Helen 🚀 SwagUp
@hi_rankin
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Chief Brand Officer @swagup - The Swag Engagement Platform
Miami, FL
Joined February 2017
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Pinned Tweet
Partly why you don’t see that many women sharing their story…
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I went from being a cocktail waitress in Miami to running a million dollar business.
Anything is possible y’all, just have to dream bigger for 2022 🚀
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How does one go from being a cocktail waitress in Miami to owning a million-dollar business?
To make big moves in life, you sometimes have to take really unconventional paths…
Here’s mine 🧵
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Building in public has its downside. Companies fail and people that never built anything are quick to judge.
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Overheard in Miami👂
Guy 1: Just started dating this girl in tech.
Guy 2: Damn that’s so hot, bro.
Guy 1: I know man, it is.
Never thought I would hear that in Miami, but here we are.
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As for my family? I still take care of my mom and sister. They are my purpose and the reason why I keep going. ❤️
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I feel like growing up poor has prepared me for this pandemic. Not being able to go out or eat at restaurants was normal for me. Being uncomfortable is my comfort zone. I work the best under this pressure.
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We have worn many hats together , but most excited about this new one. ❤️
Doing our part to re-accelerate population growth 👶👧🚀
We’ve built a business together, next up…a family
@hi_rankin
#futureswagstronaut
#launchingAug10
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Mornings in Miami just automatically put you in a good mood 💙
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Don’t underestimate your ability to do something big no matter how unconventional your path is. They are crucial learnings in those journeys that provide the building blocks and the foundation for leadership skills.
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Yesterday I took 5 mins of our staff meeting to say I was overwhelmed and needed help pushing along some projects.
You’re never too senior to ask for help or speak up.
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I use to think I needed the seasons to feel the holidays. Now I’m like nah …
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We have two more Miamians starting at
@swaguphq
tomorrow 💃🏻🕺🏼
And about to give an offer to one more! Love seeing our team grow here.
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Just found out that someone was trying to make fun of me behind my back for being Mexican.
Jokes on them, that’s been my superpower. 🇲🇽
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When I first started in marketing, my boss told me to learn excel or get out of marketing. I became an excel ninja overnight learning it on YouTube.
You can teach yourself anything, if you want it.
Everyone wants to be taught when you could teach yourself anything on YouTube.
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My journey from being a cocktail waitress to making the move into the marketing tech world taught me the skills I needed to build a business. It taught me grit and humility. I didn’t know it at the time but those were the years that shaped the skills I needed to run a business.
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After a year of helping him with building his marketing, brand, and tech, I joined as a partner full-time. We have hired over 10 people from the network I built over the years, company revenue in ’21 was $54 million and we are on pace to do $100 million this year.
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Miami
@swaguphq
crew is growing about to send two more offers to candidates to join our team. 🙌🏽🚀
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We are hiring for 22 positions
@swaguphq
🤯
How can I get a recruiter like
@FrancisSuarez
to fill these positions? This man’s a recruiting machine.
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I thought our baby would love this Nuna swing for $200.
What she actually loves is laying outside looking up at the palm trees while listening to Frank Sinatra for $0.
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It’s amazing how many business are completely run off of google sheets.
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@AmandaMGoetz
Facts 💯 I was waiting for your take on this. I know you experience this a lot as well.
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Nothing makes you appreciate home more than being away for a few days.
Feels good to be home 💙
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Before
@swaguphq
I had no idea clue about warehouse operations. I couldn’t tell you how any of it even worked.
Yet, here I am scaling a business that is operationally heavy.
Don’t let previous experience stop you from building something great.
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We are hiring someone that I’ve been following for the last two years admiring their content.
You really never know who’s watching. Your next opportunity can be right there when you put yourself out there.
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It taught me the difference between things I have in my control in my life and the things I don’t. I had to act on the things I could change. Me starting a business was in my control.
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It’s amazing how many people still believe you have to go to college to be successful.
It’s a path to success, but it’s not the only path.
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I began hustling, calling up businesses in the yellow papers asking if I could run their paid search for free and get paid commission on anything I closed. I decided at that moment, I wanted to go to college to learn more about business and marketing.
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My journey from there accelerated fast. I dropped out of college, worked at a few startups, focused on learning from the best, built my network, and prepared myself to be able to start a business. In this journey, I met
@MichaelMartocci
a few days after starting
@swaguphq
.
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I’m 8 weeks away from my due date and seriously struggling in how long I should take off & how available should I be.
How do other founders handle maternity/paternity leave?
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Building a business is challenging and I can’t say I would have survived doing it had I not experienced hardship at some point in my life. It helped me through all our most challenging times in the company.
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These were some of the toughest years I had experienced. I was living off of $5 Little Caesar’s pizza, food stamps, no AC (living in south Florida this is really hard to do), amongst other sacrifices.
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@brianbreslin
There’s a lot of them out there like this sadly. Not letting these guys get in my way, they probably still live in their moms basements
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I had a bouncer one night look at me and randomly say, “Helen, you don’t belong here.” It was the sign I needed. It was my time to change my path. I was in more control of my destiny than I thought.
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On my flight to Florida, I found a vogue magazine someone left behind with Marissa Mayer on it. I was amazed to hear about this world of tech and startups. I began teaching myself Google AdWords. I was hooked.
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I didn’t have the grades, didn’t have the funds, no credit but I was determined. I decided to start with taking a few classes at a time at Broward community college. My mom then came to me again, that our house was going to be placed on an auction if we didn’t pay the taxes.
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When you’re in need of money it’s so easy to want to chase it. It helped my family get out of the hole we were in, but I anticipated it happening again. I felt I had to choose between helping my family and starting my dreams.
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People always ask me what it’s like to run a business with your boyfriend.
Honestly, couldn’t imagine doing it without
@MichaelMartocci
. Having someone to balance the emotional rollercoaster of running a startup has been our competition advantage.
#HappyValentines
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I never thought I would be preparing to raise a child and raise money for
@swagup
at the same time.
Hormonal, body aches, no excuses, us women can really do it all.
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Bootstrapped our way to the top 🏆
@swaguphq
only getting started too 😎
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The energy in Miami this week is amazing! Would love to meet some of you in
#miamitech
(locals & new), my DMs are open. 😎🌴
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I remember feeling all the blood falling from my face. Here I was again gaining my stride and having to choose between helping pay our homes taxes or school. I was angry but knew I had to direct that emotion towards action. We were going to lose our home.
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Listening to Bill Gurley on the
@allinsummit
about how he invested in Travis & Adam because of their charisma.
I wonder how many investments are made more towards the belief of the founders ability versus the product itself.
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When you start a company, the beginning part always feels hard to get lift, but once you do, you can’t even remember at what point you took off. 🚀
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A big misconception is that people can’t be successful without luck, privilege, sexual favors, or bring pretty.
Sure those things might get you to the door but they forget that true success comes from trying and being consistent for a long period of time.
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There were days I wanted to just give up. I felt hopeless. I cried myself to sleep most nights trying to see what I could do. The only answer was to make more money. So I applied to become a cocktail waitress.
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My days then consisted of going with my mom group therapy with my sister, followed by school and work. I slept little hours to then repeat the same day over again. I was close to burnout.
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I can’t believe we use to pack on a kitchen table to this … anything is truly possible
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You can never have too much swag!
Which is why we are clearing the way to get us ready for the holiday season.
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Since my parent's divorce, my mom struggled with managing her finances and her mistakes quickly became ours. Luckily I had enough saved up to help pay, which was money I had planned to save to start a business one day.
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@mkobach
Something that I’ve noticed we do well in that other countries don’t, is truly believing in freedom. Even if the definition of it isn’t the same we believe it means something. Most countries I’ve traveled to always say they envy that American confidence.
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My older brother stopped by our warehouse for the first time.
His response, “Aren’t you glad I scared all the boys away so you could do big things.”
Gotta love having family visit. 😂🥰
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In the midst of almost losing our roof over our heads, me struggling to afford college, I discovered my sister who was living with us at the time, became addicted to painkillers. I was on the brink of almost losing my sister.
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Everyone I worked with at the club had been in the industry for years. They all had dreams to be something else but never left because the money was so good. I feared I would end up the same. I had to get out.
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Sometimes you are lucky enough to meet people that truly inspire you.
Happiest Of Birthdays to
@AmandaMGoetz
! 🎉 thank you for reminding us that women can be silly, nerdy, sexy, bosses and anything we want to be. I feel honored to call you my friend. 💛
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I keep hearing people say things will never go back to normal. Am I the only one that thinks it will get better?
We have made some breakthroughs this year that don’t get a lot of light.
...👇🏽
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I started looking for every CMO in south Florida that was hiring. I emailed them on a Saturday with hopes their inboxes would be less full. Within seconds one responded back for an interview that following Monday, which I landed.
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Some people are going to LA for the Super Bowl, I’m just going for the tacos 🌮
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I didn’t wake up one day with dreams of being a cocktail waitress. But I was at a dead-end in life with what I felt like at the time with few options…it started with my mom telling me we were going to lose our house.
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Throwback to 3 years ago to our first Florida office at
@swaguphq
. Yes it was a Sunday. Yes that’s me building everyone’s desk and chairs. Yes, I still would do this if needed.
To build something great, there is no task to big or small.
#tothemoon
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I was living in NYC right out of high school. Nothing glamorous, mainly couch surfing and finding sublets since I didn’t have the finances or credit to rent a place on my own. I had dreams of being a clothing designer.
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Just sent two offers to new teammates to join
@swaguphq
.
One wants to work from home.
Second wants to work from the office.
Giving people flexible options that work best for them I think is were we should be at. It’s not one or the other.
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I’m thinking of buying an RV. If I’m going to be stuck at home, it might as well be a home that moves. 🤔 Any suggestions?
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Even Santa needs a drink sometimes, so don’t be so hard on yourselves y’all.
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You know you’re bringing in great people when employees message you privately saying they love their new manager you hired.
Who you bring in is a huge flex on culture.
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I received a call from my mom that she needed to have surgery and needed my help while she recovered. Arriving back in Florida I ended up discovering not only was my mom's health bad, but our house was about to be placed on auction for not paying taxes.
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4 years ago I met
@MichaelMartocci
, he moved into his moms house to start
@swaguphq
. It was our warehouse, office and where the first employees all lived the first year.
We have come a long way and we are just getting started. 🚀
#tothemoon
4 years ago today, SwagUp incorporated 🎉
Since...
Team of 150+ incredibly talented people
Close to 3k of the best companies in the world are customers
3rd warehouse (40k ft)
Revenue 📈
And we’ll 2X our historical metrics in the next 10 months
All w/ $0 VC 🚀
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One thing I didn’t realized about pregnancy, is how long it takes for you to actually show.
I’m half way through I thought I’d be popping by now.
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We got to see our little girl today via sonogram and she had the biggest smile!
It’s all becoming so real and also a reminder that nothing else going on in my world matters.
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Everyone learns at different speeds. It’s such a key 🔑 thing to understand when you manage someone.
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Another big week in the books 🚀
-Hit revenue goals early
-Fully onboarded new SVP of Supply
-Roadmapped 2022 goals
-Ten new hires signed!
-Launched features for our ops team
Now off celebrate with some 😴
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Who you surround yourself with makes such a big difference.
I feel so energized after spending time with our
@swaguphq
team.
Let’s go!! 🚀🚀🚀
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Every great city has an iconic song.
Miami we have to do better than Will Smiths “Welcome to Miami” 😑
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No matter how big we get, I still get excited seeing some of my favorite brands come through. 🤗
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Ah the great resignation. Whatever you do just leave your previous job with grace. You never know if you’ll need that bridge open down the line.
Same goes for employers.
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I had scheduled with 5 different electricians. None of them showed up.
The bar is set so low, I feel like I would make a killing by just being reliable.
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#miamitech
who wants to join our
@swaguphq
team?
And yes, you will get lots of swag 😜
Always felt that our inbound BDR role is one of the most important
@swaguphq
as they are the team responsible for the first impression a lead has with us, sets the tone
We're looking to hire 1-2 more BDRs either in Miami or remote, ASAP!
Great entry into sales, role below 👇
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Best advice my dad gave me was to think of my life as a business. It allowed me to see myself more objectively.
What is the best advice you’ve received from a parent?
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I had an Uber driver tell me he had an idea that would of made him millions but didn’t do it because people said he was crazy.
So I told him it sounds like a good time to be crazy.
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Business Idea: Pet Friendly hotel , but the hotel actually has a dog daycare for your pet to hang with other pets while you roam the area.
I always hate leaving mine in the hotel room.
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Traveling for the first time with our baby … wish me luck 🙏🏽🧘🏼
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I had a huge sense of relief going to the property appraiser's office to pay off the debt. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the last time this happened. And given my mom's health at the time I decided to stay in Florida.
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