MIAMI - Andre Kay bootstrapped Sociallybuzz from a small social media "do it for you" company to a nationally recognized social media agency and software company. But Sociallybuzz today is not anything like what it was conceived to be seven years ago.
"It was supposed to be a social media influencer platform. The idea was to connect businesses with celebrities. I hired an outside engineer to assist me with building out the platform. After three months, he disappeared with my money and my codes. I was down thousands of dollars and nothing to show for it," Kay said.
He changed the course of Sociallybuzz into a human-powered social media and tech agency. "That essentially became my greatest decision," said Kay, who had co-founded Go Media Marketing, an outdoor marketing company, and was in bank management before launching Sociallybuzz.
"I eventually grew the company from $0 to over $5 million with no outside investments. My 'why' for running this company is knowing that something that we're doing at Sociallybuzz is helping other businesses grow. When they grow, the owners can support their families, hire more people and those people can also support their families. That is what drives us to do what we do."
There are many aspects to running a business that are never taught in school. So Kay applied for and was selected to be part of the three-month Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program at a local college in 2014 to get a better grounding in all aspects of running a small business — particularly the human resources side of the company.
"I knew hiring the right people would be essential to growing the company," said Kay, who is 34 and a proud graduate of the program.
In 2015, Kay launched the Sociallybuzz giveback program, which included pledging 1 percent of time, talent and treasures to the community. That pledge included donating over 200 turkeys and toys to families in need.
Growth often springs from more focus on the core business. In early 2016, Kay made the difficult decision of closing down the app side of his business and went back to focusing on its core business model. Because of that change, company revenue grew 100 percent in 2016, Kay said.
