or other no-code automation tools. Such tools have incredible power that allows you to build fantastic offerings and business models without being a developer and without any line of code required. With these tools, you can build beautiful solutions in a technically simple way. So, I would start by putting that money into an online subscription for a no-code automation tool, depending on the different sizes and prices.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
I think I’m pretty disciplined, which helps a lot. Also, I like the follow-through process and relying on a good team. Ultimately, it’s the determination to deliver a high-quality service that people love.
What is your favorite quote?
“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
– Dr. Seuss
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
The best advice I would give new or aspiring entrepreneurs is not to wait too long before starting. Don’t wait for your genius business idea to fall from the sky. Just go out there, maybe find someone you want to start your endeavor with and go through a structured process to ultimately find your business idea. Don’t be too afraid. And if it doesn’t pan out the first or the second time, continue trying!
Who should we interview next and why?
I don’t have a comment on this one.
What is your definition of success?
This is a difficult question. For me, success means leading an ethically good life, being satisfied, and being able to help family and friends to thrive.
How do you personally overcome fear?
As stupid as it might sound, I get things done or try to do so. I avoid procrastination and the illusion that problems/ fears go away by themselves. So, I try to grab the bull by its horns and get things done.
How can readers get in touch with you?
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or at our Sparrks website.
