“Life is too short not to take risks” – Miguel Hernandez.
Grumo Media produces fun, concise, and effective explanatory videos for startups and recently some big companies too! Clients include Walmart, Microsoft, Ashton Kutcher, Hipmunk.com, inDinero.com, Olo.com, Buy4.com, PadMapper.com, and many more. Grumo’s magic consists on taking any concept, however complex it may be, and make it easy to understand for the masses.
Check Grumo’s videos at http://grumomedia.com
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Do you think the education you’ve invested in helped you on the road to success?
The best education I have ever got was working as a door to door salesman when I was 20 years old.
I lasted only 4 months but got to talk to about 12 thousand different people, knock on thousands of doors, learn to deal with rejection and the value of persistence. Being persistent and welcoming rejection are the best two lessons any entrepreneur can learn. A typical door to door salesman gets 90% rejection. On a typical day 90 people will slam their door on your face but 10 will buy whatever you are selling. Learning the power of numbers is the key to learning to overcome the fear of rejection. They way I learn to deal with it was thinking that every rejection was taking me one step closer to the next sale. When you think that way you learn to embrace rejection because you know you need it in order to succeed. For more on this approach you can read an article I wrote on the subject of success here.
What was the “break point” or an AHA moment in your career that made you decide to start what you’re currently doing & how did you come up with that Idea?
There was no AHA moment. Some people have AHA moments. My AHA moment has been a process that has taken an entire lifetime. A few lucky ones know what they what to do with their lives from the beginning, a even fewer lucky ones become actually good enough at what they love that they can make a career out of it. I belong to the 99% of the population sector that never had a clear idea of what to do with my life. I guess the only thing that separates me from my fellow clueless group is that I’ve been always determined to do three things: 1. Always do whatever I want. 2. Never stop trying new things 3. Never settle doing something I am not completely happy doing. Because, like most people I never was sure what to so I have ended up doing many things, from door-to-door salesman, to laser cutting machine programmer, to music video director, to mechanical designer, 3D animator to shooting comedy porn in Mallorca, web developer, inventor, and more recently entrepreneur. I must say the most fun is the latter one, being an entrepreneur, building a company from zero, with no resources to a profitable business is the most fulfilling of all my attempts at figuring out what to do.
I think I am going to stick with that one for a while ;)
As a young professional, what were some of the mistakes that you made and what did you learn?
Luckily I love mistakes because I look at them as learning opportunities and because like anyone that has taking many risks I’ve made many.
The biggest mistake I made for many years was not believing on myself enough to have taken even more risks at a younger age.
Because I was very shy and afraid of trying things I think I missed out on many opportunities to learn and accumulate more experience earlier.
The other big mistake I made was spending 1.5 years building a product I was not passionate about. It was an online project management service that I programmed from scratch and went nowhere, got zero customers, made me broke. The lesson learn is never, never choose to do something you are really passionate about and if you do make sure not to spend 1.5 years doing it. Because even if it is successful, do you really want to be dedicating your life and soul to something you don’t really believe in? In a sense I am very happy that first startup was an utter failure because it lead way to me starting Grumo Media.
What is one accomplishment that you are extremely proud of?
Definitely building a successful company in less than a year. After my previous failures seeing money in the bank from real world happy customers was the most amazing thing in the world.
What advice can you offer to your readers?
Life is too short not to take risks and follow your passion. And if you don’t know what your passion is, I’ve been there and wrote an article about how I went about finding my true passion here.
Find it whatever it is, whatever it takes and hopefully you won’t have any of these 5 regrets
What do you do for fun & where do you get your Inspiration from? This is where you let loose and tell us all your secrets :)
Fun and work are one thing for me. So for fun I work so when I die I may regret having worked too much but at least I will be able to say I had fun doing it.
My inspiration comes from observing, reading, talking to friends, and thinking. I do a lot of thinking and day dreaming. I am continuously thinking of new ideas for startups, products, inventions. Unfortunately some much thinking gets me in trouble sometimes, specially with my wife. She will be talking to me an 5 seconds later I get this gaze in my eyes.. I am not listening to her anymore, I am back in my own world of thoughts solving the problems of the world. It is hard to unplug from it some times, oops!
What is your favorite gadget(s), software(s), website(s) that makes your life easier and more productive?
Favorite Gadgets: iPhone, MacBookPro, iPad
Software: Chrome, TextMate (coding), After Effects (animating), Final Cut(Editing), OmniGraffle (diagramming), Audacity (Audio), ScreenFlow (screen recording), Transmit (FTP client)
Web Aps: Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs, HootSuite (social media dashboard), Summify (daily news summaries)
Websites: Mixergy.com, KhanAcademy.org, Ted.com, VideoCopilot.net
Shows: MythBusters, Dexter, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfield
Who would you like to see featured here and why?
W. Brett Wilson (Dragon’s Den), Andrew Warner (Mixergy), Andrew Kramer (VideoCopilot), Ben Kaufman (Quirky), Richard Branson (Virgin), Dean Kamen (SegWay), My Dad (Miguel co-creator)
Ways to Connect with Miguel:
Twitter: @grumomigs
Website: http://grumomedia.com
From: http://www.moomkin.com/grumo-miguel-hernandez/
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