NEWS  

Below is a Q & A with 2011 Small Business of the Year award recipient Jason Broadwater of Revenflo, a web service company, in Rock Hill. He recently shared information on how he got started with his business, The Hive program and future plans.

Q. Why did you start your own business and why a web service company?

A. I have always done projects. Since I was a kid playing in punk bands, booking shows, touring, putting out records and such, I have been moving from project to project. College was like a project to me, and my novel, and grad school, and each music recording, and each conference that I organized through the years. Even RevenFlo is a project to me. It is, though, the biggest project I have ever organized. It necessitated me to leave any other kind of employment (I was a ninth grade teacher prior to starting the business), and it has taken my full attention.

Why a web marketing business? Well, I had to learn to monetize activity, so that I can be paid for doing interesting projects for interesting people. I tried to monetize my writing and my music but found it only mucked up what I was doing creatively and didn't show much sign of dollars anyway. I had to figure out how to support myself and my small dual-income family. The web is where I found opportunity. I found writing gigs online. I bid on them and got them. I delivered them. And I made so many mistakes so fast at low cost that I started getting good at delivering for people on the web. I could articulate an idea of something they should do online that would benefit their organization. Then I could put together the resources to get it done for them.  I could take it on, and I could ultimately deliver. But again, I failed a lot. I try to fail often, quickly, and not that hard. I think this avoids failing hard and crashing things for yourself and the others depending on you. This is the path to improving process - if you analyze your failures and embrace them is part of the process. If you learn from mistakes and try to make decisions from that wiser place.

So, the business model that I developed just by moving from project to project and constantly trying to improve was one of providing web services to organizations through strategy and management of resources (technologies and knowledge workers). We function as an organization's Web Team. Most organizations need one.

Q. How did you come up with the name RevenFlo?

A. I just made it up. I read a book that argued that a name should be unique (I mean that literally) and have a good sound and feel. The association to the particular service can be connected outside of the name itself. Think about Sony, Volvo, Craft, Ford, Pixar, etc. So I wanted one word to be the name of the company. A word that no one had ever seen before and that had no other association. So, I made up RevenFlo. I was combining words and thoughts and syllables until I found something I liked.

Q. What were some challenges you had to overcome as a small business?

A. Let's make that the present tense. What challenges do we have to overcome as a small business. From my experience, running a small business is a constant challenge and a constant opportunity (those being the same glass of water). It's been a huge personal challenge to balance work and family. It's been a huge creative challenge to articulate future realities for ourselves and our clients. It's been a huge labor challenge to execute all that we dream up. And it's been the greatest challenge of all to monetize good, authentic, fun, engaging, meaningful work.

Q. Did you ever want to give up the business and go back to teaching?

A. No. I figure I will always work for myself, doing projects (such as businesses and collaborations and such). That's always been my path.

Q. Why did you decide to start the pilot program The Hive?

A. I was spending my time running my business, serving Rock Hill economic development, and creating educational experiences (speaking, teaching, etc.). In doing these things, I just began to see opportunity. The goals of all the organizations I was working with just began to align in my mind - York Technical College, Winthrop University, Rock Hill Economic Development Corporation, City of Rock Hill , Comporium, Harry Dalton, and RevenFlo. The Hive just started to gel as a project in which all of the participating parties would be getting their stated goals met at a cheaper cost and with more effect than with the other strategies and projects they were conducting to achieve them.

I shared the idea early with lots of folks and had lots of positive response (and lots of awkward silence).  Dr. Rutherford from York Tech was one of the people who wanted to meet with me about it. When we started meeting on the subject, we started to further imagine how to make this idea a reality. We both decided to dedicate resources to make The Hive real. Mine were mostly my own time, and his was both in the form of his institution's "sanctioning" (so to speak) of such a project and in the form of Edie Dille. He put Edie on the project, and she has done wonders to get rubber to road.

Q. Tell us why The Hive is so important to you.

A. The Hive serves so many people and organizations in and around Rock Hill . Thus, the Hive is responsible and accountable to so many here in this place. The work is important and the expectations are high. I have no choice but for The Hive to be very important to me, to demand my attention, and to require my resources.

Q. What do you hope to accomplish within the next 10 years with The Hive and your business?

A. I want RevenFlo to be doing $10 million in annual revenue and be a wonderful organization to work for - full of happy, learning, interesting people. I want the Hive to be sustainable and flourishing and breaking barriers still. I want to be personally doing activity that is the highest and best use of my time (those things I am most passionate about). And I want to have served millions of people through the projects I have organized and/or participated in.