My lessons on building a successful global business (while traveling the world and being a mom)

Last week Mailerlite reached a big milestone. We joined with Vercom to become the world-leading omnichannel communication platform.

Here’s what I learned in the process of building an amazing company.

In short, enjoy the journey. Follow your intuition, and make long-term bets that excite you. You need to be mindful of your energy. You need it to motivate the team, build products and interact with customers.

#1. Focus on what matters

MailerLite was born in 2010. Our son was born in 2011. The fact that my partner and I had a business and a kid made us be more effective, thoughtful, and intentional. If my son was sleeping, I knew that I had 2 hours to write an article and send a newsletter to your customers. And I did.

The more limits you have, the better you become with the priorities and saying no’s. Focus on things that are important in long term. Skip noise and distractions.

I like how Eisenhower Matrix divides tasks:

#2. Want to build a global product? Have a global team

Our son was one of the reasons why we started working remotely in 2014. It was much more comfortable for me to work. Moreover, it allowed our family to combine work and traveling. Today MailerLite stands among the top 100 remote companies. Building a distributed team had the biggest impact to our business success.

It allowed us to hire the best people worldwide, create global products and expand our worldview. Distributed team means that your team is all over the world, not just working remotely within the same city or country. It means you are learning new things with every new hire, you need to be open and have a growth mindset.

Organizations that are eager to change will lead the game. Moreover, the more different worldviews you have in the team, the fewer blind spots you have.

#3. Unicorns vs zebras

I never had a thing for princesses and unicorns. Media loves unicorns, but it’s much more healthy for a founder to grow a zebra company. The one has sustainable profits at a reasonable speed and improves society.

Without fear and pressure, you can experiment, follow your intuition, and bet on long-term success. That's the only way to stay excited as a co-founder and as a team throughout the journey.

#4. Growth personally

The reason your company is not growing usually is you. It takes one mindset to start a company, another to make it profitable and sustainable, and then a different mindset to continue taking risks.

Go to the therapy/coaching and you will sleep tight while growing your business. Moreover, offer therapy/coaching to your team, especially team leaders, and pay for it. It’s the best investment.

#5. Connect dots

Strong competitors are a huge motivation to move forward. I am happy to compete with such an amazing brand as Mailchimp. But if you just follow them, you will always stay behind.

The most successful ideas came to me by watching other industries. For example, restaurants and hotels are the best places to learn about customer support. I have a separate space in my laptop to save all inspirations from websites, newsletters, and articles. I love having talks with artists that are more sensitive about the world and its future.

My advice: stay curious and connect dots that haven’t been connected before.