Starting a successful business is not easy. Recent statistics show more than 20% of small businesses fail in the first year, and only 33% of entrepreneurs manage to last longer than a decade. Jeremy Miller FSA, however, went from working as a full-time manager to starting a highly profitable firm that is currently celebrating its twelfth year in business. He explains some secrets of his success on the Grow Your Own Business podcast, currently available at Apple Podcasts.
“I founded Health-E Commerce to resolve a widespread problem I’d noticed while managing HR at Gehry. Many consumers find flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) to be overly complicated and confusing, which leads them to forgo these pre-tax health and wellness accounts altogether. In fact, my research found over $400M in HSA/FSA benefits left unused, which ultimately led to the launch of FSAStore.com, a one-stop-e-commerce-shop for all things FSA, including thousands of FSA-eligible products and services. We later launched HSAStore.com, which provides over 4,000 exclusively HSA-eligible products and services, so there are no guessing games as to what is or isn’t reimbursable for consumers.”
Miller’s ability to identify a niche service with few competitors and a large potential target audience has played a significant role in his success. FSA and HSA products are used by a whopping 60 million people, and he has met or exceeded forecasts for over ten years. However, he doesn’t attribute his success to his business acumen alone. “Be the person that you need to be, meet people and build relationships.” Other business experts back up Miller’s advice, noting that even companies with stellar products can fail if they don’t build strong relationships with consumers. Long-term relationship building is a must for companies that want to cultivate brand loyalty, benefit from word-of-mouth marketing, stay afloat in hard times and mend problems when something goes wrong with business products/services.
Jeremy Miller FSA also puts a high priority on planning ahead. “You need to know the place you want to be so that you can jump in the right direction,” he points out. Indeed, well over three-quarters of small businesses fail because they lack a well-developed business plan, and the business owner did not conduct enough research on the industry and market before launching the business. Monetary planning is the main downfall of many failed entrepreneurs; some are overly optimistic about how much money is needed to get the business off the ground, others fail to account for necessary business expenses, while others fail to price goods and services properly.
Grow a Small Business is a platform dedicated to giving a voice to successful entrepreneurs and business owners so others who want to follow in their footsteps can learn from their mistakes and successes in order to reach their own long-term goals. Jeremy Miller’s inspirational interview is sure to be a benefit to those who are successful in the corporate world but long to start their own business.
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