Chris Ronzio of Trainual
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Chris Ronzio (founder and CEO) of Trainual, which was honored in our:
Tell us the origin story of Trainual – what problem were you trying to solve and why?
I started Trainual because I saw how much knowledge small businesses have trapped in the minds of their owners and its employees. When I was growing my first company, I was forced to stitch together a dozen different products to create a wiki and system of accountability so that my employees were clear on their roles, responsibilities, and our best practices. Documents lack the accountability required for true training, and sitting down to draft the systems and processes of a business is frankly too hard. Enter Trainual. We make it easy for businesses to capture and disseminate their most important processes and training material to their teams, so that time and expertise are no longer excuses for not creating a playbook.
What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?
In the early days, the biggest challenge was embracing marketing. I always told myself I was the operations person, and when I worked with consulting clients one-to-one, it was always in a really private setting, and very confidential. So the idea of blasting out ads and YouTube videos that millions of people would see was really daunting and I wasn’t good at it, but my story resonated with other entrepreneurs, so I had to get comfortable sharing. When I did, that’s what really opened up our advertising so we could scale.
What does the future hold for Trainual?
My goal is to make small business easier, and we want to be considered the go-to platform for businesses looking to build their playbook. But more than that, we want the playbook to write itself. We want finding things in Trainual to be as easy as asking Alexa what the weather is! We are hyper-focused on making Trainual as easy to use as possible, and our mission is to have a million employees around the world on our platform by the end of 2024.
What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Scottsdale?
The startup scene is finally starting to mature, and there are more successful tech companies here now than there have been in the last decade. The local universities are graduating a lot of incredible talent, and more venture capital funding is being deployed in Arizona than ever before. Large companies are opening satellite offices here, which can be great training grounds for young leaders looking for the next big opportunity. Remote work means people seeking out an outdoor lifestyle can flood here no matter where their company headquarters is, so that’s really helped expand the talent pool.
What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
My best advice to entrepreneurs just starting out would be to create raving fans. Test out your product and service. Offer it at different price points, even give it away. But create something that real customers love and want to recommend. It’s hard to scale any business without that type of fan at the center of everything that you do, so start there.