Custom College Recruiting (CCR) is one of the Fellowship teams at Awesome Inc. CCR is a college recruiting service that helps high school athletes get connected with college coaches. CCR works with student athletes in 30 different countries around the world. It has helped those athletes receive over $32 million in potential scholarships and aid. CCR is the preferred recruiting service for both Basketball Victoria and Basketball Queensland in Australia. President and CEO Shane Howard shares some insight on his entrepreneurial journey so far and his advice to new entrepreneurs:

First, I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING when it comes to all of this. I just know what has worked for me and what I have learned from the journey, failures, and successes. If I can solve these problems and figure these things out, then each and everyone of you can also solve these problems and figure it out. I come from very humble beginnings, I moved 17 times the first 18 years of my life, I barely graduated high school, I do not have a college education. For me, I have learned that I can educate myself as I go through life and YOU can too!

• DO NOT EVER turn back once you decide to follow your dream and passion. People will tell you that you’re crazy and an idiot. They are right, but press on. To do this thing called a “startup”, you have to be different; you have to go against the grain. You have to want to do things that everyone else on the planet thinks you cannot do.

• NEVER EVER PAY FOR SOMETHING AT FULL PRICE WHEN YOU CAN NEGOTIATE IT FOR FREE, OR CLOSE TO FREE. I put that in bold because unless you have a large influx of cash into your business, you will need to master this art. In order to do this you must find a way to be resourceful. Learn to leverage Google, as it will give you the answer to ANY question you can think of. I had our first two websites built for a total of less than $900. These websites were enough to bring us to the point where we were ready to bring investors on board…at a valuation I never dreamed of. I connected with a business mentor from Google Ventures campus in Tel Aviv. NEVER spend money on something that is FREE!

• Learn to sell, learn to sell, learn to sell, and then learn to close the sale! Selling is the foundation of growing a startup. You have to sell yourself on doing something so insane, you have to sell a co-founder on why they should jump off the bridge with you, and most times you have to sell your spouse or significant other to take the journey with you. Then you have to sell someone on using/buying whatever it is you are offering with your startup. Finally, you need to sell investors on why they need to give you their hard-earned money. And that’s when the real selling begins. You have to sell employees on why they should follow you, then sell them on why they should sell to the customer. Selling without a doubt is the basis of growing your dream, so learn it. If you don’t like it then find a co-founder who sells - someone who is fearless and is willing to risk it all, someone who when told NO hears a YES.

• Give back. The one thing I have learned in the last 18 months of educating myself on the startup culture and how to raise funds is that you must give back.

Here is a list of tools and resources that I have found very useful. Most are free or have a very minimal cost. I never pay for anything unless I feel it can make me 10x return on it.

Sidekick from Hubspot (free)

This allows you to see who and how many times someone opens the emails you sent them.

Sumome (free)

All-in-one box of goodies to help you grow your business. Install this today!

Skype

Self-explanatory, but often misunderstood. VIDEO chat every chance you get with people, and not just people international or out-of-state, but people in town too. It allows you to be in-person and see their true emotions and body language. Plus, everyone has it!

Facebook

I know you are thinking, duh Shane, but seriously if you come across an article that is awesome, look up the writer on FB, add them, and message them. NEVER, EVER be afraid to add anyone you think can help you. Connect with people! You will thank me later on this one.

LinkedIn

Connect, connect, connect. Utilize it the same way I explained Facebook. Tip: pay for a month of premium and then cancel it. LinkedIn will contact you two weeks later and offer you a free month. So far they have done this with me for 5 months straight.

Angel.co

DO NOT PUBLISH YOUR COMPANY PAGE until you are 100% certain you are ready to do so. Again, connect, connect, connect.

Docsend (free)

Use this as a fail-safe for pitch deck files. It never fails, you show up to a pitch and something will go wrong - something will not work, someone forgets a cable or a file, someone only uses PC’s and not Macs. It has some cool features that allow you to see what the user is looking at and if they read it all the way through, and also collect information on them. Pretty cool stuff.

Infusionsoft

This is salesforce/CRM/email marketing for small businesses. Do not be taken back by the pricing as you can negotiate a huge discount with them. They just closed a huge funding round and are trying to get as many users onboard as possible, so revenue is secondary for them. I wish I had this service 4 years ago and we would be doing a million + revenue a year right now.