Category: Stephen Hourigan

Former CEO of Elevate Venture Stephen Hourigan Discusses the Most Common Problems Small Businesses Face in their First Year

It is common knowledge that starting a new business is a risky venture, but one that may prove incredibly rewarding both personally and financially. According to SBA estimates, more than 627,000 new businesses are started each year in the United States. Statistically, only 25% of these new businesses will make it past 15 years, with over 25% failing in the first two years. Stephen Hourigan, Elevate Ventures’ former CEO and current CEO of Drug-Free Therapeutics, has spent over 20 years helping build revenue and create long-lasting business strategies. Today, Stephen Hourigan of Elevate Ventures will discuss the most common problems small businesses face during their first 12 months and the best ways to solve these problems and build a thriving business. 

Successful Marketing Operations

Throughout his career, Steven Hourigan has often found that many new businesses rush into marketing campaigns without taking the time to create the foundation for successful marketing operations. This can easily be solved by businesses focusing their resources on finding their target audience and not wasting efforts on advertising to people outside this demographic. In order to optimize resources and increase the likelihood of a successful marketing campaign, new businesses must learn what’s important to their target customers. Once a business has obtained this information, it can save thousands of dollars and be able to more clearly create a strategy to connect with their customers in the future. 

Revenue 

Perhaps the most common problem for small businesses in the first 12 months of operation is revenue. Without an established customer base or client list, many new companies can struggle to make a profit. In order to more effectively build revenue, Stephen Hourigan recommends: 

Purchasing Leads: A common practice for many new businesses is to purchase leads. While this is an essential first step to build a client base, purchasing a list from a company that has not done its proper research could lead to a lost budget. For this reason, it is crucial to find a reputable company to supply leads. 

Online Presence: Creating a landing page may be an obvious first step, but it can help to funnel audiences to services or products and help establish clients within the first few weeks of operations. 

Stephen Hourigan Discusses Important Business Lessons Learned Through Golf

Throughout Stephen Hourigan’s tenure at Elevate Ventures and multiple stages of his business career, he has assisted companies with crucial functions such as accelerating revenue and streamlining their processes. In his free time, Stephen Michael Hourigan enjoys participating in sports such as golf for a variety of reasons. Not only is golf a great way to unwind and get engrossed in the competitive spirit with friends, but it teaches lessons that are applicable to endeavors such as business and improving upon one’s professional acumen as well. Here, Stephen Hourigan includes a few of the lessons that can be taken from golf and applied to business to further an individual’s personal and professional development.

One golf lesson that Stephen Hourigan, previously of Elevate Ventures, believes is applicable to the business realm is how much it pays to have a strategy in mind before acting. Steve Hourigan acknowledges that many novices that he plays with are surprised to learn that golf is generally not approached by trying to aim straight for the hole with every shot. This is facet of the sport is remarkably similar to business, where fledgling professionals are taken aback by the sheer amount of strategy that goes into business decisions and logistics prior to their implementation by the team. Stephen Michael Hourigan often teaches new golfers to consider how details such as hazards, slope, and distance will impact their game plan and to account for them to see the success that they want on the green. Business requires a similar adherence to strategy, and one is best off getting a clear idea of the details and intricacies of a possible action before acting. While this takes dedication and a fair amount of patience, it ensures that each step taken is truly for the best and is not likely to amount to a setback instead.

Steve Hourigan maintains that one of the reasons golf is such a great sport for individuals in business to play is because it properly emphasizes the importance of focusing on the long term. Golfing is not a sprint whereupon the winner is decided quickly and in a few short actions. Instead, golf values consistency and focus over the course of the game. Because of this, individuals that have a slow start but steadily improve or remain consistent can have better showings that those that start strong but slowly or quickly fall off as the game continues. This is not unlike business which can, at times, be a slow burn when it comes to growing and improving. Stephen Hourigan of Zionsville, Indiana notes that almost any businessperson can name several companies that started off incredibly strong but later began to flounder due to a lack of long-term focus. Do not discredit the merit of short-term success, but always be sure that it can be leveraged into a long-term strategy that puts you and your constituents in a good position later. A strong commitment to long term goals rather than short term gains will ensure that you are consistently conducting yourself in ways conducive to the success of your business.

During Stephen Hourigan’s tenure at Elevate Ventures, he internalized several lessons about golf when playing with his peers. One of the overarching themes was that, while golf appears as a simple sport, it can be deceptively difficult to learn. In fact, golf is consistently recognized as a sport where one’s game can be improved upon but never completely mastered. Stephen Michael Hourigan acknowledges that this quality of the game tethers it to business, which in and of itself appears easier at first glance than the moving parts behind the scenes would suggest. Some professionals fall into the trap of believing that they know much of what there is to know after years in the space, and many are in for a rude awakening when they are faced with an experience in which they are not fully in power. Both golfers and those in business should acknowledge that it is important to make steps towards improvement and growth as a participant, while simultaneously acknowledging that there will always be situations in which they are not certain. To Steve Hourigan, this is what keeps both spaces interesting. Those that recognize their limits as they work to improve will be the ones that come closest to achieving greatness.

Stephen Hourigan Discusses How COVID-19 Has Led to Medical Innovation, but Practicality is Essential

Stephen Hourigan of Zionsville, IN

During his storied career, Stephen Hourigan of Zionsville, Indiana would often license technology from top universities to pursue medical technology breakthroughs. In the wake of COVID-19, Stephen Hourigan believes we are on the precipice of a boom in medical technology for a wide variety of reasons. Today, Stephen Hourigan will explain why this is the case.

In the midst of a global pandemic, people are taking it upon themselves to improve and monitor their health with a sense of renewed vigor. One of the biggest changes that doctors can expect in the wake of COVID-19 is their patients providing them with more wholistic data pertinent to facets of their health that they may worry about. Devices like smartwatches are being used to monitor everything from daily heart rate to exercise performance and daily diets, as they provide an accessible way to organize data on crucial details and can point to problem areas. Meanwhile, Stephen Michael Hourigan notes that as people turn to technological advancements to better protect themselves, the global market is turning to technology to combat this pandemic as well as future global health scares. Stephen Hourigan explains that the first half of this year saw more than $5.5 billion get invested into venture funding. This is the highest rate of venture funding ever recorded solely going to support health care technology. Part of the reasoning for this large growth in investments is clear- investors are largely becoming aware of the myriad of ways that the medical sector can be improved to maintain our health in the present and as a preventative measure for health crises to follow.

Stephen Hourigan of Zionsville, Indiana consistently speaks to how the rush to create new and exciting technologies is great for the health sector, but the most successful advancements build upon the way medical professional already operate. Creating a product that is set to change the way hospitals provide care completely are a slow-go and can take years to make their ways into medical facilities. After all, industries tend to resist fast and hastily implemented changes, and said changes tend to leave a lot of questions for how healthcare will be facilitated for patients that are already being taken care of. According to Stephen Michael Hourigan, a lot of the more successful emerging technologies will consider how medicine is currently being practiced and find ways to improve upon the framework of those methodologies. This will ensure that infrastructure changes are slow and steady, but much more longstanding than if they were to occur rapidly instead.

COVID-19 has already led to technological advancements in how doctors are treating their patients, Steve Hourigan acknowledges. A lot of routine visits are being conducted remotely and leveraging technology to keep fearful or at-risk patients safe. In fact, Steve Hourigan recognizes that a lot of technological advancements are dedicated to combatting how to better care for patients who are fearful of visiting the doctor. While doctors around the nation are taking every precaution to keep patients safe from COVID-19, the concerns of patients traveling are a very real factor. Technology is looking to upgrade the ways in which patients can track their own health history and share that information in real-time. It is Steve Hourigan’s belief that up-to-date assessments of patients’ health will indubitably serve to help keep those visiting a doctor and healthcare providers safer amidst the pandemic. This is, in part, because many will act responsibly upon notification that they have COVID-19- one of the largest obstacles is that many are operating from the assumption that they do not.

While technology companies are likely to produce a lot of gadgets that feature the “wow” factor, Steve Hourigan believes the medical community wants practical upgrades for a host of reasons. For instance, a lot of peoples’ health is dependent on them taking their medication regularly and on a schedule. Technology that can help ensure that patients are taking their meds at the allocated times can provide a real-life boost to a person’s health and would likely work optimally if less bells and whistles are included its processes. A lot of the money invested in technology will go towards creating devices that are incredible, but Stephen Michael Hourigan preaches practicality as the most important factor for the medical field.