A successful American businessman Peter Corbett shares his experience on how to build a successful business

The National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken" jointly with "Almaty University of Management" in Astana and the US Embassy in Kazakhstan held a free seminar on the topic of use of innovations in business.

The coach of the event  was an invited US specialist - CEO and mastermind of the digital advertising agency iStrategyLabs Peter Corbett. Inexhaustible innovator, who breaks all the rules, Peter’s workshops and lectures are in demand all over the world. His network covers the whole of America, Finland, Amsterdam, Barcelona, ​​London, India and other countries.

According to a representative of NCE Dmitry Savelenko, Astana residents actively reacted to the event, NCE received more than 250 applications for participation in the seminar. "This proves once again that in our country there is hunger for information. There are people who are ready to do something, but who need some incentive, some information to begin to act", - he said.

Not everyone has came, but the hall was almost full. The lecturer welcomed and encouraged people who arrived late to seat in the first rows, which were still vacant. In general, It is difficult to call it a lecture. Corbett immediately began to work with the audience. First of all asked the audience, whether they are businessmen or plan to become. Then he asked what participants wanted to learn at the seminar.

After listening to a few answers the guest briefly told his story. "How I started my business? First of all, I was fired from the advertising agency. (...) And instead of getting depressed, I used it as motivation. I have enough money for only three months of residence in the United States - about 10 thousand dollars. The first year I worked alone, I did not have employees. Somewhere on the 11th month, I thought that probably I need to finish with the idea, because I was working alone in the apartment and felt very lonely. And I thought that its 11th month of my work, I can’t hire new staff, I thought that I'm doing something wrong. I was about to send out my CV, but I decided to give it another month. And I was lucky. In this month I have received two major projects that allowed me, first, to rent an office space, and secondly, to hire my first employee", - he said.

"I hired my first employee, when I had his gross annual salary at the bank account - 50 thousand dollars. And at that moment I rented an office. Annual office rent costs about 30 thousand US dollars, that is an average price of one of our projects. I thought, "I can do one project and I can pay for the office", - he recalled.

Today, Corbett’s company costs 30 million US dollars, it employs about 100 people. "We call ourselves a digital agency. You probably know what an advertising agency or PR-agency is. We do all the same things, but only in a digital format. (...) I did not have investors, I just build my business brick by brick, and I think this is a very good way", - said the businessman.

After this short introduction, the entrepreneur immediately began to answer the questions of the audience. Answering them, he wrote short thesises on the board as a reminder for budding businessmen. "In order to build a business from scratch, you need crazy creative people", - he said.

Then he talked to the audience about how to "sell" yourself, that is to attract customers. "If before you opened a company, you already had a good reputation, then, when you open a company, people will have a logical idea that your business is legitimate and quality", - said Corbett.

"You must be the best PR-agent. There are two types of entrepreneurs: those who do not like to engage in self-promotion, because they think that it's not very noble and those who do not care what others will say. The later know that if they say that they are the best experts, it will help their business. I was always the best PR agent for myself. And it's not because I think a lot about myself and I have a big ego, but because it will help me to pay salaries to my employees", - he said.

Thus Corbett said that in order to be a good leader of the company, which employs designers, software developers, hardware engineers, and project managers, you need to have the same experience. "You have to be a designer, programmer, and so on. Let's say I do not know anything about the aircraft. If I want to build a company tomorrow, I'm not sure that I will succeed. And very often businesses engage in the scope of activities of which they are not aware. In this case, you need to prepare very well. That is, if I did decide to engage in aircraft construction, I will keep track of all producers who have been engaged in this for a long time - what are their prices, I will read about it, sign up for all of this literature and in six months or a year I will simply study this sphere", - said the businessman.

"Always learn. I learn a few new things every day. I read hundreds of articles a day. Even today, despite the fact that I will conduct a workshop all day long, I have 40 articles to read on my phone until the evening. This is not work for me, it is my essence, my habit", - he concluded.

Peter Corbett is the founder and CEO of digital agency iStrategyLabs, which develops solutions for the most complex problems of its customers, selling them in online and offline modes. His hunter mindset and flair in marketing are widely known, combined with deep technical knowledge and focus on creation and development of the digital media community. The list of his customers includes such brands as: Disney, ESPN, ABC, NPR, PBS, GE, Microsoft, NASDAQ, Intel, GEICO, American Eagle Outfitters, Pinkberry, Honest Tea, Coca-Cola, Crate & Barrel / CB2, Chase, Rosetta Stone, The US Army, Deloitte, McKinsey, Volkswagen, Audi, Ford, Hilton, Double Tree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Marriott, Sweetgreen and many others.

Peter Corbett is the main face and leader of the creative and technological community in Washington. He founded a large-scale meeting of DC Tech Meetup and created a festival DCWEEK. He is a frequent guest of such media as Good Morning America, Time Magazine, NPR, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Inc. Magazine, Wired, and GigaOm, whose opinion and assessment of the prospects and trends in the development of digital technology, business and services in the IT-environment, are always interesting.