Kirk Du Plessis: How a Virtual Team Can Grow Your Business

Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!

If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.

This is the series description:

You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.

Interview with Kirk Du Plessis from Option Alpha

It was my pleasure interviewing Kirk Du Plessis from Option Alpha. Kirk is one of the original bloggers that started over 10 years ago, purely to help people, and has created a successful business since its inception. His business was ranked in the Inc. 500 fastest growing private companies and he continues to refine his personal trading habits in the process.

Check out what Kirk had to say to my questions!

1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?

I had no intentions of starting a business online, actually.

What is now Option Alpha started as a simple Google blog more than 10 years ago.

I just wanted a place to journal and think while writing.

Over time, people started asking questions, commenting, emailing me, etc.

Eventually, I got a lot of the same emails and questions to the point at which I decided, “why not create a video about this topic” so that I didn’t have a write a long email response every time.

That eventually become full-blown courses.

Today, my passion to continue growing the business still comes from a drive to understand how markets work and how I can improve my own personal trading.

It’s a never-ending process and what’s really great is that I can not only share my journey with others but as we continue to grow, we reinvest the money we generate back into more research, better tools, enhanced software, etc.

I think of it as building a crowdsourced and funded platform for options traders.

2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?

I still don’t think we’ve hit our stride.

We have 155k members as of right now in our ecosystem but we have barely dented the options or investor market with our education and research.

There’s still a lot of people we can reach and impact.

That said, once we started doing more research and software, it seems we transitioned from just a “blog” to a real platform.

That helped us grow by referral which is still our main source of growth today but it also means we have to keep investing in new technology and team members.

What once was just a blog by myself is now a team of more than 14 full-time people both domestically and internationally.

3.  At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?

Honestly, I think this is an impossible and unrealistic question to answer.

Does anyone live a perfect life and are they exactly where they want to be?

Probably not.

I think many people, myself included, are on a constant path of growth and improvement.

At each stage, there’s something new or challenging which is what makes it fun and stressful at times.

I’m a geek about finance, savings, investing, etc. and have been all my life.

When my wife and I got married we did all the right things financial to set ourselves up for success 10 years ago now. We didn’t have credit cards, car loans, or any other student loans.

We lived below our means and budgeted (still do today). So I think I’m pretty blessed to have been always living the life I want on my terms.

Option Alpha doesn’t change that.

4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?

Outsourcing to other people takes patience and time.

It didn’t happen overnight, but it did start with small projects.

One little task here and there, and if done properly, I would add more work or more freedom to work at their own pace. Ultimately, this is exactly how you would hire and train and employee domestically, right?

Give them a little project and review the results together.

It’s the same thing with outsourcing, except you cannot be with them physically.

All that said, our international team is amazing and has been with us for over 5 years now. We believe that long-term commitments like this work best which is why we screen hard for the best candidates but hire and train them for a long-term relationship.

It’s worked well.

5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?

I think that choosing to run a business is not easy and as you grow, the problems and complexities increase.

Payroll, insurance, servers, taxes, benefits, customers, support software, etc.

There’s an old proverb that says something along the lines of …

As the tree grows, so does its shadow.

We are naturally going to encounter more issues as we add customers and people.

Things will come up that we didn’t consider or plan for.

But so long as the mission and values of the company, and it’s people, are aligned then it shouldn’t ever knock you of course.

On advertising, after 10 years, I still think we have a lot of work to do internally to improve and listen to our members before we go into advertising.

I think promotion is rushed these days and I would rather play the “long game” and build something that lasts.

6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?

They are not actually solving a problem.

The root of why Option Alpha was started and why it continues to grow today is because we help solve problems.

How you go about solving a problem could take many forms; courses, coaching, software, etc.

In my opinion, though, a lot of businesses started with the expectation they are solving a problem but they have no idea if people really are looking for an answer (or are willing to pay) to have that problem solved.

Ask people, talk to people, find out what they need help with and then, if that aligns with your vision and mission, get them help.

Everything else falls into place.

7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?

I think it allows you to specialize if needed.

You cannot be all things to all people, so be the #1 company to people you want to work with for the next 10-20 years.

8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?

I do not think I’m as successful as I could be.

There’s lots of room to grow and learn.

Anyone who says they are successful at this point has just hit the brakes and is now moving in reverse.

I think we have grown Option Alpha because we seek to help first and care about the long-term.

We might be slow sometimes, but we are always moving forward and in the right direction.

Everyone wants to move fast these days; launch fast, grow fast, scale fast.

But in all that “fast” moving you miss the real conversations and deep insights that only come from moving slowly and paying attention. Had we moved fast we might have missed key insights that could have cost us dearly.

9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?

100%.

Cannot stress systems enough.

And yes, they are not easy to set up or get in place, but if you don’t start now, it’s just going to compound the issue.

I would say that these days, I’m much more willing to partner with a great company for payroll or HR than try to “hack it together myself”.

Find the best people in all the areas you need help on for your business and create systems for workflow and management of everything.

While it might seem like the higher costs could be saved by building or doing things yourself, ultimately you are taking time away from your core focus and mission.

We are great at options trading technology, software, and research. We are not HR managers, payroll gurus, or web designers. We hire and partner with the best people in the areas we are not proficient.

10.  If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?

Tough one because I would probably just talk to myself about market moves and trades I could have made that I missed.

On the business side, I would suggest hiring a team sooner.

I tried to do-it-myself in every department early on.

While that helped keep the costs low I eventually started to burn out.

Knowing what I know now I would hire someone to help, even if it’s just one person at first, sooner than later.

Finally, I’d encourage myself to dream larger. Option Alpha has grown well, well beyond my expectations already and the reach we could continue to have is incredible.

I didn’t dream large enough at first and was small-minded.

About Kirk Du Plessis

Kirk Du Plessis is the head trader and founder of Option Alpha. He is a former M&A Investment Banker and REIT Research Analyst. Option Alpha has been an industry leader in the options trading industry for more than 10 years and was recently included in the Inc. 500 fastest growing private companies in 2017 with a position rank of #215.

Conclusion

Thanks for participating in my series, Kirk!

As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.

Inspired by Kirk?

Now, it’s your turn!

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• Outsource Effectively
• Systemize Your Business
• Shatter Your Revenue Goals

After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.

Let me help you start scaling successfully.

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Cheers to future success!