"It's important to remember it's a marathon, not a sprint."
Victoria Mendoza Tweet
Victoria Mendoza is the CEO of MediaPeanut, a blog that’s dedicated to helping consumers understand complex technology concepts in the easiest way possible. As the CEO of MediaPeanut, Victoria Mendoza is responsible for running all facets of the business. Victoria has a proven executive management track record and over 6 years of experience driving sales growth in the technology industry. Prior to joining MediaPeanut, Victoria was Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Sales for GetitGirlTime (app). Responsible for all global sales and marketing activities
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Before we begin, our readers are interested to know about how you got started in the first place. Did you always want to be where you are today or was it something you were led to? Share with us your journey.
Victoria Mendoza: I always wanted to be the CEO of a publishing company. (Just kidding). As a kid, I wanted to be a princess, but then I grew up and realized I excel at managing teams and projects by providing true passion in each and every moment. If you don’t love the process you won’t be led to where you’re meant to be… I followed my intuition and utilized it as guidance, which placed me in a position that start with chief and ended with officer.
Tell us a bit about your current focus. What is the most important thisng that you’re working on and how do you plan on doing it?
Victoria Mendoza: My biggest focus is the launching of an app for MediaPeanut in the near future. The goal is to take out the “I don’t know what I don’t know” in any area of hobby, career, or interest. It’s going to be unique, and probably quite niche… but if we focus on what people actually want and keep spending our resources there it will blossom into something very useful. Even if it doesn’t work out exactly as we envisioned.
The app will allow you to quickly browse a topic, see where experts spend their time and resources. For example, If you were looking to dive into digital art,.. which forums or communities would you visit? How would you find those forums out? How do you know they are any good? What if you wanted to get into investing… how do you know which communities are ideal? Sure you could go to Reddit… Google… or ask a friend, but do you really know what area to begin investing your time and learning into? This will solve that in a digestible manner.
Some argue that punctuality is a strength. Others say punctuality is a weakness. How do you feel about it, please explain.
Victoria Mendoza: Declaring that punctuality is a weakness absolutely absurd… when was the last time you felt your employee was better off being 7 minutes late to every zoom meeting rather than on time and ready to go. Let’s face it, it’s quite rude to not be consistently punctual.
How important is having good timing in your line of work and in the industry that your organization operates in?
Victoria Mendoza: Timing is everything. When you fall behind, it snowballs. When you get ahead on a project, the project snowballs as well, but it’s in the direction you need it to. Great timing for a publisher and app developer will allow you to fix any unexpected blockers that occur (and they do occur), bad timing will worsen those issues, increase stress, and decrease synergy amongst the team and overall project.
Founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson, states “Timing is everything in life, and it’s particularly crucial in entrepreneurship. People often equate success with luck, but it usually comes down to impeccable (and carefully mapped out) timing”. Do you agree with this statement? Please answer in as much detail as necessary.
Victoria Mendoza: I agree with Richard Branson’s viewpoint, that “timing is particularly crucial in entrepreneurship“. There’s no such thing as luck, there’s only the moment when preparation meets opportunity. For a CEO that may mean building partnerships at the right times in your business.
Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur… creatives such as actors know that when you meet a director, you better have a reel or work to show them instead of getting “lucky” and charming them. You’re creating timing by utilizing your preparation when the opportunity comes. Branson nailed this one and I believe timing transcends into all areas of life.
As a leader/entrepreneur/CEO, how do you decide when to put the pedal to the metal and when to take a break? How do you time the key moments in your career?
Victoria Mendoza: If you find yourself needing a break as a CEO or leader, then find things that charge you, rather than drain you. Think of your energy like a battery. For example, if brainstorming charges your battery, and sorting out a google sheet doesn’t, then (obviously) hire a VA to sort out that google sheet while you brainstorm during those hours. Fill your entire day with things that charge your battery and you’ll find you have so much energy others will think you’re a superhuman.
The time to take a break as an entrepreneur is… never. A true entrepreneur is not meant to take a break, but to manage how quickly they are moving so they don’t need to break. It’s important to remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Branson also states “If you’re starting to feel like you’re just going through the motions and losing sight of why you started, it might be time to take a break”. But how do you decide when to take a break?
Victoria Mendoza: If you really don’t find yourself passionate, and the things that used to charge your spirit don’t anymore… then taking a break may be necessary. If your true happiness is at stake and you want to pursue something unrelated to entrepreneurship, that’s a warning sign a break may be needed.
“Timing can be everything when starting up. It can be the difference between building a thriving business and not” How has good timing helped you achieve success in your career or business? Are there any particular examples from your career that you would like to share?
Victoria Mendoza: Having the right timing means everything is in synergy and you can predict any challenges before they become a large issue. This is especially true when launching a product, service, or business. The events that really block your progress are usually unexpected, but if you have the right timing through and through, you’ll be able to handle those challenges instead of crumbling.
Before MediaPeanut, I handled a team of over 20 members: content creators, writers, graphic artists, and PR. The goal was to mass-produce SEO-related content and see how we could monetize it. As soon as one writer fell behind, the graphic artists were backlogged, It set the bar so that other writers found it “okay” to be late on projects… we rebounded quickly, but if I didn’t quickly get the timing down on the ‘content assembly line’, the process would have never thrived, it would have crawled and my star freelancers would have moved onto other projects. Timing is everything.
“When you’re thinking of starting up, ask yourself: ‘Is the community I want to serve ready for this idea?’ It could make all the difference!” Would you like to add anything to this piece of advice for all the aspiring entrepreneurs?
Victoria Mendoza: I completely disagree with this. The reason why is because the community is likely not ready, but it doesn’t mean they won’t be soon. I don’t think the world was perfectly ready for electric vehicles, but when Elon continued to dream about what the world isn’t ready for.. it worked out. It’s really how you frame it in your mind. Shifting your paradigm to see what’s possible in addition to what the limitations are [when assessing a goal] is essential for a CEO, leader, or entrepreneur.
COVID forced many businesses to adapt fast, some did so successfully, others failed, it was a lot due to good or poor timing. What are some of the big lessons you’ve learned during the pandemic?
Victoria Mendoza: Through the pandemic, I learned that relationships and human contact, whether it’s through zoom or not, are essential for employees. People work better when they are filled with emotion and that emotion trickles down from the leader to the employees and it will make or break a project whether you believe it or not.
Your insight has been incredibly valuable and our readers thank you for your generosity. We do have a couple of other bold questions to ask. What fictional world would you want to start a business in and what would you sell?
Victoria Mendoza: If there was a fictional world I could start a business in it would be Game of Thrones… I’d sell therapy. If the mad queen Daenerys sat down and worked through her feelings for 60 minutes perhaps the town wouldn’t have burnt down and all the characters would have their limbs… (except for maybe Theon Greyjoy).
Before we finish things off, we would love to know, when you have some time away from business, what is one hobby that you wish you could spend more time on?
Victoria Mendoza: I’d spend my time making a 2D animation cartoon about my friends. I’d grab a professional Digital Art Tablet and include all of my close friends… maybe playfully make fun of each other a bit (including myself) There’s something fun about cartoons… it might be the fact I’m still creating and it speaks to the inner child in me.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Victoria Mendoza for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Victoria Mendoza or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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