"Move fast, adopt new technologies quickly, don't wait."
After 15 years of building and scaling marketing technology for some of the biggest brands and platforms in the world, Rolan Reichel shifted focus to solopreneurs – 41M people who are dramatically underserved by our digital ecosystem.
Rolan grew up in a small business at the back of the shop sweeping the floors and even doing the books on the weekends. After 12 years of martech including an exit to the public markets in Canada 4 years ago, and working on his second Ai build, he is proud to focus on providing value for everyday entrepreneurs.
Arrow is a done-for-you SaaS product, powered by Artificial Intelligence to curate relevant business content into a business content feed, and post it every day, automatically on any social media channel. It is like Spotify radio for social media posting.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Rolan Reichel: For insurance and real estate agents with little to no marketing experience but understand that having a more regular presence on social media will bring in more business and leads, we built Arrow, unlike other solutions. Arrow is built for nonmarketers.
Arrow is a done-for-you SaaS product, powered by Artificial Intelligence to curate relevant business content into a business content feed, and post it every day, automatically on any social media channel. It is like Spotify radio for social media posting.
Arrow is the world’s first customized, personalized business content stream and the applications are massive. Personal branding, executive leadership, small businesses, everyone needs to be posting relevant content everyday.
2021 and 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned?
Rolan Reichel: Great question! We learned that EVERYONE has to be successful online to win in business. 100M new people bought something online for the first time in the last 18 months.
The pressure on smaller and microbusinesses is immense because now they have to be active on social media, drive leads on line, sell online, and added whole new layers of technology, management, and business processes.
The businesses that find the right on line tools at the right price will thrive; the ones that don’t are going to struggle mightily.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2023? What advice would you share?
Rolan Reichel: Customer acquisition is the most important thing a business can do. Marketers call it the top of the funnel. Foot traffic, window shopping, and local discovery are gone. To win in business, every solopreneur and business needs a kick-ass profile on social media to get new customers.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Rolan Reichel: Technology companies are relatively well suited to the pandemic. In particular, Arrow is remote and distributed company so we are able to keep moving forward with existing processes and infrastructure.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2023?
Rolan Reichel: Move fast, adopt new technologies quickly, don’t wait.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2023?
Rolan Reichel: The trend will continue and accelerate, don’t expect “downtowns” to ever look the same again.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Rolan Reichel: Too many, hahaha!
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Rolan Reichel: We are 100% focused on being a story teller and we do this with testimonials. Video, written, pictures, etc, we gather the real stories of our users and let them share in their own words how Arrow works for them.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Rolan Reichel: Cost of capital is high and there is a renewed focus on business fundamentals like growth and profit. For the start-up community, I think business experience will be rewarded versus having a “big idea”.
In 2023, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Rolan Reichel: Online marketing is the most important topic for any business right now. Otherwise, how do you acquire a new customer?
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Rolan Reichel: I don’t think it is about the management style as much as about work/life balance for workers. People are just not willing to sacrifice family time, recreation, and a healthy lifestyle for work. Commuting, getting millions of people into one small area and up into high-rise, impersonal, cubed-off workspace is a thing of the past.
I think it is important for manages to be aware of how they communicate but recognize, this is a structural, once in a generation shift that can not be addressed simply by switching up communication or management approach/philosophy.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Rolan Reichel: A world-class storyteller!
What does “success” in 2023 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Rolan Reichel: We build companies and sell them. Arrow is 4 years in, getting close to our “moment” 🙂
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Rolan Reichel for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Rolan Reichel or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
