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36-year-old Jeff Fenster is the founder and CEO of the revolutionary craft superfood chain, Everbowl, founded in 2016. Everbowl specializes in providing flavorful and affordable superfoods that are served in great portions through an ingenious model dubbed, “create your own” superfood bowls.
In April 2019, the company was named among Top 40 Hottest Startups in America by Fast Casual. This award comes in the wake of Everbowl’s $3 million funding that was recently secured from Serruya Private Equity for an aggressive expansion plan from the current 19 locations to a total of 45 by the end of 2019. This great achievement is however not Fenster’s first brush with success.
Jeff Fenster boasts of a number of other successful startups under his belt. These include CanopyHR, an innovative Payroll & HR Company, JFEN Holdings, a digital marketing agency that serviced high profile clients whose revenue ranges from $10M – $500M, JFEN Recruiting, a recruitment company whose main focus is in the aerospace and engineering sectors and so many others. From his years of experience in entrepreneurship, Jeff Fenster gives us his most important tips on achieving success in life.
1. Start with the end
Jeff Fenster believes that every success story begins with a vision. And that vision is what should be used as the beginning point of your journey to success. This is what Fenster refers to as starting with the end. His advice is that you should develop a clear picture of what success is, then, work backwards pointing out the milestones that must be achieved to get you from where you currently are to where you want to be. If the goals and milestones are clear and very specific, the path to success becomes clear and easy to follow. Once you have developed a strategic road map to achieve success, it is time to put in the work.
In addition to the work, surrounding yourself with best in breed experts is critical.This is why it is important to be the dumbest guy in the room, according to Jeff Fenster. Surround yourself with experts on all facets of the business, leave your ego at the door and you will build a dream team! Listen more, learn more and have as much information as you can to inform your decisions and set you apart from the crowd.
2. Know Your Why
What is your purpose in life? What inspires you? What makes you come alive? What gives you that driving kick of adrenaline? These are just some of the questions you can ponder on to unlock the answer to your why. The idea is to find the reason behind why you want to achieve success in life, explains Jeff Fenster. This reason should serve as your motivation for the journey ahead.
Knowing your “why” is what will make you never comfortable with your current situation. Knowing this and being honest with yourself will constantly push you to exceed expectations. And this push, this driving force, is a key characteristic of successful individuals. So, if you want to achieve success in life you must know your “why”.
3. Build Your Relationship Capital
Every interaction you make is an opportunity to create a relationship. And not just any kind of relationships, Fenster stresses. He emphasizes that those relationships should be positive, meaningful, and valuable to your growth. This is what it means to build your relationship capital as an individual as well as a business. These relationships are what will strengthen your position in the market place and open up new opportunities for growth.
A sure method of creating relationships is to ensure you are always having fun and make friends in everything you do. It may sound like a foreign concept but learning to enjoy what you do in the workspace can help you identify unexploited growth opportunities that you can take advantage of. Having a friendly personality makes it easy for people to approach you, hence making it less challenging to create worthwhile relationships.
Since establishing his first startup CanopyHR at the age of 24, Fenster has been on a meteoric rise as an entrepreneur to get to where he is today. In 12 years, Fenster has established a business in almost every industry and stands out as a seasoned serial entrepreneur with numerous feats on his portfolio. He has achieved all this by following the tips that he has shared above. Ultimately, he hopes that this information will be an eye-opener to other budding entrepreneurs enabling them to scale the next level of success in life.
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