I’m Hitesh Mistry, I’m the owner of L2W Digital and I’d like to share my story as to how I got started.
From a very young age, I’ve always wanted more. Always had the drive to succeed with whatever I was doing. I have the “never say die” attitude. I’m also a big Liverpool Fan (I wanted to be a footballer, too, at some point – like all young boys.)
I always wanted to earn a lot of money, to be my own boss and not have to work for someone else. I want sovereignty over my own life. To provide for my parents and make them proud. My parents worked very hard for a living, giving me and my sister everything they possibly could.
Whilst growing up, I suffered through anxiety. Even though I was a fairly confident person on the outside, I had my own demons internally, as we all do. I also had self-belief issues, questioning “could I really do this?”.
The biggest wall in the way was that I didn’t know how I was going to achieve my desires, however I knew from a very early age that I had to have my own business.
I realised I had to do more than what everyone else was doing. I had to put the effort in to get what I desired the most and I had to learn new skills. One of my strengths is being resourceful and if I didn’t know how, I will find a way.
I set into motion lots of different business ideas that I would try alongside my day job as Software Project Manager. I’d have notebooks full of ideas I’d generate and I would literally come back with pages full of ideas after a holiday.
I’ve read tons of business books to get ideas and a lot of the following ideas came from reading these books.
Repairing Computers alongside my day job. Only so many hours in the day to actually do this.
Building Websites (Wix & WordPress) & offered bespoke software development (agency). Very competitive space. Demanding clients. Nearly went bankrupt.
I realised that I needed a software product or internet business that I could sell in my sleep. I launched all of the following:
WhyYork – WordPress business directory
Business of the Day – advertise a single business only for a day
1 Million Businesses (Similar to http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/)
Leadamo (Twitter lead generation tool)
AppyOffer (A mobile app that enabled businesses to push out offers in real time to their customers)
There were some that made money, but not a lot. There was also a lot more ideas that I’m sure I’ve tried, I just can’t remember them all!
I clearly had some limiting beliefs:
- Build it and then customers will just come
- Invested a lot of money (everything that I had spare), so I thought this was going to work
- Close friends and family asking me if this was the one?
I then turned to an Entrepreneur coach (Christian Simpson) who taught me how to shift my thinking. Books such as Think and Grow Rich was a game changer. I also started to meditate.
My thinking became clearer.
Putting the effort in and building the software was never the issue. I just didn’t know how to market it.
I had to learn how to market my business. One thing that I learned from Christian was that we are all in the marketing business.
I tried a number of platforms – Google, LinkedIn and Facebook Ads. Put out adverts and spent money. I didn’t see any results so gave up. I had a belief that this platform was never going to work.
However, I got through this belief and made it my mission to learn Facebook Ads. I kept reading, learning and testing with my own money with products that I’d already built. I started to see results, and I started to see small amounts of people signing-up to what I’d built.
It also hit me – I’m just building software (based on an idea I had) thinking that it is solving a problem and that it’s the best thing in the world. The idea wasn’t validated. I didn’t actually know that I was solving a problem or there was a need for what I was building.
However, this was the main reason why people didn’t buy it. At this time, I came across Jeff Walker’s Product Launch book. It changed how I viewed the world.
My next business idea was SwiftlySocial. A content repurposing platform that took your blog content and turned it into social media posts, videos and ebooks. The issue I had was that people didn’t really understand they they needed to repurpose their content. Again, most likely down to how I was selling it.
Yet again, I was stuck, but felt I was getting closer. I wasn’t down about it, but started to see this as a journey. I saw every perceived failure as a learning and that I was moving forward.
I then met my business partner, who also invested in me personally to get something going. He told me to focus on ideas that were within the following:
- What people already need. For businesses, we identified that they all need customers and they would spend money to acquire them.
- Things that there is an urgent need for, which would have a massive impact.
Upon reflection, this is obvious right? Surely this was common sense?
But something changed within me. Everything I learned to date was looked at in a fresh perspective.
In 2017, we started up a lead generation agency called L2W Digital to mainly specialise in Facebook Ads. I was concerned about this as I’d never done Facebook Ads for anyone else, nevermind doing it successfully for my own products and I’d been doing FB ads for about 6 years. I started off with offering customers a free pilot in exchange for a video testimonial. I delivered amazing results quickly for my clients and I never looked back. I started to believe. Some clients did £20K in revenue a month from our campaigns.
In parallel, a part of L2W is to build our own software applications. To this we launched a GDPR tool called GDPR Tracker. Again, I questioned this, thinking that it was boring and no one was going to buy this. Given the GDPR Tracker was coming into force in May 2018, it turned out to be a very profitable application. We grew to 5,000 users in 6 months.
Finally, something I had built worked. I realised I wouldn’t have got to this point without going through everything that I had gone through. I also plan to go back to everything that I tried in the past and make it work with my new found learning.
Going back to L2W Digital, we’ve been working with a large number of niches, mainly doing lead generation for the Financial Services sector. Our clients saw a lot of success from the campaigns we ran for them.
However, with Facebook Ads, it requires a lot of testing and learning to find the winning approach and to stay ahead. Given my relentless nature to find a solution, I found ways to test and learn quickly, and I was able to deliver results faster for my clients.
I’ve certainly experienced what works and what doesn’t. I’ve also seen it done very badly too.
We made the decision to focus on the Financial Services niche. The reason? There is a massive opportunity with Facebook Ads and we have found ways to make it extremely profitable by leveraging the very emotive nature of the platform itself, which no one else was really doing, and by using technology to automate and scale, too.
I also made the decision that I want to teach this to as many people as possible. Don’t get me wrong, I love delivering for my clients (and will continue to do so), however,I feel I can reach more people.
I believe that everything happens for a reason and that we are all on a journey. Taking a relentless approach to finding answers will guarantee success (for yourself and for your clients). There is a quote by Zig Ziglar that says, “If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.
My drive ultimately got me through the difficult times. I focus on what is truly important to me. It’s why I do what I do (Simon Sinek).
I’m not there yet, but certainly on my way. I get to work from wherever I want, when I want and spend time with my family when I want, too. My wife, Allison, also works with me.