From former junior tennis pro to startup founder, publisher and Ph.D. candidate Abdo Riani's story might be something out of a fairy tale. As a young boy growing up in Tunisia, Abdo's passion and talent for tennis took him around the world to various professional junior tennis competitions. This exposure helped him catch the eye of an American college recruiter who offered him a scholarship to come and play tennis at the University of Texas Pan-American.

While studying and playing tennis, Abdo caught the entrepreneurial bug and decided to try his hand at a few business ventures. Many failed, but eventually, he started to see success and gain some traction. Feeling that he had many lessons to share with aspiring entrepreneurs, he started Startupcircle. Co where aspiring and rising entrepreneurs can connect with and learn from successful founders over daily live Q&A sessions. This live mentorship program guides entrepreneurs to their first paying customers and beyond.

So far, startup circle has on average resulted in cutting entrepreneurs’ path to first paying customers by five months, reducing costs by 40%, generating over $10,000 from sales or pre-sales and connecting founders with over ten industry leaders. Feeling that his business model need something to kickstart it into a higher gear he launched the bootstrappers summit and invited 100 proven entrepreneurs to share their bootstrapping journey. The event was a huge success and helped showcase the power of online events and summits as a formidable driver for business development.

In this episode, we cover his entrepreneurial journey and discuss the mechanics of hosting online summits with influencers as a growth hack for business success. We also talk about the productivity hacks he uses to manage his busy schedule as a startup founder, publisher of a daily show and Ph.D. candidate in Finance.

www.abdoriani.com
www.startupcircle.co
www.getaspired.com