Maddie Thompson

I’ve always been entrepreneurial whether I recognized it or not. To be quite honest, I don’t know where my passion for it came from. I was always attempting to start little businesses, I even learned how to sew because I had an infatuation with clothing and fashion. When I was 13 my dream was to be a fashion designer. I taught myself industry terminology and built up my art skills in a design-oriented way. Being a doer and not a planner, I one day decided to Instagram direct message clothing brands designs of ball gown dresses I had drawn. From local brands to Lulu Lemon. To my surprise a national brand, Triple Flip reached out to me, the CEO and CMO wanted to meet me at a photoshoot shoot they were hosting in Winnipeg. After meeting and chatting with them they offered me a clothing line under Triple Flip which I would design. There was no better way to

Social Clothing

In eleventh grade, I took a business class where there was the opportunity to create my own business with some classmates. Even though for start-up costs we only had $70, of course, I saw it as more than a school project. My clothing, Social Clothing, slowly grew within my community from organic digital marketing on social media. Mainly advertising it from a local aspect as the name derives from Manitoba socials. Later on, Social Clothing had been sold to other provinces as well. I entered business competitions and was honoured at the Manitoba Legislature for young entrepreneurship.

September of 2020, I began managing the social media account for my part-time job, tripling the number of followers. In October, I wanted to see if I could obtain clients with my social media marketing knowledge, calling my new business “Spark Media” (now MAD Social Agency). As I mentioned before, I don’t plan, I just do. If I have an idea, I just start, no procrastination.  So I started up an Instagram page, created posts, gained a few followers,  and acquired my first client in the first 2 weeks from promoting a crazy deal

As time went on, the business slowly grew over the next couple of months but not a lot as my focus was on school and my job, however, in January of 2021 MAD Social Agency has a viral post about the Instagram algorithm reaching 1 million impressions and 300,000 shares, growing the account to 10k followers overnight. That week was crazy. It was the first time gaining major buzz and lots of inquiries. Spark was to the point where I wanted to focus on it full-time.

Through my entrepreneurship journey, mainly this past year with MAD Social Agency, I have learned a lot. I’ve learned about sales strategies, marketing, but most of all I’ve learned the most about myself. How to be motivated and motivate others. How to stay on top of tasks and put me out there.

What I’ve learned…

A couple of months back, I was in a clubhouse group. Clubhouse is an iPhone exclusive app that enables users to either initiate or listen to conversations. I heard about a strategy to start writing down goals and what you have to get done for the next day before going to bed. I did it a few times, but pretty inconsistently, since 2022 I have been doing it consistently and the few things I notice is that this strategy not only boosts my productivity the next day, but it also lowers my stress in the morning because I then know exactly what I need to get done and don’t have to second-guess or procrastinate. What you do the night before dictates how your morning is going to be, so having a set routine in place is important.

Commit and figure it out later. I am not saying commit to everything that comes your way, I’m not saying you shouldn’t train and have a plan of action in place. “Commit first,” Invest in yourself and take daily action to achieve your goals. “Commit first, figure it out later” is a daily motto to push you beyond your comfort zone and to propel you towards your potential. “Success is in the start” and I believe this is true today not only because many preach it, but even because of personal experience with Triple Flip and Spark Media. Most people fail to leap, the first step, they fail to commit. Commitment is 90% of the fuel you’ll need to get off the ground. Commitment creates vision & resolutions. To be completely transparent, I have NEVER started with a plan. To some extent, that may be a fault but I do believe that if I never leaped, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

It’s more important to be consistently good than occasionally great. Just be consistently good. Just show up, understand your goals and aspirations, be passionate about the investment in the process and sticking to the plan and be passionate about the goals and greatness almost creeping in. And one day you’ll wake up.

Maddie

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