A Founder’s Story by Tarra Stubbins
There was a moment in 2006 when I was standing in the back of a massive staff kitchen in a very fancy hotel in Shanghai trying to get a toothbrush sanitised in the dishwasher. Yes, that is correct. I used to travel with bands as their personal assistant. I lived on tour buses for up to 300 days a year. And in this particular moment, the request was that the toothbrush could never come out of the suitcase without being fully sanitised, and then placed nicely on the sink in the hotel bathroom.
So there I was, trying to communicate this ridiculous request, in a foreign language, for about the 20th time that month, and I started thinking … “There must be more to life than this!”
Related: What Does an Executive Assistant Do?
I finished off the tour and opened my first business in 2007. I had zero business background, and back then there were little resources for startups. I remember there was an older guy who used to do Lunch ‘N Learns on Tuesday afternoons at the community centre about an hour outside of the city.
I was craving to learn from others. I was craving a community of other people like me. I thought about going back to school, but that was hard while trying to get a new business off the ground. I didn’t know where to turn. I kept reading that new business owners needed to hustle. What the frig was hustle exactly? Give me hard tasks to complete and I will. Or maybe there was somebody like me who was going through the same issues? Where do we start? How do we sustainably grow?
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And then in about 2010, a coworking space opened in my city. I think I was the first to sign up for the membership. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever heard of (and was kinda upset I didn’t think of it myself!). I joined every coworking club, event, or community I could. I loved being surrounded by other people who were founders like me and creating amazing products / services that solved real world problems.
After a few years of being involved in these startup groups , I started noticing an issue that was present with a lot of new founders and these startups in my circle. They seemed to be getting stuck at a certain level of growth and not able to push themselves to grow to be really successful. Because of my Executive Personal Assistant background, I started to realise that these founders were lacking the support of a really seasoned EA, helping to push them from behind to grow and succeed, while also taking so many of those tasks that take up most of their time that don’t drive the right ROI for their businesses.
I knew that these founders were either hiring part time VAs to take some small administrative tasks off their plate, but were struggling because these founders were new to delegating and didn’t really know where to start. They didn’t understand which tasks would generate the most ROI upon delegation and which task they should hold onto themselves.
Another problem was that these founders were trying to hire on low budgets. They couldn't afford a seasoned Executive Assistant, with enough experience to drive their business priorities forward. Or to act as their right hand business partner for strategic growth. The new administrative staff were great at taking small tasks away, but not what they needed for large picture growth and scale.
I wanted to help these founders. Not only was I so impressed about what they were doing for their startup communities, but everyone was changing the world in some aspect through their product or service. I have always been a believer in changing the status quo. Disrupting norms. And building innovation in spaces where it is old and dated, or just doesn’t exist. So, I opened Take It Easy Group in 2017 to bridge the gap between these startup founders, who in my opinion are changing the world, and extremely experienced Executive Assistants.
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