3. Avoid hiring a large sales force as long as possible, and turn your customers into your sales force
Gill advises start-ups without venture funding to project an image that they’re bigger than they are at first; fake it until you make it. His first office was his spare bedroom, and at one time there were 13 people working for Quark in Gill’s one-bedroom apartment. His apartment was full of boxes, stacks of packing peanuts and tape.
Gill’s degree is in mathematics and computer science, but in the early days of Quark, he wore many hats. He did everything from tech-support to mail clerking. He was a producer, he worked with vendors, exercised his limited experience with accounting and more. He recalls, for example, waking up at 2 o’clock in the morning to take customer service calls from his bed.
Long before ‘raving fans’ became a corporate hunt, Gill’s dedication to his customers turned his customers into his most valuable asset, his sales force. He knew if someone wasn’t there to be tech support when his customer needed it, his customer would go somewhere else.
4. Go as far as you think you can, and then go further
To Gill, this is the key to his success: “It’s continuously working to achieve a particular goal and making sure that the tasks that I have are exciting enough to keep me engaged and not burned out.” I’m willing to walk to the edge of burnout and look over, but at some point, you have to take a couple of steps back,” Gill continues.
If your goal is to be a successful entrepreneur, find out what excites you and be willing to work harder, because it will be hard.
Gill and the LGBTQ community’s reward
Not only did Gill become a multimillionaire, selling his half of Quark in the early 2000s for an estimated $500 million, but today he’s the single-biggest donor for LGBTQ rights in the United States. To date, he’s donated over $400 million of his own money toward LGBTQ causes.
Gill is a model for smart philanthropy. He doesn’t give to just any cause. In philanthropy as in business, Gill is results-driven. He says, “ Deciding what the result is so that you can tailor your funding to get that result, is smart philanthropy. ”
We champion LGBTQ entrepreneurs. We need more successful queer leaders in business and politics, like Gill, who can also champion equality on Wall Street, Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
